Who cares about your news?

I mean who wants to hear from you? How is the information going to help them be smarter, do their job better, sell more? One of the most frequent pitches I get says something like "we thought your readers would enjoy to hear about 'x'".

Would they? How do you know? We had an interesting conversation in the comments at John Cass blog a couple of weeks ago when he posted about a pitch he received from Gary Vaynerchuk's publicist.

In the comments to that post, I wrote:

Neville and John, you now make me feel special as I received the very same email on June 5. I was going to write a post about the fact that media "celebrities" - and Gary qualifies as one - might really have a chance to change the game on this whole social media thing with execution.

Passion is high on my list, but I don't think that's why I got the email pitch. I do understand that scale gets challenging once you go beyond a certain threshold. [Sorry to miss you at Mediabistro Circus, Gary, I was speaking on the same day. Congratulations on your daughter.]

My other thought was that perhaps a few bloggers might enjoy spending time at Gary's site. Going back to what both John and Neville said in this thread, it's not be about generating traffic opportunities for a personal site... but it might be about making connections with a different community and Gary has a very loyal community.

Just brainstorming here. Because of my passion and involvement with Fast Company, I've met many authors over the years and helped those who wanted to connect with live events - we did two for Dan Pink, one with Ben McConnell, two with Bill Jensen, one with Bill Taylor and Polly LaBarre... I could go on. Only on one occasion, the author, who will thus go unnamed, felt he wanted to get paid to come and promote his book. All of this is in my blog bio, within reach.

Reach means different things to different people and connection depends on the ability to find that out. Good discussion, thank you all

Gary's response was brief:

Thnx Val u hit the tone as those were many of the things I was hoping to do, in hind site I picked the wrong of communication, I should have made a video..and I will :)

Gary was being brief. But there is one indication of whether you care about someone or not - spelling their name right. For those reading (and pitching), I absolutely dislike any name shortening or mishandling, like using the Anglicized version. But that was not going to be my point.

You see that in my comment I make a couple of very specific suggestions to Gary. Do you think anyone followed up since June 15? Not a peep. When you're asking others to care about you, do you ever consider for a moment who cares about your news?

Stop trying to count number of impressions and start working on making an impression, being memorable. We discussed connections yesterday. What if I have only a few readers here, but a very large network off line? What if I speak to or know the one person who will sneeze your news to the whole world?

When you pitch someone, stay away from the obvious mass emailing - just because you can, it does not mean it will give you the best results. Also, fewer and more targeted sites or relationships may open you more doors. This may not be the case for Gary - who doesn't like Gary Vaynerchuk? It will be your case in similar circumstances.

When is it a good idea to include bloggers in your media outreach?

1. If you can pass the straight face test - this matters to their readers
2. You have an integrated approach - part of the story fits the new media landscape like a glove and you have something unique to offer for that one media property
3. Their traffic is your audience - chances are a blogger's traffic is much more targeted than a magazine's, but more fragmented
4. You intend to dedicate time and resources to being authentic - cutting-edge, leader, authority in whatever it is you do tend to sound fake to someone who writes for passion
5. You're open to a two-way dialogue and accept that ideas may come back to you as a result of the conversation - do you have a plan to follow up with that specific person?

How do you figure out who to pitch?

• Do your homework. Read their work - not just the first three words of the last post so you can tack them on the beginning of your email, please. We can read, too and if your email doesn't make sense you've lost your chance. I provided an example of a good pitch here.
• Get to know them, develop relationships. Aren't you in public relations? What happened to the "relations" part? Or do you think your job is just to send out lots of emails? What is better, several ignores and relegation to the spam folder, or a few quality (for the blogger) conversations?
  
• Make it easy for them. Whatever happened to the much hailed social media release? Why are PR agencies not using that? It works [hat tip Shel Holtz]

Also, if you spend time online, you will know the tone, and topics that resonate. People share a lot - on Twitter, FriendFeed, Delicious, etc. Maybe you feel this as you're reading - we've been over this before. Why beat a dead horse? Well, it's not old until it's done and today very few, not so many, ok maybe one and they're my cousin, do it.

How do you measure success?

Please don't tell me you count impressions or media by the number of readers I have. Don Bartholomew has it right, let's not get carried away by the numbers of followers or readers. Relevance is a very much fragmented concept in social media. Ask yourself: what numbers are real?

[image of yesterday news by Zarco Drincic]

Comments

[Mike Riley - Technihub]

Valeria,

Very good insight. However, I really think there is a fine line. You will hear just about everything when it comes to how people want to be pitched. Some say just tell me what you want without all the extra stuff. Others will say that your pitch is too abrupt. For example, you stated "Do you think anyone followed up since June 15?" I believe others would be bothered by a follow up by saying "why do people continue to pitch me after I ignored them the first time?" I think two of the things you mentioned are really the most important tips and that is "Do your homework" and "develop relationships." If you really know the person, have followed them, built a relationship, you will know the right way to pitch them. The other thing is that in social media circles you really should give first before you expect anything back. As a side note for how people react to differently read this Friendfeed conversation from Robert Scoble: http://friendfeed.com/scobleizer/c93a294b/i-really-hate-im-people-get-on-there-and-ask-me-how It shows how just a simple "How are you" is accepted by other people. You will see reactions across the spectrum. Thanks for your article I enjoyed reading it.

