Blogger relations tips from Womma’s Andy Sernovitz

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Andy Sernovitz has an interesting post on ‘How to get a blogger to write about you’. As well his advice on the correct and incorrect approach he also has some comments on hiring a PR company to manage blogger relations. I’ve commented on Andy’s blog, but thought it was worth expanding on them here:

1. Hire a firm with proven, long-term, personal relationships with the bloggers

This sounds good until you start to analyse it and realise that it would be almost impossible for a client to actually find a public relations firm that had relationships with the specific bloggers it needs to have a relationship with. Most clients that we work with what us to advise them on what the relevant blogs for their industry, sector or products are. Sometimes the answer will be blogs that at least one person in our team knows well. In other cases we’ll be operating in a new space and the challenge and enjoyment is exploring it and really getting to understand it, before ever engaging in blogger outreach. To expect a client to find a public relations company that already has relationships with “the” client’s specific bloggers is asking the impossible.

What is right is that if you’re hiring a PR firm to do blogger relations then you must make sure it has done it before and that it’s team totally embraces, lives and breathes social media. Check out the team’s social media profiles and ‘rankings’ before you appoint them. Don’t fall for appointing a PR company that only superficially uses social media and has set-up blog and Twitter accounts etc just to show that they are ‘doing it’.

2. Supervise them very, very closely

I understand why Andy is saying this – there are so many examples of PR firms doing social media and blogs really badly. However, just supervising them closely isn’t going to make much difference as it assumes the client knows what to do. Most don’t, that’s why whey hire PR consultants as advisors, because the consultants have more experience and expertise. That’s the main point about hiring a consultancy is that they know more about it than you do.

3. Insist on complete disclosure of the relationship

On this one I totally agree with Andy. But it is no less than is required by trade and professional associations such as the Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR), Womma and WOM UK.

4. Do NOT let them delegate the job to a junior account exec

This is a very nice idea, but totally unrealistic as many clients might not have the budget to just have senior folk do the work. What you do need to do is assess the calibre of the whole team that will work on your account and look at what training and other quality control processes are in place.

5. Review every email that is being sent on your behalf

In my view this is just the same as point 2 and just doesn’t make sense. Indeed it could back fire very badly with the client trying to put some of the marketing hype back in, that the PR consultancy has taken out!

A good rule of thumb: Do not trust someone to pitch a blogger for you who has never eaten food with the blogger.

A good sound bite, but not such a good rule of thumb.

If your PR firm embarrasses your company, you take the reputation hit forever. They move on to the next client.

Too true, that’s why you need to have the right public relations company to advise you on social media and blogger relations.

Speaking at Marketing Live Conference in Bratislava

 
My next speaking gig is at the Marketing Live Conference in Bratislava. I’ll be speaking about word of mouth marketing and social media.

Don’t Panic Guide to Social Media

The Don’t Panic Guide to Social Media conference is having another outing and I’m on the bill. Conference producer Andy Wake says:

“The Don’t Panic Guide to Social Media takes place at the Bridgewater Hall in Manchester on Friday 5 December and will examine the strategic opportunities and benefits of new media and online PR alongside a wealth of case studies. Some of the hottest names in UK PR will be travelling to the city. Full details on the conference can be found as a PDF on the Don’t Panic website.”

Free Starbucks coffee if you vote today

Excellent word of mouth marketing initiative by a brand promoted using social media by Starbucks, who are saying “If you care enough to vote, we care enough to give you a free cup of coffee.” Simply brilliant. Will be even better if Starbucks use their global dominance to repeat the move for elections in other countries. It won’t look so brilliant if they don’t.

Via Media Culpa

Twitter cartoon: know when and when not to use social media

Thanks to Media Culpa, who got it from Rob Cottingham.

The Social Media Bottleneck

‘What does this mean’ I hear you cry? Well, the social media bottleneck is a situation that we’re currently in.

Social media is a relatively new field, maybe not for the early-adopters but for most people it’s a new strand to public relations. This is especially true for clients.

The social media bottleneck represents a group of early-adopters forming social media divisions or companies and then all vying for the small pool of clients who are quick to adapt and understand the benefits of social media. We face a situation where only two or three divisions/companies actually have exciting clients – the rest of the social media sphere have to scrap around for smaller, less exciting clients.

