Rick Bruner provides a link to an interesting article by Mark Glaser in the Online Journalism Review on the increasing awareness of traditional media of the need to be more open to bloggers and, as a result, more open in general, with access to their content. They are now realizing that a link from a prominent blogger can bring traffic and buzz. PR people are starting to pitch to influential bloggers to link to their stories just as they might pitch to reporters and magazines.
But this pitch must take a different approach and be more indirect. There are quotes from several PR people who now deal with bloggers like Renee Blodgett, president of Blodgett Communications who has done PR campaigns for technology companies such as NewsGator and Xitel. I have dealt with Renee around an article I recently wrote on blogs that included Newsgator and found her very helpful. Mark Glaser wrote in this article that Renee feels that to blanket PR blasts to bloggers won't work in the long run. "I haven't really pitched bloggers, its more of an FYI to bloggers about things going on in the industry," Blodgett told Mark via e-mail. Mark concludes that the informal, straightforward approach seems to work best for communicating with bloggers.
It can get really circular. Marks adds: “If you want to really get your brain knotted up, consider this new conundrum: PR people themselves have started to write blogs about their profession, and are now getting PR pitches from outlets they might also be pitching. Steve Rubel, vice president of PR firm CooperKatz who also pens the Micropersuasion blog, will not write about clients on his blog, but he does receive pitches regularly from journalists.”
There is much more in Mark’s article. Also look at Micropersuasion for more on PR use of blogs. I found a number of good stories and just subscribed.
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