MENTAL BLOCK ON BLOGS?
Blogs are a growing phenomenon that can’t be ignored when designing a PR campaign – and we have discussed this in previous newsletter editions.
There are even sites, like www.smorty.com that try to get the blogging community blogging on your behalf.
But it seems that although most businesses agree that blogs are valuable, there is much uncertainty surrounding their effective inclusion in a PR campaign.
An international survey of people implementing PR campaigns found that while the importance of blogs is recognised, most don’t know how to integrate them in their planning.*
This includes thematic blogs relevant to your business, competitors and citizen journalism projects.
The survey found that the three biggest challenges when using blogs in PR campaigns are:
- Having time to blog regularly (83%)
- Reacting to comments/feedback from the audience (83%)
- Creating content and ideas for posts (80%)
The three biggest opportunities associated with blogs are:
- Environmental scanning, keeping a finger on the pulse (81%)
- Fast reaction time to issues (74%)
- Opportunity for authentic, personal communications (77%)
Here are three pieces of advice we can offer when looking at blogs for your PR campaign…
Lie and you will ‘die’
The first thing you need to know about using blogs as part of a PR program, is that deception is a huge “no, no”. Blogging communities are usually rather tight knit. Some people have been contributing to blogs and commenting on discussion forums for many years, and they are familiar with most of the other regular bloggers. When someone else comes onto the scene and pretends to be a ‘real’ blogger, while secretly trying to push their own business/product/service – the blogging community is quick to identify you, publicly scathe you and possibly bar you from contributing to their sites. Never pose as something you’re not.
Treat respected bloggers as real media targets
A blogger is sort of like a journalist (in fact, some of them are journalists). If you’ve identified a great blog that you know would reach your target audience, then it is essentially one of your media targets – just like a newspaper or magazine. Just like with any other contact, it’s important that you’ve watched the content on their blog and you have an understanding of the writer’s opinions and what they find interesting. Your aim should be to develop a relationship that is based on research of their site and your sound knowledge of the topic you want to approach them about. Bloggers don’t want to be ‘pitched to’, but if you have an interesting opinion to share, or you have something valuable you think they might be genuinely interested in (eg. a new research report that addresses the issues they write about often) then personally and genuinely approach them about it.
Provide feedback and comments
Putting forward comments on blogs and forums, or responding to other people’s comments about your product/service/business is important because the blogging community respect those who contribute regularly, honestly and selflessly. Remember to be non-aggressive, tactful and helpful but also keep things interesting and be opinionated – the aim is to build credibility, trust and generate rich discussion, not to make online enemies or engage in a blatant sales pitch.
*The survey was conducted by Philip Young (University of Sunderland, UK), Swaran Sandhu (University of Lucerne, Switzerland) and Ansgar Zerfass (University of Leipzig, Germany) at the end of 2006.
