Last night I had the pleasure of attending the Publicity Club of New England’s first panel event of the 2011-2012 season, “Blogger Relations for PR Pros,” or, as many referred to it, “Meet the Bloggers.” Panelists Rachel Leah Blumenthal (food and arts blogger for CBS Boston), Greg Gomer (managing editor for BostInnovation), Jason Keith (SMB blogger for Boston.com) and Dianna Huff (B2B Web Marketing Expert for DH Communications, Inc.) were kind enough to discuss best tips when pitching bloggers, the importance of forming relationships, how to recognize a blog versus an online publication, and, perhaps most popularly, some general “pet peeves” bloggers tend to have based on their experience working with PR pros. Moderator Kristin Allaben wasted no time with fluff questions; following introductions, she unleashed the audience inquiries. Some highlights, below.
Biggest PR pet peeve for bloggers
If I had to sum it up in two words, I definitely would has said “untargeted pitches.” Everyone on the panel agreed on this issue, pointing out that if offenders actually read their blogs, they would realize just how unrelated their pitches were. Huff went so far as to print out several bad pitches she received in the last week (it made for an enlightening visual), adding, “Know my name, read my blog and keep it short.” She was met with no dissent from her fellow panelists.
Keith also advised against sending only a press release, warning that 99 percent of those Emails do not get read. From that point, the conversation about Don’ts shifted to the topic of Dos. Blumenthal and Gomer chatted about how much more interesting pitches are when they were accompanied by multimedia content – especially videos – considering that it takes less time to watch a quick video than it does to sift through a lengthy press release. In addition, our panelists asked us to read our pitches before we send them (earth-shattering concept, I know): did we find them interesting? If not, then how could we possibly expect our target bloggers to find it coverage-worthy?
Pitching and follow-up methodology
“Be persistent.” Seventy-five percent of the panelists have day jobs, and they noted that sometimes they just don’t get to all their Emails at the end of the day. Even Gomer, who has no excuse to not respond to every pitch immediately (kidding…), encouraged attendees to keep following up if they truly believed in their pitch (see the above on reading your own story idea). Gomer also encouraged personality in a pitch to connect with the blogger. Answer the questions “Who are you?” “How did you find me?” “Why would my readers care about what you have to say?”
When asked about the phone, the panelists all but rained fire upon the audience. Keith went so far as to say that the phone has since passed its prime. The other two panelists with day-jobs reminded us that they can’t take personal calls at work, anyway. Gomer then quipped “But if I’m calling you, you had better pick up.” Rather than track down a phone number, the bloggers said they’d be more keen to reading comments on their posts. “It’s a good way to get in front of us and be relevant at the same time,” he added.
Embargoes? “Bloggers don’t even know what they are,” warned Blumenthal. Keith had a different approach.
“Only use embargos as a Trojan to get coverage — then tell your client you’re brilliant.”
When it comes to thank-yous, they were generally discouraged unless they served to highlight some positive outcome from the story.
Connecting
LinkedIn and Twitter: “Yes.” Facebook: “No.” Google+: crickets, followed by “Mildly creepy.” I think the reasons here are self-explanatory, so I won’t waste your time further on that one.
My takeaway from the panel was that in principle, bloggers should be treated similarly to traditional media reporters. In real life, bloggers are “superhuman” (suggested Keith) people with day jobs and even less time for redundancy or untargeted Email blasts. At the same time, when you aren’t targeting the TechCrunches and the Mashables, you actually have more leeway with bloggers who actually have time to read your comments and to connect with you that way.
What are some of your blog-pitching tips and lessons learned?
Potential jurors for the Barry Bonds trial were greeted with a 63 question survey at the beginning of jury selection. Among finding out what their current opinion of Bonds is, there is also a question that’s phrased for those people that are (somehow) unfamiliar with blogs.
Introducing question #32…
Really? Blog in quotes? Specified that they’re found on the Internet? I’d be curious to know how many people haven’t heard of a blog before and wouldn’t be able to tell you where one can be found.
