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Following on from part one, I give just a few more tips on how to get the best out your interactions with bloggers when you approach them for coverage about your business or your clients.
Don’t keep angling for the free or offering it. Whilst sometimes it’s nice to have something that you really like for free, more often than not, it loses it’s buzz after a while. If someone is running their blog as a business, they’re unlikely to be interested in living off freebies as that doesn’t help the bottom line. There’s no such thing as a free meal and most ‘freebies’ are loaded with expectation that many bloggers just don’t want to deal with. Also, if we want to write about something, we’ll write about it and those with an ounce of integrity won’t let ‘offers’ sway their objectivity.
9) Don’t say stuff like ‘I’ve made this offer to other bloggers and they have all taken me up on it’. Really, I couldn’t give a monkey’s if a thousand bloggers have taken you up on your offer, and it indicates that you think that we all come with a desperation chain hanging around our neck. We are individuals, not sheep, and this is a rather unpleasant hard sell.
10) Ask us some questions. I like people who take a genuine interest in the blog, what I do, my readership and it shows that they want to understand so that they can find the most effective way to work with me. Interestingly, you’ll often find out a lot if you read.the.blog!
11) Don’t do it in the comments box. Don’t fast forward straight to pitch and use a bloggers comment box to draw attention to your client/service/product. This type of comment no matter how well intended is often seen as spam and can actually come across quite disrespectful if you use an article about, for instance, a competitor, to pitch yourself in the comments. Would you like someone to step into your limelight? Do you really think that a blogger is going to hold you in a positive light because you hijacked their comments box for a ‘Me, me, me show’?
12) Don’t treat us like lackey’s. We are not mouth pieces, PA’s, and your personal marketing assistant at your beck and call. Don’t send emails with stuff like ‘I’m doing such and such and I’d really like it if you could do a little post on it…tomorrow’ with the expectation that it we’ll clear the decks and run with it immediately. Bloggers have their own editorial plan and lives.
This subject has been heavily debated recently from the ‘mummy’ angle and an excellent balanced post on the subject which looks at the issue from both a blogger and PR’s perspective is Home Office Mum’s post on I’m a PR person and a mummy blogger.
Other posts to check out are GeekMommy’s Why mom bloggers aren’t just flipping for a sample of your product and A Modern Mother’s Please stop asking mummy bloggers to do stuff for free.
photo credit: Picture Perfect Pose
Related posts on self employed mum:
- Text 100 Global Blogger Survey Report: Helping ‘tense’ relationships between PR & bloggers
- How to approach bloggers for coverage – Part One
- On The Panel: PR & The Media One Day Conference 24th Feb 2010
- Content ideas for your blog that add value to your business
- Sign Up for the Blogging for Profit – The Quick Guide to Online Advertising Web Seminar
{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }
Hi Natalie, great articles, thank you! This is really relevant to online sellers – blogs are ideal for coverage, better than the traditional magazine PR because readers can click directly through to your website. But, because blogs are social media, the rules are different and building a relationship – a genuinely friendly one – is much more important. It all takes time, but then it does make business so much nicer when it’s friendly
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