Mike Riley
@technihub

[Bruce Christensen]

Who cares about my news?
This has been on my mind a lot this year as I work to share my thoughts and passion.

Patience and will are tested when what you want to discuss is not going to be on peoples minds until the last couple of months of the year.

Even so, I'm convinced that developing relationships is the value of every conversation. These new web-based relationships build the confidence to press forward with patience.

Along the way, I am meeting great people and learning a lot about myself. That is probably the best news of all.

[Valeria Maltoni]

@Mike - excellent points! Indeed there are also good days when we lean forward and can handle more and not so good days when we may ignore the emails of friends because we're so busy. The reason why I did not respond to the first pitch was the turn off from mass mailing. I think Gary Vee rocks, but I also think everyone does in their ways and since our paths have crossed I would have preferred a more personal approach, even from the publicist. Yup, I follow Scoble and agree with the reason why you shared this thread as demonstration.

@Bruce - in another post I talked about the fact that we pay attention to what's already on our mind. But, recognition plays a role. If I already know you and we've had discussions, I may be more inclined to provide you with information that would help you time your requests better. Good comment!

[Peter Korchnak]

I was surprised to get Gary's pitch email, too, and flattered. Maybe I'm too polite, but I responded with a few ideas to help Gary out, even though the match between my blog (sustainable marketing) and the book seemed weak and even though mine is still a very small blog (subscribers in low triple digits). Judging from the response lag, it did seem like a mass mailing, and I'm not sure I'll participate after all. I will continue following his production, I'm just not sure it's a good match or whether my readers will care about his news.

The "Who cares?" question has been very helpful to me in writing my content or doing my presentations. If everyone did that and answered it honestly and truthfully, we'd probably see much less crap content out there (and trust me, I've produced my share of crap) and much better relationships.

[Jon Buscall]

What this illustrates is just how important it is to put yourself in the position of your target audience before you send.

You get a sense of the persona of a blogger by reading their blog. I think you have to convey that you're familiar with their work and who they are when you make a pitch. The emphasis should be on the "you" not the "I".

[steve cunningham]

Valeria - I think you bring up some great points, and also highlight one of the biggest constraints of social media - scalability. In the "old world", scalability is the patron saint of marketing. In the "new world", anything that isn't a direct, personal connection is derided as crude and offensive.

When all is said and done, I think the question is going to remain just as it always has, and that is "how can I create the greatest results with this effort?"

So, I take issue with what you said about "celebrities" being able the change the game in execution. Mass campaigns will stop when they cease being more effective than putting the effort into really understanding each and every media outlet you reach out to.

That means the power is in the hands of the receivers of these messages, not the senders. So when the vast majority of bloggers ignore requests like Gary's, or even call him out on them, that's when the game will change.

I'm also pretty sure you know all this - I just wanted to make the distinction about where the power to change things lies - it's with people like you on the receiving end of these pitches.

[Valeria Maltoni]

@Peter - it's an important question and it keep me honest, most of the time. The reason why I did not answer Gary's publicist email is that I knew it was a mass mailing and not a two way conversation. To me, you offer as much as Gary does, his popularity notwithstanding, just in a different way. Popularity is not an indication of inherent specialness and something decided by the followers. Mostly, it ends up being right place, right time.

@Jon - the funny thing is that I have as much passion as Gary does. It just manifests differently.

@Steve - volume doesn't go very well with trust. To clarify - the pitch wasn't offensive to me, it just was ineffective, especially when I was the one offering the most suggestions in the comments of John's post and the one getting the short end of the answers there in the end. Hustling is something I'm very familiar with and don't need to brush shoulders with others to know its rewards. Kindness, generosity, and the ability to be there for someone are more impressive qualities to me. But I would not want to make generalizations.

[John Cass]

To me it is all about execution. Doing your homework and attempting a dialogue is going to have a greater chance of success.

Not sure I agree with the idea that social media engagement is un-scalable. Ever since Dell, I think that company has proven that it is possible to connect with a lot of people (millions) with a fairly small staff. I think it is more of a matter of a company not understanding the potential ROI, and investing in themselves.

Lastly Valeria, do you ever get the sense that people listen to only half of what you say, and understand only 25%? :-)

[Andrew Rosenthal]

Valeria - thanks for the post. We are preparing to reach out to a small set of influencers whom we identified over the past few weeks. I just sent your post to my colleagues and we'll use it as the basis for our team huddle. The blogger perspective, as well as the links to the social media release, are going to be helpful on our path toward engaging in conversation, and not just pitching. Thanks, as always,

-Andrew

[Valeria Maltoni]

@John - I'm getting the sense that Dell plateaued a little. I do admire that team, however we will not have real progress with social media until there is true integration of these tools with the business, and not just on a remedial basis. As for comprehension and assimilation of information, we all have different speeds/times. For some, it drives the point home when they experience it directly.

@Andrew - glad to be of service. Funny how the social media release has not really been done - too much work, I suspect. It's far easier to send a bunch of emails without worrying that most of them get trashed.