So another week and another hands-on case study on the do’s and do not’s of blog relations.
While I was swanning around outside the office, a new interesting blog relations initiative hit the HTML.
It seems a PR person acting on behalf of Sun Microsystems targeted a number of bloggers to see if they might be interested in a Sun executive (more about that later) guesting on their blog.
Among the bloggers targeted were: Mitch Kapor (Creator of Lotus 1-2-3 and founder of the OSA Foundation), Dan Gillmor (San Jose Mercury News), Hiawatha Bray (Boston Globe) and Jon Udell (Infoworld). There were clearly many more but these are the ones we know at this point.
Well on the upside, Sun’s PR is looking at how blogs can influence, however the downside includes some useful PR lessons.
First of all well done to Sun on identifying the potential of blogs for communicating with your audience.
Negative marks however for spamming a wide range of well known media-related bloggers with the same message
Further negative marks for pitching a “guest column” on the blogs in question when clearly those blogs don’t do “guest columns”
So what are the takeaways? Here’s a few immediate ones that come to mind. (Phil Gomes has covered this very well).
Know your target. Don’t pitch for a “guest column” on a blog where they clearly don’t have “guest columns”. Read the blog, get an understanding for the author.
Know your media. If you pitch bloggers be aware that other bloggers may find out. Therefore widespread mail merges posing as targeted pitches do not work One-to-One marketing does not necessarily mean an effective mail merge.
You are in the water. As soon as you begin to pitch bloggers, there is a definite chance that your pitch (not your client) will be publicized. I was once told not to put anything in an e-mail I wouldn’t be happy to see re-produced in court or sent on a postcard. Your pitches should be similiarly defendable.
Learn. Mistakes are fine as long as you learn from them and improve the next time.
Experiment. If your client is willing to put the time aside to “guest” on another blog, and if they have good relevant thoughts. Why not help them get their own blog up and running? In my experience that’s one of the very best ways to reach A-list bloggers.
By the way, I’m not being holier than thou here. I think it’s great Sun’s PR folks are using blogs for PR. If you are not, you should be thinking about it and learning from the experience of others.
By the way from reading the posts (above) concerning this pitch, the Sun Executive is readily identifiable. You got to love Google.
Murphy's Law 