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?
This is a guest post from Sarah Willey, a Senior Account Executive at Racepoint Group. Follow her on Twitter @willey774.
As @bmfalc described in her post yesterday, most of us were learning about the death of Osama bin Laden in real time through social media. But can you imagine what it must have been like for the man who unknowingly tweeted about the raid on Osama.
It all started from a man in Abbottabad (the town where Osama lived) when Mr. Sohaib Athar, known to thousands of followers as @ReallyVirtual, first wrote about a helicopter hovering above him at 1 a.m., saying it was a “rare event.” That was 3:30 p.m. EST on Sunday. Within minutes, he tweeted, “A huge window shaking bang here in Abbottabad Cantt. I hope its not the start of something nasty :-S”. After a while when the sound of the helicopter stopped following a blast, Mr. Athar tweeted “seems like my giant swatter worked !” That was followed by a Twitter discussion about what had happened. He wrote to “@m0hcin the few people online at this time of the night are saying one of the copters was not Pakistani…” Mr. Athar noted that “Since taliban (probably) don’t have helicopters, and since they’re saying it was not ‘ours’, so must be a complicated situation#abbottabad”
Over the next two hours, Mr. Athar, who describes himself as an IT consultant, exchanged messages with a few other Twitter users about what had happened, learning that there was a helicopter crash. They wondered whether it was an attack or an accident.
“And now I feel I must apologize to the pilot about the swatter tweets :-/” tweeted Mr. Athar. He retweeted Ibrar Ali (@ibi2010) , who said: 1 dead and 1 injured in Abbottabad for heli crashed.”
Mr. Athar seems to have gone offline for a few hours, resurfacing this morning to tweet: “interesting rumors in the otherwise uneventful Abbottabad air today.” Shortly thereafter, Mr. Athar figured out what had happened.
He retweeted a tweet from Munzir Naqvi: “I think the helicopter crash in Abbottabad, Pakistan and the President Obama breaking news address are connected.”
Mr. Athar was clearly unhappy.
“I guess Abbottabad is going to get as crowded as the Lahore that I left behind for some peace and quiet. *sigh*”
A short time later, another Twitter user confirmed the news. Mr. Athar tweeted “RT @ISuckBigTime: Osama Bin Laden killed in Abbottabad, Pakistan.: ISI has confirmed it << Uh oh, there goes the neighborhood :-/”
As the Twitter world discovered Mr. Athar’s tweets, thousands of followers have added him to their list of followers. As of 8:46 am EST on May 3, 2011, @ReallyVirtual had 93,321 followers and counting!
Late last night, much of the digitally connected and cable-wired world learned of the death of Osama Bin Laden. The nation learned through Facebook, Twitter, text messages, CNN, NBC, and pretty much any medium that required some form of electricity. Many of us were engaged on multiple platforms simultaneously, tweeting the President’s remarks as we tuned in to our news stations of choice.
In addition to retweets, emotional reactions and smart-alecky remarks, I noticed another sentiment in my feeds: “I wonder how many editors are ripping up the front pages of tomorrow’s paper at this very moment.” I admit, I was among the curious. However, I figured that the death of the mastermind behind 9/11 was newsworthy enough for those in journalism to pull a frenzied all-nighter.
Either my qualifications for what constitutes “Stop the presses!” are way off-base, or sometimes even the most breaking of news is no match for print media deadlines. While some publications such as The New York Times managed to keep up with the news, others, including USA Today and METRO, did not. Still others, namely The Wall Street Journal, decided not to waste trees, and printed copies with and without the headline news.
It’s not uncommon for me to read about news in Monday morning’s paper that I’d already heard about on Twitter Sunday afternoon, but this will be the first instance where my Tuesday morning paper will likely be featuring Sunday evening’s news. I’m curious to see if and how the editors will address the lag in news time.
I recently wrote a guest post for Piehead on why Rupert Murdoch’s new iPad news publication, The Daily, will be a success. Below is an excerpt of the article, to read the full post click here.
This month Rupert Murdoch launched The Daily, an iPad-only news publication. It’s on sale through Apple’s iTunes store and costs just $40 a year, which breaks down to just 14 cents per day. The Daily is focused on attracting a wide array of readers, as it covers breaking news, sports, pop culture, entertainment, apps, games, technology, opinion, celebrity gossip and more. The Daily is being treated like a big deal, too. Murdoch has put together a newsroom of 100+ people, including former New York Post columnist Richard Johnson and New Yorker music critic Sasha Frere-Jones.
Murdoch’s focus on building a digital media powerhouse will pay off big. It probably won’t happen in the next year or two, but in the long run – if The Daily continues to evolve and adapt – it will have a bright future. However, as consumers continue to adopt the iPad and tablets, they will become increasingly comfortable getting their news from these new technologies. Additionally, consumers will become excited by the new format in which news is delivered, making the entire media consuming experience more interactive and visual. However, before looking ahead, it’s important to examine the evolution of written news, which can be broken down into four main stages:
1.Print: people had newspapers and magazines delivered to their homes or purchased them at a local store (remember those days?) People weren’t able to access breaking news online – the timing was forced and consumers had to wait until the news arrived to read about what had happened in the past 24 hours.
