Blogging Culture – Still thriving?

It has occurred to me that while I invest a great deal of time into my clients social media activities and in my own social networking, I have really been letting my blog fall by the wayside.

I have been an avid blogger for 5 years now, with various blogs ranging from humour and satire, marketing, professional development, to fiction and poetry. I used to spend a tremendous amount of time updating my blogs. If I hadn’t updated in a week I would consider myself to be an awful slacker.

These days with Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, FriendFeed, FlickR, and the plethora of other social networking sites I am involved in, I find I just don’t have time to update my blog as often.

What I wonder, is do other people find this too? I know there are millions of blogs out there and a huge community of bloggers (which I still consider myself to be a member). Are people updating their blogs less and less these days now that there are so many social sites around? I’d be curious to see the numbers. You’d have to assume that with the majority of the engaged online population turning to social media communities, that blogging would be slowing down some.

Maybe that’s another post.

Tips For Working With Bloggers

Above: Showtime nails it by sending out these super creative weed bouquets to media agencies promoting the premiere of Season 3 of their hit series Weeds. This is the kind of thinking that needs to go into blogger pitches!

Working with bloggers is an area I concentrate on, and one thing I perpetually hear from bloggers is that companies and agencies often put little to no effort into their pitches. This is an area that marketers need to drastically improve upon. Most of the bloggers that are receiving these pitches are getting tons of requests from others, and they understand how valuable their blog coverage is so they’re not just gonna write a review for a company that doesn’t know their name or just fires them a poorly thought out email.

Common Examples:

1. Company X sends a package to a bunch of bloggers with a letter that reads “Dear Blogger” instead of taking the extra time to address them personally. Sure they sent the blogger some swag, but where’s the love?!
2. A mass email goes out to a harvested list of top bloggers, again no personalization… And nothing tangible to see or touch, no press release, no marketing material, just a “hey – would you like to review our product? because it’s awesome”…. Yeah… No it really isn’t. And opening an email that says “Dear First Name” is a major SNAFU.
3. X agency sends a personalized email to a blogger and blows sunshine up their ass with a load of crap about how great their blog is and what a good fit it is for their regional promotion in Toronto… Problem is, blogger is in Iowa. Duh!

So those are just 3 examples of major mistakes that happen all the time. I could rhyme off a dozen others, but the point here is not to point out stupidity, but more to help prevent it.

If you are planning on pitching a blogger, take some advice from a blogger and marketer.

• Take 5-10 minutes to read a few posts on their blog. Where are they from? What is their blog about? You know… Things you should probably know if you are gonna ask them to review your product.

• If you are going to send them an email, send them more than a standard mass email about how great your product is. Tell them WHY your product is a good fit for their blog.

• If you have a product – send it to them! I know this sounds stupid and obvious… But you’d be surprised!

• Don’t stalk them about whether they’ve made a decision, or when the post will be up. Instead include flexible date parameters in your pitch and trust that their post will fall between those dates.

• And finally, the MOST important one of all… Don’t try to influence their review!! Your opinion is BIAS, you think your product is great because you get paid to think that. Let the blogger express their own opinions and views about it. If they say something negative, don’t sweat it. Consider it market intelligence!

Remember bloggers are creative, opinionated, and intelligent people. They appreciate a little bit of thought and originality, and it could mean the difference between them being happy to review your product on their blog and them totally flaming you for your horrible etiquette.

Have fun out there!