Reach the right people
November 30th, 2005Author: DialogueMedia
Over the weekend, Scoble was discussing return on investment for the number of people reading RSS as opposed to another medium. No need to rehash most of it, really, but I wanted to echo one sentiment. He mentioned a number of readers on his blog, or of his RSS feed, and how they matter in the long term. I have the same thoughts he does – it doesn’t matter if you have 500 reader or 50,000 – obviously 50,000 is “more” readership, but if those 500 persons are just the right 500 decision makers, influencers, or people of importance within the industry or space that you’re interested in reaching into, then nothing else matters.
Yesterday, I spoke with a number of newsroom staffers at a major newspaper here in New Jersey, and made a similar statement, and compared it to their newspaper – that the people who are reading most blogs, especially after one has “matured” and been in the market for some time, are the persons who need to be reading it. It’s like splitting up the sections of the newspaper – some people read the sports and front page, some people like the obits and classifieds, others might read the whole thing. Think of a blog, especially a niche or topical one, as one of those smaller divisions within the publication.
For the public relations industry, this is great in comparing what we can do in comparison to advertising – as an advertiser, you take a chance that your ad might not make it in front of your target audience, especially if you buy a ROP (run of paper) advertisement. On the other hand, one would hope that the public relations firm working with a client would be dealing with the right reporter who has his or her stories placed in the section of the paper that is most likely to be read by those same interested parties. This works the same way for blogs – if we’re all out here sending press releases to 500 blogs that “might” want to hear what a client has to say, then we’re wasting our time. Why not spend some more time finding the blogs and influencers that are relevant to those spaces, develop relationships, and work with those writers to find out what they want to hear, and how we can help them get their jobs – as bloggers – done. And yes, that means getting *our* jobs as public relations professionals done, too, but it’s important to realize that you’re not just placing the seed, you’re helping the “economy” of media grow. Plus, if you reach out to just the right blogger, then others will probably link their way, further expanding the reach of your original story.
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Tags: New PR, Public Relations, RSS
