There were a few blog postings last week on the subject of, well, blogs – the power of them and what to do in reaching out to bloggers. The first post was from our own Elrond Lawrence, Media Relations expert with HRmarketer.com. And the second, was a posting on March 28 from David Meerman Scott, marketing and public relations expert, on his blog Web Ink Now. In his post David provides some advice and tips on contacting bloggers.
Many of us know the growing popularity of blogs, and we at HRmarketer have been profiling bloggers in the HR space for some time now. We currently have them listed in our Media Outlets database. However, with our upcoming site enhancements, we are creating a separate database just for blogs.
David’s blog post points out that bloggers are not journalists and should not be treated as such, meaning do not include them in your typical press release distribution to all your media contacts.
David states, “To paraphrase the Wikipedia entry, spam is sending email that is both unsolicited by the recipient and sent in substantively identical form to many recipients. That's what PR people do to bloggers now. And then at the end of their email they basically say: ‘please write about me.’”
He goes on to say, “It's OK to share things with a blogger that you feel they might be interested in. Just don't spam them with broadcast pitches and whatever you do, don't ask for coverage. We all know why you contacted us -- don't belittle the information you send and embarrass yourself by begging.”
We do know that bloggers are constantly looking for information and topics to write about, and they are a great resource in getting your company or product mentioned on the web. However, they should not be included in your standard press release distribution to media outlets.
So, be watching for our upcoming site enhancements later in April, which will include a separate Blog database. And check out David’s tips on what to do, and what not to do, when reaching out to bloggers.
Posted by Jocelyn GoodmanLabels: bloggers, blogging tips, David Meerman Scott, press release distribution