2. Online: newspapers and magazines began publishing their content online, giving readers the choice between reading content via a physical newspaper or their computer. Consumers got hooked to receiving breaking news at all times of the day.
3. Blogs: The traditional editorial process went out the window – news became more opinionated, less research-based and occurred in real-time. Video and multimedia also became central as blogs have unlimited space for content. Traditional media outlets began sourcing stories to leading blogs, as they wanted to get in on the real-time news cycle and appeal more to online consumers.
4. Devices: The next phase of written news will be focused around specific devices, such as the iPad. For consumers, this means news will be accessible anywhere at any time, due to the mobile nature of tablets.
The Daily is not just Rupert Murdoch’s pet project – it’s going to be taken seriously. Jesse Angelo, editor-in-chief of The Daily, made this clear when sent around the following memo to his staff this week, clearly stating his expectations for the publication. He’s not going to let The Daily become another news organization that re-publicizes the same content as everyone else. His goal is to make The Daily different and unique, not substitutable. How refreshing!
Subject: The News
Folks, Egypt is over – time for us to get focused on covering America.
We need to get out there and start finding more compelling stories from around the country – not just scraping the web and the wires, but getting out on the ground and reporting. Find me an amazing human story at a trial the rest of the media is missing. Find me a school district where the battle over reform is being fought and tell the human tales. Find a town that is going to be unincorporated because it’s broke. Find me a story of corruption and malfeasance in a state capitol that no one has found. Find me something new, different, exclusive and awesome. Find me the oldest dog in America, or the richest man in South Dakota. Force the new White House press secretary to download The Daily for the first time because everyone at the gaggle is asking about a story we broke. Get in front of a story and make it ours – force the rest of the media to follow us.
It’s good stories that will keep people coming back to The Daily – we’ve assembled a crack news team, so let’s show the world what we can do.
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.
Two weeks ago RaceTalk was offered the opportunity to read an advanced copy of the book “All the Devils are Here” which is co-written by Bethany McLean and Joe Nocera. We were immediately intrigued given both authors’ extensive history covering business and management in the media.
Bethany McLean is the former editor-at-large for Fortune magazine, a contributing editor to Vanity Fair, and the author of a book titled “The Smartest Guys in the Room.” Her book explores the behind the scenes drama that lead to the collapse of Enron. The book was later turned into a film. According to the Business Insider, McLean will begin a new role as a Wall Street and finance columnist for Slate in the coming weeks.
McLean’s co-author Joe Nocera (who RaceTalk interviewed after his sudden and aggressive call from Steve Jobs) is best known for his expert reporting on management and business for the New York Times. Prior to his current role, Nocera, like McLean, worked as an editor for Fortune magazine. He also wrote regular columns for GQ and Esquire and served as a contributing editor to Newsweek.
In their joint effort “All the Devils are Here” McLean and Nocera take an inside look into the United States financial crisis. The book opens with an eight page of glossary titled “Cast of Characters” to assist readers in remembering who is who. There are also two upfront page of nothing but critical acronyms! From the prologue alone the reader feels a knot in his/her stomach as the poor judgment and incredible greed comes to light.
I don’t want to give away too much for interested readers, but the tone of the book is set very early. In the first chapter we learn that a star at Merrill Lynch, John Breit, finds himself being pushed out because in his role as risk manager he was reporting findings that would slow the “growth” of the business. The reader gets the sinking feeling this is going to be one of the milder stories.
If you’re interested in the decisions and the key players that influenced the eventual topple of the U.S. economy, “All the Devils are Here” is a must read. Written by two of the most knowledgeable business reporters, this is an expertly detailed and analytical account of our nation’s financial demise. You can listen to McLean read an excerpt from the book on this Vanity Fair podcast.
If you find reading a 350 plus page book intimidating, you can experience a visual account of the financial crisis via the documentary “Inside Job” which is currently playing in theaters.
Thank you to Bethany McLean, Joe Nocera and their team for sharing their latest project with us here at RaceTalk. We’re frightened but enlightened.
This is a guest post by Anne Potts, Senior Vice President, Racepoint Group.
The mid-term elections give us a chance to take a hard look at the health of our democracy and the direction of public discourse. The consolidation of the journalistic voice brought about by media mergers and failures under the weight of an unsustainable economic model is unacceptable. It inexorably weakens our democracy.
