Blogger Outreach - it's not Your Program, it's their Content

A couple of weeks ago we discussed when it was a good idea to include bloggers in your media outreach. I'm using this conversation to also share some important information about the way marketers still relate to customers.

Still too many continue to think in terms of impressions for their program.

It's not, not even a little. And please stop thinking about blogs as yet other media properties where you can get to eyeballs. Nothing could be further from the truth.

If online media publications are places where people get their information, and many have demonstrated they can indeed create a loyal following, blogs are most certainly not just that.

The most successful blogs do it

If you take a look at the more successful and read blogs, you will find they have something in common, no matter the topic. What do Seth Godin, Skellie, Dan Pink, Pamela Slim, Leo Barbauta, Maki, Fred Wilson, Tim O'Reilly, Gretchen Rubin, Chris Brogan, and Kathy Sierra (we miss you) have in common? Why do people subscribe to them and share their posts?

Aside from each decidedly having a most definite point of view and clearly sharing from what they know and what they're working on generously, these professionals provide unique content to their readers.

It doesn't stop there though.

The reason why more and more people add them to their daily or weekly attention list is that they help their readers become smarter, market better, be more productive, create and have better experiences, sell more, and even find happiness.

In other words they give power back to the community.

Content to connection

Does your content do that?

It's not all about the offer, you know? That's a one night stand that can get some in the door, all expectant for that rocking experience.

What's beautiful about the social Web is that there can be conversation without offer, that in more instances than I can count here, it shows how it's really about the connection made, no matter how it happens.

Search is aided by social tags and links, people who've found the content useful and want to signal it to their friends, pass it on.

What are you doing with your cognitive surplus?

You might have heard about the cognitive surplus.

Clay Shirky talks about when we used to watch TV as a pastime. Watching TV kept people occupied for hours at a time with programming and yes, ads. But if people do like to consume, which is good news for marketers, they also like to produce - and share.

There's an opportunity with that.

If you find every single way to give power back to those users, to carve out a small fraction of that massive cognitive surplus, to perhaps do something good with it... the possibilities are unimaginable.

To me the genie is out of the bottle, you cannot put the mouse back, people have found ways to express what they know, who they are, and what they want - and it may not be your program.

Those bloggers you may be trying to reach with your pitch know that. They understand about the cognitive surplus and giving power away. They know that if they help their readers become smarter, be more productive, even feel inspired, if they help lift the whole community up, everyone wins. 

What can you do to get there?

Comments

[Adam Singer]

Great points Valeria. I also like to think of blogs not as media, but as people. Forget the platform for a minute and think "how would I get these *people* talking?" When you answer that question honestly, you'll know how to connect with them.

[Jared O'Toole]

Bloggers are slightly different then media in this way. A newspaper needs new stories everyday, they will write about a story just because its a story. Bloggers are much more focused on helping their community. The pitch has to be different because bloggers connect in a different way with their readers. Truly embrace how your content or story will help all of the people that read that blog.

[Jerry Smith]

Giving real value away is everything, particularly in a blog (and on social media too although that seems challenging for many!). People can see through sales pitches and the pushing of product since we have been exposed to so much of that. I always thought that if someone read a blog, got some value even if they never worked with you, then objective acheived

[Stuart Foster]

If you are reading a blog on a regular basis and decide to pitch them...you damn well better have some value to add. Don't waste your accrued pitching juice either. Ensure relevance, value and explain the clear benefits of using your pitch for a post.

[Maria Reyes-McDavis]

This is such a great post. The idea that blogs are not simply another media channel, but living/breathing extensions of the human beings behind them is a critical point (and one I hope everyone takes away after reading this.) I believe this "understanding" can be and should be extended to much of the social web -- for greater impact whether pitching, marketing, or communicating.

Good stuff!

[Valeria Maltoni]

@Adam - thank you. Good point about bloggers relating more on an individual and human level, which is why many write from passion.

@Jared - I try to think of a new story every day, too. All kidding aside, I get what you're saying here.

@Jerry - the whole reason why someone would make the time today is that they do it because they want to. It's the same for many products and services, you'd really want to learn more. There are plenty of choices and we have already quite enough, don't you think? Maybe it's because I'm on a more minimal kick recently.

@Stuart - the only pitches I got that were worth my time so far were not even pitches at all. They were conversations. People engaging with the content, sharing of themselves. Until we measure the wrong things, like clicks and clippings instead of relationships and changes in behavior...

@Maria - I like your energy, thank you. Why not engage with those who want to engage with us? Exactly.

[atul chatterjee]

I haven't followed blogs for long. some blogs talk a lot about products, others try and educate readers whether it is about products or otherwise. I think it is this willingness to 'give' which immediately sets these blogs apart. The giving is in terms of learning, some practical advices etc.
There are blogs in which the blogger is so full of himself.

[Mom101]

Bloggers (or at at least the best ones) are also, at their heart, story tellers. They are looking to share great stories - about experiences, culture, products, life. If you cannot give them a story that fits their blogging model, perhaps you shouldn't be reaching out to bloggers but buying an ad.

Lovely post.