Blogger Relations is Building Relations

As Mike points out, this should be filed under ‘no-brainer new media tactics’, but I continue to be shocked by how many really clueless pitches I receive:

Assuming for a minute you’ve done some research and homework, you’ve identified who you consider to be the influencers, err bloggers, in your market and now you’re preparing to contact, err pitch, them with your news, err announcement. Before you click send, pause and ask yourself this:

Does this person know me? Have we corresponded in the past? If yes, game on. If no, game over.

Alright, that’s a bit extreme, it’s not game over, but you’re shooting yourself in the foot by missing a critical first step — introduce yourself.

It’s a cliche, but media relations is about relationships. The same goes for blogger relations. Tim Bray’s recent post confirms this:

Any email that lands in my inbox that’s written in marketing-ese and I don’t know who sent it, that’s spam. I conclude that PodTech needs some help; there’s something deeply, um, what’s the word I’m looking for here, to describe announcing a move in the blogging space by spamming press releases? Let’s use “wrong”

It’s not rocket science–before you contact a blogger, read their blog and comment constructively.