Leave it to Google to see the chance to make change with a $5M gift to the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, a nonprofit organization focused on “advancing journalism in the digital age.” In partnership with the Knight Foundation’s News Challenge, Google’s $5M will fund projects that meet the “challenge” by addressing the critical success factors of a new approach, like expanding access to news and generating community involvement, use of mobile technologies, helping people understand the source for the news they read, and creating new economic models to sustain a journalistic enterprise.
Bringing this much Google juice to their work will be a true accelerator and will hopefully blaze a trail for a new and powerful Fourth Estate. Focusing American innovation on our media and its critical role in our Democracy – thanks, Google and Knight. We’ll be watching for the outcomes of your efforts.
Image courtesy of PEW Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism
Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism released a year’s worth of data yesterday on the top news stories discussed and linked to on blogs and social media pages, and seven months’ worth on Twitter. The study, New Media, Old Media, returned some very interesting findings on the differences between what the most popular story is for mainstream news outlets versus what the top news story is on social mediums. In addition it turned out some interesting data on the difference between what headlines draw crowds on these new social mediums.
The study examined the blogosphere and social media by tracking the news linked to on millions of blogs and social media pages tracked by Icerocket and Technorati from January 19, 2009, through January 15, 2010. It also tracked the videos on YouTube’s news channel for the same period. It measured Twitter by tracking news stories linked to within tweets as monitored by Tweetmeme from June 15, 2009, through January 15, 2010.
Of the 29 weeks that PEW tracked all three social platforms, blogs, Twitter and YouTube, the different mediums only shared the same top story just once. That was the week of June 15-19, when the protests that followed the Iranian elections. When you dive deeper into the differences between the social mediums you can also see that each has a certain personality associated with its user-base.
The clearest example of that was illustrated by the popularity of technology news on Twitter. More than 40 percent of stories linked to on Twitter were technology related. Meanwhile only eight percent of stories on on blogs were technology related and only one percent of stories in the mainstream press and on YouTube were technology related. These findings may have been expected in 2008, with early adopters driving Twitter’s use, but it is surprising that technology stories are so popular and prevalent today, as Twitter stretches its mainstream appeal. Comparatively only six percent of the stories linked to on Twitter were focused on politics.
Meanwhile political news and foreign events dominates the other mediums, with 29 percent of stories on blogs, 47 percent of stories on YouTube and 24 percent of the newshole at mainstream news outlets being political or foreign event focused. Stories linked to on Twitter also have much shorter shelf life’s. On Twitter, 72% of lead stories are no longer on the top linked to list after three days, and more than half (52%) are on the list for just 24 hours.
There are also numbers within the research that offer a contrarian view to the idea of news items bubbling up from Twitter, to the blogs, to the mainstream press. Across the entire year studied, just one particular story or event – the controversy over emails relating to global research that came to be known as “Climate-gate” – became a major item in the blogosphere and then, a week later, gained more traction in traditional media. Twitter is even less tied to the mainstream press in terms of drawing attention to stories and distributing information from mainstream outlets. Nearly 40 percent of the links on Twitter went to web-only news sources such as Mashable and CNET.
What all this means is hard to say. It will be certainly be interesting to see how it changes over time. However, in terms of those seeking to gain attention in the Twittersphere and with technology influencers, they should takeaway:
Twitter drives the technology news-cycle. If stories linked to on Twitter were cross-referenced with Techmeme, the technology Website of record, they’d likely be very similar. Therefore if you want your news to drive the technology agenda, it better make the trending topics on Twitter.
Like the platform itself, Twitter news and attention moves in real-time, on the 1,440-minute news-cycle. You may capture attention, but it won’t be for very long.
Don’t count on the news bubbling up. While you may reach technology influencers on Twitter, this data “echoes” the thought that Twitter can be an echo-chamber of technology advocates.
Reuters issued their social media policy to employees yesterday, and the one thing that’s attracting the most attention is a policy that news should be broken on Reuters.com, not on Twitter:
As with blogging within Reuters News, you should make sure that if you have hard news content that it is broken first via the wire. Don’t scoop the wire. NB this does not apply if you are ‘retweeting’ (re-publishing) someone else’s scoop.
The policy also notes that Reuters employees should have the word “Reuters” in their Twitter user-name and all tweets from that account should be professional, not personal. Facebook and Wikipedia are also briefly discussed, but the breaking news element is quite interesting.
For a while now, reporters have been scrambling to break news first. on Twitter websites, blogs, or anywhere possible. Embargoes are almost entirely a thing of the past (according to TechCrunch they already are the past), and some companies are breaking their own embargoes on Twitter.
So why is Reuters opposed to reporters breaking stories on Twitter?
Quite simply, reporters that have a large, intense Twitter presence are able to turn themselves into a brand, while Reuters and other media outlets want the company to remain the strongest brand. When Bloomberg took over BusinessWeek and sent a significant number of journalists packing, it was the well-known visible people who were laid off. Reuters’ social media policy is meant to keep their reporters reporting factual and reliable news, instead of participating in a second-by-second race to break every last little piece of news.
