Blogger Outreach: Diane Shipley
Diane Shipley is a self-described “pop culture-obsessed, slightly solipsistic, feminist freelance writer” who writes prolifically online for sites like The Guardian, books blog Memoir Armoire, and currently the My So-Called Life Re-watched Project.
As both blogger and journalist Diane recognises the writer/PR debate can get very heated so here shares some of her pet hates and tips on getting it right – recognising that a great PR can be a great resource when it works.
Diane Shipley
1. Do PRs contact you regarding your site?
PRs contact me on a daily basis regarding sites I write for, sites I once wrote for, and print publications I contribute to.
Blogger Outreach: Stuart Waterman
The problem with being a blog “influential”
Writer, editor, and one-time Social Media Manager, Stuart Waterman runs music blog My Chemical Toilet. The blog frequently makes it on to “top music influencer” lists in PR circles, yet unfortunately that means many PRs don’t bother to read the site at all. Just 5 mins quality time spent reading My Chemical Toilet would show that the blog has a very clear style and you can’t just pitch in any old music related stuff. Here he takes time out from writing about Naughty Rappers to tell us about PR/Blogger Outreach.
Stuart Waterman
1. Do PRs contact you regarding your site?
Yes.
2. Should they?
Well I do say how they can contact me in my “About” section, so I can’t complain really.
Blogger Outreach: Gemma Cartwright
Don’t be afraid…
Gemma Cartwright started blogging when she was in 16. She joined Shiny Media [R.I.P.] in 2004 to launch their first fashion site Shoewawa.com, going on to become Group Editor of the Shiny fashion network. She’s written about celebrities for The Nod, happy homelife at Domestic Sluttery, geek chic for Dork Adore, and a host of on- and off-line media.
Last year she founded Big Girls Browse, a site aimed at anyone who finds it hard to shop to suite their shape, and has already attracted interest from most of the High St brands including a guest spot editing the Evans blog.
Gemma Cartwright
1. Do PRs contact you regarding your site?
Yes.
2. Should they?
Absolutely. I really don’t mind receiving press releases, email pitches, celeb style IDs, event invitations…anything really. I’m not bothered by a bulging inbox, I can easily delete the stuff I don’t need. That said, I do get a lot of badly-targeted stuff from PRs in the US and my requests to be removed from their lists go unnoticed. If I went to all the events in NY that I’m invited to, I’d have an astounding amount of airmiles!
Blogger Outreach: Amber McNaught
How wrong can PRs get it?
Aside from battling issues of gingerism and the fact people frequently steal her image to use as their own profile pic, she deals with a lot of crazy PR. She spills all below (names changed to protect the guilty)
Amber McNaught
1. Do PRs contact you regarding your site?
Yes! Sometimes dozens and dozens per day (or hour…)
2. Should they?
Yes, absolutely: I’m always happy to hear about anything that might potentially be of interest to my readers, as long as it’s relevant to my sites.
Blogger Outreach: Katherine Hannaford
Not all bloggers hate PRs, right?
Katherine Hannaford is the UK Contributing Editor of Gizmodo. Having cut her teeth as Editor of Tech Digest she then went on to work as News Editor at T3.com before landing a job with one of the world’s leading technology sites. Consequently Kat has experienced many a Tech PR’s first fumblings in outreach – is she a blogger? journalist? professional writer?
Over the years Kat and I have debated and taken different sides over PR/Blogger frictions. She’s recently emerged though as a vocal supporter that the Twitter name-and-shame culture is tired & unbalanced.
Katherine Hannaford
1. Do PRs contact you regarding your site?
Yes, either by email, phone, or snail-mail.
2. Should they?
I’d rather receive all press releases, however irrelevant they may be, rather than receive less and run the risk of missing out on a story. It takes a millisecond to delete a release, but admittedly I do get frustrated with some agencies who just spam me several times a week with clients’ releases that we’d never even dream of writing up. I do wish they’d bother checking our site for the type of content we cover.
Blogger Outreach: Paul Armstrong
Do any PRs really get this blogger outreach stuff?
P
aul Armstrong is… a PR! Now you’ve recovered from the shock here’s his Blogger chops: He was recently nominated as one of the Top 10 most influential people in the digital industry by PR Week (meaning he gets put on loads of “influencer” lists), and has written for Businessweek, Penthouse [Paul, WTF???], Saturday Night Magazine, BPM, Celebuzz, Lost In A Supermarket and Instinct. He currently writes for Wired UK, Le Branche and PR Week and is the guy behind the crazy successful @mediaisdying Twitter account.
Even though Paul is the Digital Director at Kindred he still receives some appalling “blogger outreach”. I asked him to share his thoughts.
Paul Armstrong
1. Do PRs contact you regarding your site?
Yes
2. Should they?
Sure – I don’t say I’ll get back to them or rely on them so I think all’s fair! Looking for betas, new features, the usual stuff – if for mag stuff – high end design, lux, tech/gadgets.
Blogger Outreach: Sian Meades
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.
Why PR is losing the social media battle: Day Four (Post Three)
#fixPR: The Doctor is in
I was kind of hoping by mid-week some other people might’ve chimed in with best practice and ideas to #fixpr, which a few have. Here’s what I’ve spotted so far if you want to add your #fixpr posts/all-time favourites in the comments I’ll keep updating the list:
Tone
Blogger outreach
- Kerry Gaffney ‘Proactive blogger engagement – Should PRs bother?‘
- Jed Hallam ‘Blogger outreach: why you must do it‘
- Chris Nee ‘Blogger outreach: A bloggers view‘
SEO
- Paul Sutton ‘SEO for PR: Understanding keywords and backlinks‘
About:
I'm Darika Ahrens and I help brands develop marketing strategies for Social Media. My background is in Public Relations for companies like Orange, Microsoft, Philips, HTC, Yell.com, and Estee Lauder. I've worked with and trained some of the UK's top agencies.