Tonight I attended a meetup. Hash tag #smpr if you want to search for it on Twitter. The meetup was the first of its kind attempting to bring together PR professionals interested in social media to come chat about the topic in a casual setting. While there was some initial feedback to make the event more effective (no link to the event, no communication about who was coming---social media focused events NEED this stuff)---one point was brought up that I feel needs to be discussed further.
Blogger outreach. Is it any different from traditional media outreach?
One of the attendees thought it was different. I happen to disagree. I actually think that the separation of these two strategies is what keeps the industry from moving forward at a rapid pace that is needed to catch up.
Bloggers are media. Get it. Right now. Stop separating it. They are in some cases, more influential than traditional media that write only for print. You should treat them in the same way that you reach out. They reach an audience that is influential. They attract readers. They matter. They're not "different" This has been written about and discussed time and again yet for some reason, agencies are still treating bloggers as an entirely new entity. An unknown space.
I agree that bloggers are about relationships. In fact, I think bloggers have opened up the doors to PR pros to have a relationship. They put themselves out there on Twitter, Facebook---opening up the door to a relationship. But, why should we keep them segregated because they open themselves up to us more?
So, let's use this time to stop separating it. PR pros: Keep bloggers in mind at all times. Learn to reach out to them on a regular basis. Listen to them. Use them for feedback. Figure out what they are interested in and work with them. The value is there.
Does your agency have a separate team focused only on blogger outreach? Are they looked at in different angles? What do you think?
7 comments:
In my most recent position as a PR Specialist for a company that has been in existance for years, I stressed the importance of treating bloggers with the same respect as reporters. Bloggers can be just as influential and therefore PR professional should acknowledge that influence. Traditional and new media are combining more each day. Let's begin to look at it as one in the same.
Hi Kristin- beat me to the post! I do agree that bloggers and traditional media deserve the same level of respect and that bloggers often have the same (if not higher) levels of influence.
However, I do think that often their motivations to write about and engage with a brand or issue are different than traditional media, and require different types of engagement. For example, most bloggers don't get paid to cover a specific beat - your brand or your ask needs to resonate on some personal level to get through the clutter - and as a pr person it becomes really important to provide some real value in order to be worth a post, or better a longer-term relationship.
I would have thought that this sort of comment would no longer be made, almost six years to the day since I started working in PR and began to shift my first employer's focus to online media outlets.
Having "blogger outreach" separate from your "media outreach" just doesn't make sense. I'm now worried that I'll next hear about firms' Twitter teams.
I couldn't have said it better myself. Media is media. Period. Of course, bloggers may be interested in different types of topics, but that shouldn't change the way we communicate with them. Any good media relations person should focus on relationship building and matching content to the appropriate people - no matter who they are or what their forum is.
The thing is that nothing should be looked at from a separate angle. Everything is merging. PR pros need to have search backgrounds and design interest that need to be focused on. We need to work on other skills to enhance the industry.
By separating something that is already basically merged into something we do on a daily basis, we're building another road block.
Here's to one type of relations for our clients---no more separating.
One thing I've noticed is that my colleagues want to reach "mommybloggers" or "influential bloggers" without really taking into consideration if their product matches well with the blogger. While the editor of the Parenting column of the New York Times might cover products from babies to teens, a blogger who is a mom to a 2-year-old probably won't care about Bratz dolls all too much!
I think the overall lessons of media relations and email protocol that we learned in school and in our daily practice is important, but there are so many bloggers out there who are unique and have slightly different bents on the same beat that I think it's really important not to lump them together too much. I also agree with Laura that since they don't get paid, pitches need to resonate personally - they don't *have* write about anything, so I feel like there is an extra level of convincing.
They are media... they're just a different kind of media.
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