Chris , Thursday, November 1st, 2007

Blogging isn’t your typical traditional media outlet. Even though blogs have risen above the ashes of traditional media to the forefront of immediate happenings, they aren’t. This is a whole new form of media. PR tactics that might have been okay for faceless giant media conglomerates don’t work in the personal world of the blogosphere. Thus to help PR people along on their journeys to discovering how to get the news out about representing their clients in the online space, I have done a little brainstorming on some suggested ‘tactics’ for submitting news to blogs.

Finding blogs to submit to:
Use Google blog search and type in relevant terms for the business you are representing. Visit the blogs that deal with those terms and bookmark them or subscribe to their RSS so that you can first see if they relate at all. (This makes you aware of what types of posts go on, creates an easier way to open dialogs between yourself as a reader, and the company that you represent. Maybe a similar company was written about, and you just want the blogger to know about your company.)

Participating in the blog:
Comment on the blogs that relate to the business you represent. Sure it takes time, but bloggers are more likely going to pay attention to a person that they recognize who comments, than a fly by night PR person with a stale release copy and pasted from a newswire submission. Again, becoming familiar with the blog makes it easier to open dialog with a post.

Sending useful information: Note I didn’t say press releases.
Bloggers love useful tips or insight. Especially when its written by readers, and passionate users of the site that have something valuable to add to the conversation.

After creating a conversation:
Since you have managed to build a nice relationship with a blog that spits out related info to the company you are representing, a nicely formatted email might do some good. Start off by being friendly, don’t just go into your release copying and pasting from a newswire writeup. Say hi, and let the blogger know about something truly interesting about the product or service. Maybe a brief little update on a new feature. Use bullet points before breaking into more detailed facts. Bloggers, as with readers, love to get to the point quickly and easily, and then get into any specifics later. Paste in the release after the bullets and signing off just as an FYI. Don’t attach docs. Plain text will be fine. This way it can easily be searched from mail applications.

And thats it.

Be nice. Be friendly. Be a reader and commenter on a blog that deals with your subject matter. Add valuable well written bullet pointed content to the table, and your Blogger PR will work.

This post stems from Marshall’s post on the good and bad pr pitches for bloggers.