Blogger Outreach: Sian Meades

Posted by on August 23, 2010 · 2 Comments 

Why are we still talking about Blogger Outreach?

Yep, this topic is completely over discussed in online PR circles but we, as an industry, are still doing a horrific job at maintaining any sort of good relations with those who write online.

Nothing illustrated this more to me than seeing even Gary Andrews driven to despair last month [PR's Own Goal]. But when I talk to many PRs they simply just don’t believe how badly and how frequently bloggers are being contacted – making us all, quite frankly, look like numpties.

The #fixPR series tries to give the good with the bad, the fix with the gripe, and I’ve come up with a novel way of doing this. I’ve asked some of my favourite bloggers, in their own words, to tell you about  blogger outreach from a blogger’s point of view. This will be a series over the next couple of weeks and they all make FASCINATING reading.

First up is…

Sian Meades

Sian Meades is the founder and editor of  interiors and lifestyle website Domestic Sluttery and the new fashion blog A Change of A Dress. Not just content with owning the prettiest corner of the web she also writes for Europe a la Carte, Venere.com and Lastminute.com and has previously written for AOL’s personal finance site Wallet Pop.

As you can imagine the sheer number and range of site Sian’s involved with make for quite the Inbox. Over to Sian.

1. Do PRs contact you regarding your site?

Yes, I probably get about 30-50 emails a day from PRs.

2. Should they?

Yep, we welcome the contact and need to know about new (relevant) products and Cool Things. Sometimes it’s mass mailouts (often skimmed through) other times it’s something targeted. I’m not fussed about either, but I’m more likely to pay attention to the latter.

3. How do you prefer to be contacted?
Email. Hate initial PR phone calls. My blog is image led, if you haven’t sent me the images, I really can’t picture what you’re talking about. I’d rather see the stuff first. More than happy to have conversation, but a sales pitchy phone call won’t work. I’d also rather every single email / social networking site I use wasn’t bombarded with the same pitch. This happens daily.

4. What’s the worst “outreach” you’ve ever received?
Aside from a press release saying obesity was catching? Someone ‘selling’ their event by their invite list.

5. Three things you HATE about being contacted by PRs

  • When they admit that their product ‘probably isn’t right for my blog‘
  • If they’ve never read my blog. And they don’t use my name. Or worse, call me Siobhan/Sean/Dave (all of those have happened this week)
  • Starting off excited, but then losing interest if you have questions, need follow up information, anything that’s too difficult and won’t get them coverage right away. But are calling you every ten minutes to check you ‘got their email‘. Which really translates as ‘you’ve had our product for five minutes, why haven’t you written about it?‘

6. Three bits of advice if a PR is going to contact a blogger

  • Read the blog. I run a women’s blog, so we get put on every women’s mailout. If I’ve started ignoring irrelevant emails, I’ll ignore the ones that might work for us too
  • Don’t send me more than three press releases in one day. One after the other. That are all in pdf form so I can’t go directly to that really nice vase you’ve sent me an image of
  • If you ignore my request for more images, I can’t write about your product. You’re wasting my time and I’m writing about your competitors instead

7. Complete this sentence: PR/Blogger relations could be improved by…
Good manners. I wrote about that in Is Good PR Really Rocket Science?

8. Anything else you’re dying to get off your chest about PR? Good or Bad [We like good things too!]
I don’t think it’s all PRs, and I hate that bloggers suggest that it is. If a PR company I want to deal with isn’t targeting me in the right way, I’ll email them and tell them. Most of the time they’re responsive. It makes me mad that bloggers take the high road. We don’t tell people their mailouts aren’t working so they don’t know. We just moan about it on Twitter.

I enjoy working with good PRs, they make my job easier, I want to work with them more. I don’t have to wait three days for images. That’s key with bloggers who work for free as well – if a PR is a problem, it’s just not worth their free time. There aren’t many people who’s clients are so good that can get away with treating other people badly. There are some agencies that always get it right (happy to give you a list), and they’re the ones I send cakes to.

Crib notes:

  • As always, relationships matter, good PRs who listen and respond to their contacts when needed will be able to work with bloggers when they need to
  • Don’t badger bloggers with your pitch or requests for when coverage is appearing – you’re on a deadline, not the blogger
  • Small things matter, a targeted email, getting some one’s name right (!) and responding to questions go a long way to humanising the much maligned PR

Can’t get enough? Read the full set of Blogger Outreach interviews.

Filed under Best Practice, blog · Tagged with , ,

About Darika

  • http://twitter.com/munkyfonkey Paul Armstrong

    Good stuff Lady D.

  • Christina McDermott

    An excellent blog post – Sian raises a lot of excellent points there. I think the one which stuck with me most is actually taking the time to respond to a PR in detail as to why the email they’ve sent asking me to write about their product might not be suitable for the site. Sometimes it does feel as though journalists and bloggers (myself included) spend too much time moaning about the failings of PR people on Social Media, and not enough time working with them to show us the best way to communicate with us in an effective manner.

    Oh – and just to reiterate, it really does make a difference when you get our names right! Or just bother to use our names in the first place. If I had a quid for every email I’ve ever received saying ‘Hi there X!’ I’d be a very rich lady…