Even if you aren't subscribed to the NYT, you'll be able to access their content for free through Facebook posts (like this one)
Last week the New York Times announced a new subscription model that would effectively put up a paywall for many users. Under this new system, people that aren’t subscribed to NYTimes.com are able to view 20 articles a month (that are subscriber-only) for free, before being blocked from reading certain stories. However, there’s a rather big loophole.
The New York Times has confirmed that people accessing their content through Twitter, Facebook, blogs, etc. will be able to view subscriber-only content even if they’ve already reached their 20 article monthly limit (similar to how you can access articles in The Wall Street Journal for free through Google). With this option in place, with the Times’ subscription model work?
The New York Times has already tried subscription-based access before (New York Times Select) which brought in $10 million in revenue, but wasn’t fully adopted by readers (it had 227,000 subscribers). It has also been reported that executives at the company were split on if a subscription model was their best option, especially since the value of their digital advertisements has been growing steadily.
It’s also been thought that this new subscription was meant to motivate people to sign up for weekend print subscriptions, which would give them unlimited online access. This would boost print circulation, and in return, ad rates.
So what do you think of all this? Do you plan on subscribing to the New York Times?
This morning Robin Wauters at TechCrunch posted a story about an exchange his colleague, Leena Rao, had with a PR exec. In the post, Wauters posted their entire email conversation, in which the PR person is clearly frustrated with TechCrunch.
While this type of post from TechCrunch is nothing new (the blog has rippedPRpeople multiple times in the past), it does seem to get awfully personal and a bit extreme.
Did the PR exec that communicated with Rao via email show his frustration? Yes. He is clearly passionate about his client and was trying to work with Rao, but wasn’t able to accept her answer, which was no. He kept on pushing – too much – and what probably got him in deep water was his flabbergasted response and follow-up email, which was very rude.
However, I don’t see how the PR exec’s actions warranted an entire critical post from TechCrunch with his name in the headline. That seems a bit over-the-top. Sure, TechCrunch likes to play the mean guys when it comes to PR, but this went from an industry attack to a very personal attack.
Let me be clear, the email from this PR exec was rude, and all PR people need to remember that when they are pitching, they are representing their clients and need to act appropriately and respectfully. But in this case, TechCrunch’s actions were precisely what they’re speaking out against.
How can PR people, company execs, or anyone communicating with TechCrunch, be able to have an honest conversation, without fearing that one wrong word or phrase will rub someone the wrong way and result in a personal attack?
While this post won’t hurt TechCrunch, it will hurt the PR exec that’s been publicly attacked. And while his emails to Rao certainly should have resulted in the need to repair his relationship with TechCrunch, he didn’t deserve this.
Last night Bostinnovation held a launch party to celebrate their first year in existence and the launch of their new platform. During the event – which attracted a large crowd – we were lucky enough to catch up and record a video with Alleigh Marré, a Bostinnovation contributor. Alleigh covers gov 2.0, health and running for the site, and filled us in on the type of stories she enjoys writing about. She’s also running the Boston Marathon this April, so cheer her on if you see her training through the snow this winter. To learn more about Alleigh you can follow her on Twitter and read her blog.
Special thanks to @EricaFrank for her great camera work.
This morning at 11:00am ET, like many of others, I turned my attention to Verizon’s announcement that it would soon be offering the iPhone. Apparently, after years and years of speculation, it was finally happening.
To find out what was going on, I turned my attention to four media outlets live blogging the announcement: The New York Times, Business Insider, VentureBeat and Engadget (in that order). I was actually quite surprised by what I found, as one outlet’s coverage of the event was far superior to the others. Engaged had more information, more updates, and many, many more pictures then any other live-blog I’ve been able to find.
Joshua Topolsky did an amazing job making readers feel like they were at the conference, providing bold time-stamp updates that were easy to follow, engaging, visual and informative. Unfortunately, each of the other three live-blogs I followed lacked one or more of those qualities.
So what are the keys to successfully live-blogging an event? Here are are three simple ways to make your life blog a success:
Use images and video, it makes readers/viewers feel like they’re there with you.
