Blog Pitching: 5 Big Tips on What Not To Do
April 1, 2008
Steve Field, over at The D-Ring, a blog about the military combined with social media, posted a great comical entry about his frustrations in receiving press releases as a blogger on behalf of various groups’ blogger outreach strategies.
Some tips Mr. Field mentions and are pretty practical:
1. Make the address personal.
The heading ‘To whom it may concern’ may be a bit un-inviting to the blogger whose name is obviously apparent on the homepage or in the about section.
2. Following the first tip, have you read the blog?
Show you have an interest or at least have a general idea about what the blog is about and its purpose.
3. Don’t assume bloggers know about what you are talking about.
If pitching a new product, service, campaign, idea, your latest invention….describe it.
4. Don’t be a link begger.
Offer something in content or service that is useful to the blogger or the blogging community.
5. Don’t contact a vegetarian blog about the latest McDonald’s big juicy burger.
Be targeted and relevant. Just like in traditional pitching, many of the same rules can apply.
Let’s see if we can extend the list (thxs Beth Kanter for the extending the list idea)!
What tips do you have regarding how people/groups contact bloggers? either what to-do or what not-to-do….
Entry Filed under: Blogging and the Blogosphere, Experience This?. Tags: beth kanter, blog, blog outreach, blogger outreach, blogging, link building, Marketing, online marketing, pitching, public relations.
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jimsmuse | April 1, 2008 at 1:44 am
The entire concept for my own blog includes sending out a lot of unsolicited emails (I publish a short “email interview” each day), and I wish I’d read these tips when I started, rather than figuring them out eventually as I went along!
The thing that I would add to the list, especially in view of marketing to bloggers, is to try to maintain some formality in your writing (“Hey dude, I think yr site is awesome!” just doesn’t work — except with professional skateboarders), and to keep things short and to the point.
We all learned how to write a concise “business letter” in high school, didn’t we? Why should the fact that it’s email and not snail mail change the approach?
2. Pitching bloggers « Final Spin | July 25, 2008 at 10:08 am
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