Bloggers: Be Proactive in Educating PR Pros (UPDATED)
Not even the most rascally of bloggers or journalists expect or even want the PR industry to die; really they just want better PR. But while they writhe in pain at the volume of misdirected pitches, few bloggers take action beyond whining. If anything, the PR and marketing pros themselves seem to be the only ones engaged in the slow-drip of Blogger Relations education.
If you are a successful blogger, part of the reward for your hard work is that you’re gonna get pitched.
(That’s not a bad thing. Not all pitches are bad. A good pitch could help a blogger write their best-post-ever. A good pitch could result in some cool toys to play with; a free trip; an interesting meeting; a job offer.)
But you have some control over this. Why not take the time to inform marketers about HOW you’d like to be approached?
An attempt was made back in 2005 to standardize this mechanism. I think it’s worth re-visiting. I asked our in-house graphics whiz to bang-out “boring” and “fun” versions of the original badges.
If you’re a blogger who wants NO PITCHES, the badge alone should suffice…
If you’re a friendly type who wants to hear what everyone has to say, similarly the “PR OK!” icon says it all (though you might want to link the icon to your contact info)…
But if you are like MOST bloggers, you don’t mind a GOOD PITCH and tend to despise & discard crappy pitches. This is where you need to Act Responsibly. Educate! Tell the PR pro “what makes a good pitch.”
Link the “PR?” badge below to a separate section of your site in which you describe your personal preferences and gripes…
Sometime this week, I’m going to add the funny li’l “PR?” avatar to my sidebar nav. It will link to a new page on PR-Squared on which I’ll inform would-be PR pitchmen that they are welcome to send me a note, but that I’ll be looking for:
“A brief pitch that demonstrates an understanding of my blog’s typical topics.”
I was planning to gin up a list of 5–or-so benchmarks but, on reflection, this is all I’m looking for from anyone. I don’t necessarily care that the PR pro is a regular PR-Squared reader or participant (though that’d be nice). I just don’t want them to waste my time with stuff I would never write about. (That’s all any blogger wants, at a high level.)
But it never hurts to be completely unambiguous. If bloggers make the effort to be clear about their expectations, they have more justification to be enraged at bad pitches. The blogger can take some responsibility for their in-box; if they don’t do something to educate would-be pitchmen, they’ll continue to be abused.
These badges might help cut down on the bad stuff. Know a cranky blogger? Maybe you could share this idea with them?
UPDATE: Embed code now available. And my new, official “PR PITCH POLICY,” which will be linked from here on out to the cutesy avatar in the right-side nav.
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Here’s the funny part. As much as I like to comment about wildly off-topic pitches sent to me, I enjoy receiving them just to see how PR and marketers are crafting their messages. It’s a form of intelligence gathering, I suppose, figuring out where people’s relative skills are, what things are happening, and what people think is important and worth talking about or promoting. It also lets me know, as an information gathering tool, which PR agencies would be worth working with in the future, as the ones that do their homework and pitch me accurately clearly invest more time (and thus will do a better job when I hire them) than the shotgun approach.
Todd, what a wonderful idea! Luckily for me, I entered blogging late and have learned from all those that came before me. I think on topic pitching should be a life mantra, it is applicable in all situations. In anticipation of my smashing blogging success, I am going to add a badge and a PR policy to my blog.
Hi Todd,
Love those badges! This is a great idea. While I can understand popular bloggers get tons of annoying, spammy pitches, I think a blogger who cuts him/herself off completely from all pitches will end up missing some important and fun opportunities.
I can’t wait to add one of the “PR?” badges to my Little Baby Lump (http://littlebabylump.com) blog!
Thanks!
Pamela
Good idea – I’ll bet you a beer that 90% of the Good Pitch guidelines would be fairly similar which would bring us back to square one.
And while this is a common sense idea, the concept of standardizing seems to run counter to the request of PR pitches not to be standardized.
Lastly, part of the issue is that bad pitches are usually received from people that don’t read the blog that they are pitching, which in most regards makes them a bad pitch.
So, in addition to your idea, what if bloggers submitted their PR guidelines to all of the PR wire services, media clipping services, and in general getting them some notice within the body of selected posts throughout the year. This will go a long way toward our mutually beneficial goal.
OK, even if it is not 90% we should still have a beer.
As blogger AND an AC at a PR agency, I’m always trying to get my colleagues to understand how to do blogger outreach. SHIFT has some great resources that I’ve printed and used to try to make my point. However, I’m constantly frustrated that very few “get it” or even want to learn. Instead, they just tell me that I should be the blogger contact for EVERY account. I don’t mind helping out where need be, but it’s time for them to join the 21st century!
PR Squared and SHIFT gives me hope that there are some agencies who actually understand and embrace the converging and expanding technologies.
I think it really helps if the PR Pro os a blogger or engaged already, too. I think it comes back to knowing the media.
At the same, bloggers — wow, the drama. I saw it again in Gnomedex this weekend, and quite frankly, I am beginning to tune out. I just don’t know what to say. We have less issues at LComm, but it just takes one screw up. There’s a lack of humanity in all of this. We need to get back to that.
Thanks for this. I had this issue come up last week. My blog / podcast is focused on sales people and sales management. The PR person for an organization asked me to interview the VP of Marketing for a virtual trade-show company.
Although I like their business model I don’t want to dilute the message for my listeners. Sending them some guidelines would definitely help them as well as they could refine their pitch to fit my audience. A lot of PR people just like sales people often forget to answer two simple questions:
What’s in it for me (and my audience)?
What’s unique about you?
Thanks for the great post. The badge will be going up shortly with the guidelines on both of my blogs.
The idea of the “PR Guidelines” badge is great. The blogosphere can be a better and more collaborative place if everyone plays nicely together. Always better to educate people on what you expect so that both parties may win.
Toby Bloomberg has a great post on when brands talk to bloggers. (http://plurl.me/gu) Her six key takeaways for bloggers fit nicely here.
* Relationships are based on communication.
* Educate us about what you want and need.
* Have patience.
* Respect
* Values are important
* Etiquette Is Important – Please Play Nicely
Phil
Great idea- but do you think would-be spammers/inappropriate pitchers would actually read & heed?
Thanks for the great comments!
One issue a couple of you raised was, “Bad PR pros won’t bother ‘checking guidelines’ anyway.” I have 2 responses to that:
1) All evidence to the contrary notwithstanding, I am not sure that that is true. A lot of PR pros are TERRIFIED of blogger relations; they might quickly warm to the idea of checking for guidelines, if they clearly exist.
2) At least with a CLEAR POLICY online, the cranky blogger can reply to the bad pitch with the link to their guidelines, vs. suffer in silence, with pent-up anger ready to explode! I’d think it would be harder to live WITHOUT such guidelines…