This could have one of two effects;

The two or three original break-through social media companies/divisions retain the majority of high calibre clients because they have the case studies and experience of working on social media projects with high-level clients leaving the remaining divisions/companies to either close or only retain small clients. This would (potentially) create a dualistic environment in which the few divisions/companies were able to charge unreasonable prices and offer a relatively pedestrian service. This would hinder the development of social media, who needs to advance a medium if you’re already making a lot of money from it?

OR

As social media develops and the original clients become seen as trailblazers, then less experimental clients become more willing to take their chances with social media divisions/companies therefore leveling the field and spreading the big clients more thinly over a wide range of divisions/companies. Thus ceasing the bottleneck and increasing the need for competitive advantage in social media companies, ensuring the client always receives the highest level of service for the best price. This outcome represents the ‘age of community’ and would help develop social media beyond it’s current capabilities.

Personally I believe (and hope) that the bottleneck eases and social media begins to represent what its ideology is based upon – community. It’s the only way in which we can truly progress and help clients to integrate themselves into social media – thus encouraging less-forthcoming clients to take ‘the risk’.

How important are you on Twitter?

Andrew Bruce Smith has blogged about Twitter Grader an interesting little tool that “measures the relative power of a Twitter user”:

Your grade is calculated using a combination of factors including:
* The number of followers you have
* The power of this network of followers
* The pace of your updates
* The completeness of your profile
* …a few others.

For the record I score 92 which means I score higher than 92 percent of the other user profiles that have been graded.

Here are the scores of some others you might know (with the hacks beating flacks almost every time!):

• Mike Butcher Grade: 99.2 - Rank #271
• Jemima Kiss Grade: 99.1 - Rank #326
• Stuart Bruce Grade: 92 - Rank #2,525
• David Brain Grade: 92 - Rank #2,557
• Tom Watson MP: Grade: 87 - Rank #4,085
• Guy Clapperton Grade: 67 - Rank #10,597

But we’re all crushed by the steamroller that is Barack Obama on Grade: 100.0 - Rank #2.

The team continues to grow at Wolfstar

Well after another busy week at Wolfstar we decided it was time to add another staff member to our ever increasing team.

I am delighted to welcome Jed Hallam, who joins us on an initial two-month temporary basis. Jed and I have spoken with each other on various social media platforms many times before but the clincher for employing him was when he created a new Facebook group called ‘Ten reasons for Wolfstar and Jed Hallam’.

It was the final point for me that really caught my attention. In his own words his final reason was this: “I very nearly hired a Barbershop Quartet to sing these reasons to the Wolfstar Team at head office… Seriously.”

To be honest I had several visions of these guys walking into the office and singing (to the tune of Mr Sandman): “Mr Bruce give me a job!”

I thought it was a brave and bold move and it did make me laugh. Welcome to the action Jed!

Jed joins our other recruit Natalie Smith, who has been working for us on a full time basis during the entire summer. Natalie is still studying public relations at university, so she is only working for us on a part-time basis now but she has been a bit of a revelation in our office. In fact, I think Stuart Bruce said it best when he described her as: “the best student we have ever had”.

I can also reveal that there will be another two staff appointments very soon.

Cross Posted on: Norton’s Notes

How to do PR in 2008

Shel Holtz has a great story that illustrates how really savvy PRs should be operating in today’s always connected society. It’s about a US magazine (MAD) and a big electronics retail chain (Circuit City). The magazine ran a spoof Circuit City ad (sort of sub-Private Eye style) and an executive at Circuit City took umbrage and order the mag to be cleared from the shelves and destroyed.

As you’d expect in today’s citizen journalist world the offending email was leaked and published in the blogosphere (on Consumerist). The story then took off and received 114 comments, an amazing 1935 Diggs (with a further 165 comments) and was picked up by AP.

But, this is where it gets really good. Instead of acting like a big, old, dumb corporate Jim Babb, a savvy PR in Circuit City’s corporate communications department sent a witty email that: a) Admitted the mistake; b) Tried to put it right; and c) Apologised.

The result was acclaim from The Consumerist and the apology received 63 comments – almost universally positive.

Shel quite rightly points out that the mistake should never have been made in the first place. It’s essential that potential reputation issues are run past the experts (i.e. the public relations people) and that every manager and indeed employee has a basic grasp of when they might need to take counsel.

The story illustrates how word of mouth marketing can be negative as well as positive, so it pays to get expert advice to help you manage it.