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Recently I read two posts that neatly illustrated just how much bloggers and marketers don't get about each other. One was written by and for marketers in an effort to help marketers better understand bloggers: how we think, how to approach us and how to market to social media communities. The other was written by bloggers to explain how marketers are getting their approaches to bloggers and social media communities wrong and how marketers could do better.
Both were cringe-worthy reading. Marketers don't get bloggers and bloggers don't get marketers. Neither speaks the other's language, understands the other's process or the other's goals. What seems obvious to me is that if marketers are to grasp how to successfully add social media tools to our marketing mix, bilingual marketer-to-blogger translators are needed -- and we are in short (but growing) supply.
I am purposefully not linking to either post because I don't wish to single the authors out for criticism. The points made in their posts are not unique, but reading them back-to-back helped crystallize my line of thought in this post. Let me tell you a bit more about what the marketers and bloggers are thinking.
1. The Marketers: I've long lost count of the number of pixels that have formed to express how badly marketers, and the PR function in particular, have gone about pitching to, working with and attempting to partner with bloggers and social media communities. A post from a well known, well respected media outlet did a good job of clearly articulating the need to get past the models of cluelessly sending press releases and offering interviews and product samples. They pointed out why bloggers are not the same as newspaper journalists or magazine editors and why it is important to modify your approach. However, they still managed to make the same fundamental error of insight that most marketers who don't grok blogging and communities make; i.e., they did not move past the medium to understand the varying motivations of bloggers and the dynamics of communities.
Bloggers are not a monolith. People do not read, join networks or participate in communities for the same reasons or with the same goals. The advice that sending a press release will likely be received differently and likely negatively by bloggers is a step forward but still reveals just how much the authors don't know.
Sites like TechCrunch or Mashable could be considered blogs. Also, there are individual bloggers who mine similar territory. However, what those sites do is vastly different than a personal blogger who writes about her life. Bloggers like the former are more akin to newsites and sending press releases or offering product for review might make sense. A blogger who develops a blog that functions not unlike a beauty or women's service magazine might enjoy and appreciate being approached like a magazine editor because it serves her mission and expectations she's set for her reader community.
Many personal bloggers write of and for themselves. They don't exist nor are they set up to do your marketing for you. They don't hunger for "content ideas." For many, finding the time and sometimes the motivation to write about the many ideas swirling in her head is the much bigger problem. That, however, does not mean that they are unapproachable. Rather, it means that you need to understand the different types of bloggers as well as their different goals, motivations and readerships. And that is what is missing from the marketer perspective and why bloggers (and folks on Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, etc ...) remain frustrated and often hostile to so many marketers.
2. The Bloggers: This time the post was from a well known, well respected group blogging site. The authors pointed out what they perceived as ineffective -- even offensive --marketing efforts from large companies to bloggers and social media communities. As is often the case in these broad missives and dismissals (vs. individual bloggers calling out specific egregious behavior from a marketer they've experience directly), they reveal a fundamental lack of understanding of how consumer marketing, from both big and small companies, works.
It is fine to be outraged by the message you hear. It is important and worthwhile for marketers to hear your reactions and the lenses through which you are filtering your messages. However, I have noticed a trend from bloggers to believe that because they understand their own experience and values that they know how to teach marketers how to do their jobs. And that attitude was in full effect in this post.
What is disturbing about
