Some Differences Between Pitching Mainstream Press and Bloggers
Meet the next generation of people who put stories out on the web. I say “next,” but blogging has been around for years and years. Some of us are making decent money at it, hiring and employing staffs, etc. Those types seem like mainstream press. But they’re not. One difference? We blog based on what drives our passion, plus in the case of some folks, what drives revenue.
Blogs have reach. Blogs don’t have as many barriers to cross before you reach the decision maker. Blogs don’t (always) require a PR agency to help you get access. Blogs always need good content, right? So it seems like a natural thing to just lob stories at a blogger, because more often than not, they’re going to be receptive, will run the bit if it fits their readership (viewership), and everyone wins, right?
Some differences.
Bloggers Often Write From Passion
Lots of us can’t NOT blog. We love what we do. We’re obsessed with getting information out into the world. Desperate to be useful. I’d say that we’re like news junkies, only we’re really interested in how we can contribute to making the news.
Bloggers Have a Bit More Ego Feeding Required
Try to disagree with me on that one, but when I just start rattling bloggers’ names down quickly, I can tell you that there are things you’ll want to do to reach out, and one is to know what makes a certain blogger tick. Want to get into TechCrunch or Mashable? Be sure you’re giving one the exclusive, and pick wisely. Want to get covered by Engadget? Don’t give it to Gizmodo on the same day. Go a few tiers down in blogs and what we want is to know that you know who we are, and what we cover. A pitch about something in my general area isn’t the same as noticing the kinds of things I write about and giving me something that fits.
Bloggers Like Free Prize Inside Experiences
If you want us to write about your software app or your new gizmo, give a few away. Nokia, Nikon, Flip, GM (Saturn), Garmin, and tons of other companies have given out gear on loaner programs (sometimes handled well, and other times handled a bit weirdly). And if it’s not something directly tangible, it’s something like getting invited to a pre-screening of a movie, or to a closed beta of an application, or something else that makes one feel exclusive. Still an ego play, and yet, very effective because once we play with your toys, we’ll be inclined to write about them.
Will we be fair and give opinions on the competitors like an official review site? Not always. Depends who it is, whether that’s part of their bailiwick, and whether they even know how to approach such a thing. I sure don’t. If I’m given something free to mess around with, I disclose it when talking about it, but then, my site isn’t a journalistic effort to review things fairly.
Bloggers Don’t Have To Be Polite
Though I prefer politeness, and try to be polite often (Sorry, Tom), it’s not required. And we don’t always do what you’d wish. It’s a little uncertain sometimes what you’ll get when you send a request to us. Wish it weren’t true, and I would prefer that we be polite more often, but we don’t have to be.
What Twitter Had to Say When I Asked My Friends
(That’s a hint, too. We’re far more networked. We talk to each other. We talk about YOU.)
Pitching ME
First, I have to say that I’m not usually on the lookout for a news story. If you read back through my posts, a great many of them deal with strategy and tactics that people can employ. I read about 1000 news items a day, plus I have a day job that isn’t professional blogging. So, I don’t always need news.
And yet.
If you’ve got something interesting about a new tool, a new way that someone’s using social media to build business or organizational relationships, a sense of what’s interesting to me and want to feed me something, here’s what you might do:
- Be my Twitter friend.
- Have read my last ten blog posts to have a sense of my flavor.
- Give me links, pointers, possibly screenshots, and follow up in about 9 days when I still haven’t managed to get your story out.
- Kindly understand if the story doesn’t fit what I cover (often).
- Realize that I can’t always check out your website.
- Understand that a “social network for ____” (dogs, lawyers, imaginary friends, ex-cons) isn’t really new unless they’re doing something REALLY new.
- Write the first paragraph of your email as if you really did only send it to me (I get it, but pretend, okay?)
While We’re At It
Here’s what I *am* really interested in writing more about, and where you can help me, if you’ve got an interesting story:
- Social media and network use inside the enterprise. (Spoke at Thomson/Reuters and IBM recently and was really impressed in both cases with what they’re already doing).
- Specialized social network applications - things that make a network more valuable, vs just profiles, blogs, pictures, and friends.
- Books about social media, social networks, next-generation PR/marketing, business, etc.
- Business models that aren’t advertising-centric. (For instance, Sermo has a neat model. So does Gimp.TV).
- Mainstream people coming into social media in a realistic and meaningful way.
- Nonprofit and organizational experiences with social media that have made an impact.
- Location-based tools and networking (for instance, I’m digging Yahoo’s Fire Eagle stuff)
- Technology that improves business, that improves personal interfacing with the Internet.
I’m probably forgetting a few of my favorites in there, but let’s start there. If you’re pitching something like THAT, drop me a line. My contact info is in the sidebar. I’m easy to find.
Further Reading
Social media expert, Jason Falls covered an advertising professional’s view on this recently, and that’s worth checking out, too.
Edelman’s superstar, Leah Jones showed us how to talk to bloggers.
Your Thoughts?
Lots of people who come here are PR or marketing professionals, journalists, and the like. What do you think about what I’ve said so far? What are your tales of success with bloggers, or your tales of woe? Bloggers, am I wrong in my starting concepts about what might feel different about bloggers vs mainstream press? I’m eager for your take.
Screen caps made with Skitch
Bloggers vs Journalists and Who Cares
Inspired by this post by RichardatDell, I wanted to bring this out to you again: bloggers aren’t always journalists, and journalists aren’t always bloggers. Some of you don’t really care, and others of you care a little too much. But here’s the thing:
Journalists
Journalists, at least those who have received professional education and training, have responsibilities, have certain skills, and have certain inherent traits assumed about their conduct. The United States, as a nation, uses journalists to keep our government (and to a lesser extent, larger corporations) in check, by vigorously reporting their actions. It is assumed that journalists disclose their biases in specific reporting cases, and that they work towards reporting at least somewhat objectively.
***UPDATE: Just found this great article by Scott Karp about how journalists need to better understand the web. Thought it applied.***
Bloggers
Some bloggers tend to work with journalistic standards in mind. Others are trained journalists. Still more are professional journalists have come into blogging out of necessity.
And then there are the rest of us.
Plenty of bloggers, like me, just use this medium to write what we think and feel. You’ll note that my site is fairly light on “research” in the traditional sense. I read the bejeesus out of the blogosphere, but I don’t go out and research and ask three hundred people to answer surveys. I don’t attempt objectivity. I don’t attempt to be unbiased. I do disclose as often as I can or remember to do so. But I’m not a journalist.
I don’t want to be a journalist. I think they’re great people, some of them, and I respect them, some of them, but I sure don’t need to be a journalist to tell you what I think. I share. I inform. I query. But I sure don’t intend to represent anything as a journalist.
Who Cares?
There are times for journalists. I like that they’re out there keeping government and corporations in their sites. I’m hopeful that they continue to deliver value. I want them in our lives.
But I’m also excited for the velocity, the facility, and the ubiquity that bloggers bring to information sharing. I love that bloggers are abound, embedded in our communities, ready to share information at the drop of a hat. I’m grateful that there are networks of us sharing information, reposting information, and driving insight into the various corners of what we’re passionate about.
Without these millions of bloggers, we’d be missing some interesting things. Because we can take these tools to use for ourselves, we have a powerful opportunity to try new things, to learn about things that might be overlooked by others who are following different incentives than some bloggers have. Because of all this information, we have the ability to learn more, share faster, and discover new opportunities.
At times like that, I don’t care which hat you wear. Thanks for helping me find something interesting out there.
What do you think?
