Have You Updated Your Pitch Lately?

When you look at the social media space and the way that agencies are choosing to get in the game (or not!), it's clear that PR is way ahead of their brethren in advertising. There's no surprise there: advertising is more of a design-based practice, while PR is more about content and communicating directly with those who can help tell your story. Social media and PR are made for each other.

But social media doesn't come naturally to everyone. Bloggers are (sometimes) being lumped in with journalists as simply another mouthpiece. Bloggers are a different breed and they need to be thought of differently. Bloggers can be influencers who have committed audiences - and this is the important part - who trust the bloggers and believe what they read on blogs. But in some cases, agencies don't understand the nuances between pitching a journalist and pitching a blogger.


Chip Griffin at CustomScoop has written a white paper called The 7 Deadly Sins of Pitching Bloggers (pdf). You should look at the file for the full scoop, but the main takeaways are:

1. Failing to be transparent - Wal-Mart learned this the hard way
   
2. Appearing to bribe - Microsoft and their laptops-for-bloggers campaign comes to mind here
   
3. Lacking your own blog - blogging is as blogging does. You need to connect with the people in their world
   
4. Making a bad pitch - personalize your pitch, understand the space, don't overpromote
   
5. Being scripted - be natural and conversational in your approach
6. Forgetting everything is "on the record"
   
7. Making claims that can be easily disproved - especially in this digital era, where every tidbit of information is available on the Web.

The bottom line is: it's all about common sense: be authentic, know your audience, engage them they way they prefer to be engaged.