- Share This Post
- submit
- 0
-
Sparkle (0)
Track: Social Media Outreach Best Practices
Real-live outreach programs from our attendees. A panel of experts offer constructive improvements...to creatives, calls to action and blogger targeting. Advertising exec and momblogpreneur Liz Gumbinner moderates a panel including Susan Getgood, Mir Kamin and Maria Niles. All of these fine panelists have been on both sides of the marketing/blogger equation...and can feel your pain, even as they hope to help you not get blown up in the future!
Welcome to Improve This Pitch!
Introductions -
Susan - 20 years in software industry experience, strategic marketer with her own company (getgood strategic marketing), well known in mom blogosphere
Maria - CEO of Consumerpop marketing, background working with Kraft, Kleenex, Campbells, Contributing Editor to BlogHer, writes entertainment blogs, contributes to 5 blogs
Mir - pro blogger with 7 sites, first blog was wouldacouldashoulda, and she privy to lots of pitches.
All three have backgrounds in advertising and marketing as well as being bloggers, so can speak to both sides.
Liz - writes mom 101, also cool mom picks, a review blog for parents for products, background in ad agency
Liz: Why are we here? Because the old PR paradigm is not working anymore. It seems we're hearing that a lot, but PR people don't get it. They still use the traditional model of taking a press release and blasting it out and seeing what sticks. Susan got one recently that hhad been sent to 30,000 people. There's no personal touch, and that approach is not working anymore.
Liz sharing a pitch that she received:
"Dear Liz: I'm in a bind. Want to talk to you about great tasting food and regularity." Blah blah, it went on, to the tune of 12 paragraphs about why she should write about colon health cereal on her blog (where colons are not normally discussed.) Normally she would just delete something like this but it was too funny, so she saved it for this conference. Sadly, she is getting more pitches like that are like this than not. This session is to help figure out the difference between bloggers and journalists, and how to have your efforts NOT blow up in your face, since bloggers are a volatile bunch and we love to bitch about bad pitches.
Mir - Admits she is very passionate about pitches she gets and is very vocal about ones she doesn't like!
Why wouldn't you just ignore and delete bad pitches? She does sometimes, but she's frustrated: She's being pitched on her personal blog for things that have no relevance, like events in countries she doesn't live in and things she never ever talks about. The pitch claims they know you, but the content makes it very obvious that they don't know you. She and Liz often talk to each other about the bad pitches they get, and will also often respond to the company about how bad their pitch is and give them advice.
It feels insulting as a personal blogger to receive these pitches because they approach her like a journalist. Journalists exist to disseminate informaiton, that's their job. Mir blogs because it is passionate for her, she wants to do it. To be treated like a number devalues what she is doing. They ask her to pitch for them for free, and they don't pay attention to who she is and what she does. if you're going to approach on a personal level, know her on a personal level.
Susan - There is a huge difference between being personal and being personalized. In most of these cases, the pitches aren't personal: they have your name but the pitch is generic. They forget that the blogger is not a journalist, they are not the intermediary like the journalist is. The blogger is not *just* the delivery medium, not just the voice: the blogger is also the audience.
At her blog at getgood.typepad.com, Susan has written a manifesto including four Ps of what marketers should do to approach bloggers. Marketers need to keep in mind that blogging is Personal, and it's about Passion. Bloggers write because they care about a topic, they are passionate about it. Even if they monetize it, they still started out with a passion, and that's why they are there.
One of the four Ps is Prepare. This is the step most agencies don't do as well as
