You Can't Phone A Friend

Recently a PR company called me up asking for some help pitching ideas to bloggers.  They were perfectly nice people doing a perfectly good job for a perfectly decent client.  But they were deeply misguided in their approach.  I spent a good - and enjoyable - few years in traditional PR including a lot of time talking to journalists of all creeds about clients.  And when it works - as in front page story on a national newspaper - it works really well.  However, IMHO, directly applying the tactics of the old-school to a new social world is pretty pointless.  Firstly, because it's wrong.  It's one thing to spend time preparing a good story and then finding the right correspondent on the right publication with the right interests who might be genuinely interested in your angle. That's one professional collaborating with another to mutual benefit - which is the juice that makes the world go round.  However, it's something entirely different to pitch a story to an individual who happens to be writing about their passions online, in the hope that they can be converted from soapbox to loudhailer.   That's at best inappropriate and at worst pimping.  Secondly, because it won't scale.  In reality there are very few professional...

...or even semi-professional bloggers around at all - let alone in specific categories.  For the very simple reason that 99.99 per cent of blogs don't pay and they all take a lot of effort to keep going.  Blog power is from The Because Effect as described by Doc Searls - not The Cash Effect.  So in most cases blogger relations campaigns will be missing a key aspect - bloggers.

Thirdly, because it's totally missing the point.  Old school networks consisted of the right tie and a clever handshake.  They might have been very influential but they weren't exactly efficient.  The entry point was family relations, a nod, a wink.  Which meant pitching an individual was very effective. Today's networks consist of rocket-powered algorithms.  Just like the old school they are very influential but their relational databases are of the technical flavour.  And it's this ruthless differential which means pitching individuals is pointless. 

These days you have to pitch the machine - not the person.  You do this by putting your views online and making it as relevant to the medium as you possibly can.   Then the network does the heavy-lifting by sending bots and algorithms into supercharge and working out what people are finding interesting about your message - all by themselves.  Only by tapping into this process can the views, opinions, stories and ideas that fuel PR become part of the mega-network that is the web.

That's not to say that there won't be influential people online who can give your message a little extra whuffie along the way.  But that's all tactical - you can't build a campaign around them.  Online you aren't looking for one or two votes from the few.  You want thousands of votes from the many.  And the many don't respond to funny handshakes - they want meaning, passion and heartfelt belief.  They want to be moved and to join you.  They want to share in what you are doing, however briefly, and however humble the gesture.  People want to feel you are talking about them - not at them.  That you are showing them real service - not the lip variety.

The old-school don't control the new networks - we do.  You no longer have the option of ringing a friend.  You have to ask the audience.

Comments

[Simon]

James - you speak a lot of sense. But given that social media represents the long tail (in a certain reading of it), do you not think that marketers and PR people could find the niche blogger with the scalable audience who displays a passion for your product/category/service? There would still need to be a conversation needed to tailor to the blogger's needs (as I guess was the case with the newspaper reporters) but this conversation will be one-to-few rather than one-to-many. The bloggers would then use their networks to distribute the story - readers may, or may not, pick up on it.

Evidently this won't work in all cases for all brands but, to me at least, it seems workable in some instances.

Best
Simon

[James Cherkoff]

Hi Simon and thanks for your comment. I take your point but I wonder about this idea of category specific bloggers. In the grand scheme such people are incredibly rare. What is much more common is people talking about their lives in a random fashion. However, if a company puts some social content up on line eg a blog, with a view expressed in a sympathetic way, then those same numerous, random folk may come and give you specific views. In short, you need to participate before you can play.

[Simon]

I absolutely take your point, and it is improbable that one would find many popular blogs dedicated to the latest washing powder for instance. But many blogs are dedicated to hobbies/passions/professions - whether it is interactive marketing, jogging or biscuits. There is certainly no harm in exploring the blogosphere. For instance - I have no idea how it was launched - but Nike+ would surely have gained a favourable reaction on blogs dedicated to running.

But whether a relationship could sustain itself over time and across different product and services is something I am less confident in.

[James Cherkoff]

Thanks Simon, indeed, I think it's vital to explore the blogospphere and the people who hang out in it - because there's so much interesting stuff happening! As you say I'm sure Nike could, do and will find many running groups that are interested in them and build relationships around them.

However, when it comes to longevity and scale, I don't think you can make blogger relations pay in the same way that traditional PR does with professional journalists.

Increasingly, I think the best way to find people who are interested in what you are doing is just to put yourself out there in a way that suits the medium and let Google et al do the rest!

[james warren]

wise words mr cherkoff, very wise words indeed. as someone still toiling away at the PR coalface, I can confirm you are 100% correct. pitching to bloggers doesn't work, period. digital PR (in deliberately simplistic terms) is now about helping clients create content that's so appropriate to the community they're trying to talk to that the community finds it and shares it itself

[James Cherkoff]

Thanks James, interesting times we live in....