“the problem is that currently there isn’t really a reliable way to figure out exactly which bloggers are the most suitable to target with specific information of interest.”

Why couldn’t someone just go to Google Alerts, Technorati, and Topix, do a search for the keywords of interest (competitor names, product names, category, etc.) get the RSS feeds, and monitor the news for a few months to surface relevant bloggers. Then visit the blog to see if there’s PR policy badge. Seems like you’re going to get a lot better prospect list than relying on the categories that Vocus/Cision has squeezed bloggers into.

I understand many will say, “There’s just no budget!!!” but if it’s a question of a) professional standards (this is the bar for what’s expected by bloggers), and b) results (mass pitching doesn’t yield as much coverage), then this isn’t a reality being created and imposed on clients by PR agencies, but by the nature of bloggers.

So if a client can’t pony up, perhaps they should focus their PR budget elsewhere.

Craig, I think that a blogger that gets info from external sources – rather than digging the info up themselves – is not automatically a bad or biased blogger. A good blogger – just like a good journalist – will know what to do with the info and how to incorporate the info.

Jeremy, that’s a good point, however, the problem is that currently there isn’t really a reliable way to figure out exactly which bloggers are the most suitable to target with specific information of interest. And with marketing budgets being what they are the stark reality is that there is no way to do a thorough search through all bloggers to find only the ones that may be pertinent to a specific message. This doesn’t mean that mass pitching is good or should be done, but it might put things into better perspective.

The problem is that a lot of mis-pitches are the result of building a list and mass mailing to everyone without any clue about who they are or what they /really/ write.

We’re getting ready to launch our new service and deciding which blogs to target can be quite a task and the last thing we want to be accused of is sending off faceless impersonal “spam” to bloggers.

This insanely simple idea, let’s us know at a glance… This should be supported widely – I think the badges need a little work though – lol.

Here’s the thing about traditional media… we know what they write about (cover, talk about, etc) because they make no bones about telling us up front. Publication or program statements delineate what is discussed, what topics are covered, what aspects are of interest. Journalists have beats that can be very focused and/or specialized and it isn’t very hard to figure out who deals with what. (Though that being said, we still see too much poorly executed pr that doesn’t understand the link between what’s being pitched and who it’s being pitched to!)

With bloggers, we rarely have that kind of pre-determination of focus. It’s more of a game of ‘hunt and peck’. How much easier would it be if bloggers made a definitive statement about what they are interested in writing about–or to keep on topic with your post, what they are interested in receiving information about. This seems onerous, I realize, but it would go a long way to improving relations in both directions.

When you consider just how varied the topics that a blogger may comment on, it just makes that much more sense to have something in the same vein of ‘pitch’/'no pitch’ buttons… “Info I’m interested in”.

That way a blogger can still talk about all the various things s/he wants to talk about – personal, general interest and professional – but should only be getting info that they want to use. And if they don’t get the right info, then they’ve got every right to be ticked off!

John.