Update constantly, even if it’s mundane information or observations. If someone is reading a live blog it means they want the information now. If you aren’t giving them constant updates you’ll lose their attention.
Make it easy to follow, because many live-blogs refresh automatically (a good thing) and readers can have trouble finding where they left off.
Do you have any other suggestions for live bloggers?
One of my favorite Twitter friends, Annie Colbert, recently posted an awesome infographic on the state of the blog economy in 2010 (view the full infographic here). The image is bursting with insightful information about who blogs, why they write, how they promote their posts and how much cash they earn for doing so.
Among the more surprising stats: 65% of bloggers write as a hobby, while only 1% of bloggers write for a corporate blog or as their full time profession. Given the rise of corporate blogs this year, that number seems low.
The most shocking number was in regards to revenue. Self employed bloggers, on average, earn $122,222 in annual revenue from advertising on their blog! Chew on that.
Today AOL announced that it has acquired TechCrunch, the popular technology blog created by Michael Arrington. The funny thing, is that the announcement (which was posted on TechCrunch) was the last thing you’d ever expect to appear on TechCrunch.
Instead of a blog post about the acquisition or a video about the announcement, TechCrunch posted…a press release.
“Emphasizing the strengths of the company you’re pitching is obviously a good thing. But does anyone realize how meaningless these terms become when they are followed up by something so blatantly untrue or tied to a small niche that it’s just painful to read? I’m specifically thinking about press releases that commence with something like “Initech, the largest manufacturer of red staplers engraved with our company logo, has just won the Buzo Award for the most uncreative use of the word ‘largest’ in the history of mankind.” Handle these words with care.”
Part of the first paragraph in the acquisition release reads,
“TechCrunch and its associated properties and conferences will join the AOL Technology Network while retaining their editorial independence, further bolstering AOL’s position as one of the world’s leading providers of high-quality, tech-oriented content. The announcement will be made on stage at TechCrunch Disrupt in San Francisco, CA.”
If you read through the entire press release, you’ll see that it is filled with words and terms that Wauters would like to see banned from releases.
While I’m tempted to think that AOL insisted on issuing a press release, I’m shocked that TechCrunch would go along with this, instead of writing an actual blog post or posting a video. Posting a press release verbatim is against the very nature of TechCrunch’s approach and it shows that TechCrunch and AOL are clearly not on the same page when it comes to media.
If this is a sign of things to come for TechCrunch, then it’s going to lose a lot of readers.
The Sysomos research report entitled “Inside Blog Demographics,” found that the average blogger is age 21 – 35. This particular age demographic represents 53% of the total blogging population.
Given mommy blogger mania, you might think the majority of bloggers are female. Or possibly if you follow numerous technology and gadget blogs, you might think men dominate the blog scene. Well, you’d be right on both counts. According to this report, bloggers are 50.9% female and 49.1% male. Almost a dead even split.
I think the statistics that surprised me most were the location demographics. Only 29.2% of bloggers are located in the United States. Does that seem low to anyone else?
Amongst the 29.2% of American bloggers, the largest percentage hail from California (14.1%), with New York coming in second at 7.1%. No surprise there.
You can view the full country by country break down below:
Did you realize the average blogger was a recent college grad in CA or NY?
Over the weekend NBC’s Ann Curry was the keynote speaker during Wheaton College’s commencement ceremony. In an effort to personalize her address, Ann began her speech by listing some famous graduates from the college. Unfortunately, most of the people she listed graduated from the Wheaton College in Illinois, not the Wheaton College in Massachusetts (where she was speaking).
As a Wheaton College alumni I took particular interest in this story, as I received real-time updates from friends on Facebook that were in attendance.
The video and transcript of Curry’s speech were quickly edited so that they didn’t provide inaccurate information, but the damage was already done. Something that could have taken a fact-checker two minutes to do turned into a laughable story reported by USA Today, Boston Globe, various blogs such as Gawker, and other news outlets. If only the video was available, Curry could have had a real YouTube gem.
To her credit, Curry admitted to her mistake, saying that she was mortified by the mishap and was only trying to connect with the students.
