Fundamental Differences Between Bloggers and Journalists, with Susan Getgood
May 28th, 2009Author: Allison Blass
Susan Getgood is the founder of GetGood Strategic Marketing, advising organizations on integrated social media outreach and internet marketing strategies. She also leads corporate workshops on social media and blogger relations. She is a frequent speaker at social media and public relations conferences around the country, including New Comm Forum, BlogHer ‘09 and Mom 2.0 Summit. Her blog, Marketing Roadmaps, is an analysis of current trends, best practices and campaign mishaps. You can also follow her on Twitter at @sgetgood. – AB
Journalists are third-part observers. It is their job to report and analyze the news. Generally, they are paid employees of a media property, online or off. A set of norms for engagement between public relations professionals and journalists has evolved over the years, and the parties know the rules.
Bloggers, especially personal bloggers, are individuals writing about their lives and things they are care about. Politics. Their families. The environment. Hobbies. They write about their passions, not your products. However, bloggers are increasingly influential both with each other and with an audience of readers. They are also your customers. These are two good reasons for a company to reach out to them with news and special promotions.
But, as we’ve learned over the past few years, it is not a good idea to reach out to bloggers using the same techniques we use to contact journalists. News pitches, the lifeblood of the reporter, generally aren’t as effective as stories that relate the product to the blogger’s life and interests. We often use the term relevance to refer to this aspect of the process, but I think it needs to be more than just relevant. Your story needs to add value to the blog; you give the blogger (or tweeter) something relevant to her interests that she wants to pass on because it is just that good.
The other thing that is a bit different from working with journalists is the relationship. While we may be friendly with journalists, there’s an arm’s length component that stems from those norms I mentioned earlier. It isn’t the same thing with the blogger. Your customer.
I described it to someone yesterday that journalists are often looking for the reason to mistrust what you say. What aren’t you telling them? Your customer, on the other hand, is looking for reasons to like you. Tell me why this is good. Why I should use it for my family. There is an inherent trust in the relationship that we must be doubly careful not to abuse with poor pitches, spam and other relationship stupidities.
Now, I’m pretty sure the folks at MWW know better so I’m not going to go into a lot of detail on the mechanics. You don’t need me to tell you not to use mail merge software to spam large lists of bloggers pulled from databases. That you need to read the blogs over time, and especially just before you send a pitch. That you don’t welsh on offers for review product. That you don’t ask bloggers to write. And so on.
What we need to focus on is building stories that put our products into the blogger’s context, not expect him to fashion his blog posts around our needs. That’s how we’ll do excellent blogger relations.
Two additional pieces of advice. First, bloggers don’t need it to be new, just relevant. That opens up all sorts of possibilities for your brands. Don’t limit your blogger outreach to product launches and special promotions. Think about how you can be reaching out all the time in appropriate ways.
Second, PR people usually get the need for honesty, transparency and clarity in these relationships. That’s one element that is totally consistent with the journalistic model. Where sometimes they have trouble with blogger relations is incorporating the passion, in speaking to the emotions of the customer, not just about features. Ad people get this, but they can’t resist the hype. Find the balance.
[I’ve used the term blogger, but we are really referring to any customer actively engaged as a creator in social media – blogs, Twitter, social networks like Facebook etc.]
[Editor: Check back soon to read an interview with Susan about social media, some best case studies and her advice to women and new PR practitioners.)
