Blogger Relations: Will Personal Branding Change the Game?
One of the central tenets of Blogger Relations is that the PR pro should develop a relationship with their so-called “target.” Bloggers (and mainstream journalists, for that matter!) generally don’t care for cold-calls, particularly if the pitch is irrelevant to their beat. Remember, most bloggers are “passionate experts,” and that passion leads them to think that you really ought to care about their brilliant musings!
As I’ve written before, this relationship-building is both tough to scale and to maintain, but is still mandatory practice.
But how long must you cultivate relationships with bloggers before you get up the gumption to make your pitch?
Quick answer: it depends. It depends on the blogger, it depends on the pitch. A brilliant and spot-on pitch might be enough to convince a blogger to give the PR pro a pass on the whole relationship-building thing. And anyway, some bloggers are still so pumped to be noticed (and pitched) in the 1st place, they don’t think twice about the fact that they’d never heard from the PR pro before. It depends, it depends.
Given this unchanging level of uncertainty about “how long is long enough,” it’s worth wondering if the ever-changing dynamics of PR, personal branding, and social interaction might evolve the concept of Blogger Relations.
As a reader of PR-Squared recently commented, “In today’s world of instant access to information, the relationship-building process doesn’t have to take as long as it used to…”
In other words, maybe it is becoming a little bit less important that the PR pro develop a day-to-day relationship with the blogger, and more important that they establish a personal brand that suggests to the targeted blogger that “this is someone I can trust.”
Think about it: the blogger gets a pitch. “Who is this person? Why are they pitching me? What’s their agenda?” A Google search reveals the PR person’s blog, their agency affiliation, their Twitter handle. “Hmm, she looks like a decent sort, actually; I can tell she means well, by looking at her interactions online. OK – now, what did she pitch me about, again?”
This personal brand potency is NOT an excuse to NOT develop a relationship: in all cases, a realtionship-building approach is absolutely, positively preferred!! After all, the PR pro can’t presume that the blogger will perform that Google search. And, dammit, the pitch better be dead-on relevant!
But, in our hustle-bustle to get results, a strong online presence for the PR person might short-circuit the need for a strong and lasting bond with every single blogger.
Before you suggest that this post (potentially) sends the message to some numbskull that they don’t have to develop a relationship so long as they “tweet a lot,” keep in mind that a.) I’m assaying some bleeding-edge thinking here, about how personal branding might change the nature of PR tactics … and b.) numbskulls don’t read this blog.
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RT @tdefren Blogger Relations: Will Personal Branding Change the Game? « PR-Squared [link to post]
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Todd,
Truly an interesting post.
I read an interview with Matthew Weiner, the creator of Mad Men. The interviewer asked how his lead character, Don Draper, would fare in today’s fragmented world of advertising. Weiner imagined Draper would perform quite well in the modern era. He described Draper as a natural storyteller and characterized social media as simply another venue to tell your story. I’ve thought about that comment quite a bit.
So here’s my point: Yes relationships and a “personal brand” matter. But I believe they help with bloggers in much the same way as they help with traditional journalists: they get your email opened, your phone call taken, or your message read. But in the end, it’s the quality of your story that matters most. I have to believe the relevance of the “pitch” and the news value of the content trumps all else. If not, then our industry has used its fancy 2.0 shoes to take a massive step backward.
Joe
First, love the turtles. So cute!
This is a very interesting observation and a thought-provoking post. My thoughts are twofold: one, how many PR pros are going to be comfortable developing a personal brand? For a very long time now, PR has been practiced largely in the background. The point of working with a client was to draw attention to the clients objectives *without* drawing any attention to the agency, and certainly not to the PR pro working on the account. The demand for transparency (whether logical and necessary or not) has started to move this needle a bit. Moving towards developing an individual PR personal brand is a very interesting twist to working with bloggers–it moves up the trust level as you state. But I can envision both PR firms and clients struggling with this, as it is quite a change from the way they are accustomed to running programs.
My second thought is that “blogger relations” will continue to evolve, and that perhaps prescribing *any* standard practices (short of the obvious, like read the blog and be on target with the pitch) isn’t really useful anymore. As the MSM business continues to contract, we’re seeing more journalists blog, there continues to be a blurring of the lines. Additionally, some bloggers have either abandoned or curtailed their blogging activity in favor of short-format, such as Twitter. The solution of developing a ‘personal PR’ brand is a very interesting one. The overarching answer to “what do we do” is now “it depends.”
What does this mean for agencies, which are now faced with the need to develop in-house “rock stars” and “garage bands”?
This is a very interesting discussion, and I hope that it gets the attention and commentary it deserves!
Jen
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Good, blogger relations/outreach and how personal branding may change the game in reaching out. [link to post]
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VERY interesting post from @tdefren on blogger relations and PR personal branding: [link to post]
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Todd, Joe:
You’ve both raised important points that need to be taken seriously by business owners as well as PR pros who hope to receive a nod via a prized blogger’s post.
Relationships are built on trust; readership is built on having interesting stories to tell and high value information to pass along. From both we draw the energy that fuels the highly coveted (but otherwise elusive) growth in one’s “circle of influence”.
Linda M. Lopeke
The SMARTSTART Coach
I’ve long believed that relevance trumps relationship. Relationships may get your email opened but they don’t translate into the blogger actually writing unless the pitch is good too.
A good, well targeted pitch that adds value to the blogger will be noticed even if they haven’t met you yet. Provided of course that it meets the general standard of good outreach (ie isn’t spammy and so on.)
Where are relationships really useful? On the occasion — and it will happen — that you or someone in your company screws up. If people know you, they are more likely to cut you some slack.
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RT @TDefren…Will Personal Branding Change the Game of Blogger Relations? [link to post]
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Great post – it’s really amazing how fast everything is changing. Only two years ago, this info might not have been true or even conceivable.
Great post, Todd. I think you are on to something with establishing your personal brand. I think that personal brand and relationships are tied quite closely together; who you associate with, tie yourself to, and link to and quote can all can give people a sense of who you are as well. Its important to remember that you can’t build your personal brand out on an island all by yourself. Not that you are copying someone else’s style, but you have to give people a reference point (especially when starting out).
PR Squared: Blogger Relations: Will Personal Branding Change the Game?
Todd Defren writes about how personal branding may affect blogger relations.