I think I'm in an ideal position to talk about bloggers in relation to public relations, since I'm a blogger AND a PR rep writing on a public relations firm blog.Over the past few years, PR professionals started to recognize blogs and web sites as outlets worth pitching. But we were thinking of web sites as online newspapers and bloggers as online newspaper columnists. This was a problem because:
1) Blogs and web sites are very different from non-online media. Interactivity, hyperlinking, unlimited space and multimedia make this medium very different from traditional outlets, and it means that online outlets are more flexible and the benefits of making them aware of your brand are different, and often better.
2) Bloggers need to be pitched like bloggers. That is, your pitch needs to be extraordinary, unique, pertinent, web-friendly and probably delightful.
(No doubt something similar happened when TV news arose and publicists learned that pitches had to be short, super timely and have video possibilities.)
Web sites and blogs have more variety than TV news networks and even more variety than TV shows. The entry barrier is so low that you find web sites about everything.
I'm not going to reveal here the secrets of how to maximize the use of bloggers and web masters; Seth Godin already has. If there is anything that Godin hates, it's mass email blasts of press releases, and if there is anything he loves, it's making the news, not spinning it.
"Many in the flak community are trying to turn blogs into just another media outlet. They're not. Instead, they are a terrific home for the remarkable. Make stuff worth talking about first. Then talk about it."
Read the rest of Godin's thoughts on his blog -- which amazingly shows up in the top ten Google results for the word "blog" -- here.
-Adrianne (@msfener)
