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.

2. Should they?

I’m happy for PRs to contact me if they have relevant info. For my books blog Memoir Armoire (www.memoirarmoire.co.uk) that’s pretty obvious: news about memoirs.

For my personal blog (http://blog.dianeshipley.com) it’s a bit more complicated — I don’t yet run advertising as WordPress.com doesn’t allow it, but I’m planning to move to a self-hosted site soon, and I’m definitely open to all kinds of commercial opportunities, but they would have to be really tailored to the mood of the blog. If you’re not sure whether something will fit, better to err on the side of caution. (There’s nothing worse than those PR emails that start “I know you never write about X, but I’ve got this product…”)

I’m also a freelance blogger, writing for sites including The Guardian’s TV blog, and I love receiving news regarding US television. (Whether or not I use it, it’s just fun to read…)

What I really don’t want is info on US technology news, especially anything about iPhone apps. Most of the press releases I get are on this topic, but although I used to write for American tech blog Popgadget.net, I haven’t for over a year.

3. How do you prefer to be contacted?

Always email — and only once. If I’m interested, I’ll get back to you. (Please don’t ever do what one PR did and track down my home phone number to bug me about coverage. That was scary.)

4. What’s the worst “outreach” you’ve ever received?

As well as blogging, I’m a journalist, and write a short tech column for Woman’s Weekly every couple of weeks. I once had an email which assumed that because my readership is largely women over 50, they can barely turn on a computer. It went on in a really condescending manner about older people and how they might not know about [a commonplace gadget] and how I could explain it to them. Their foot-in-mouth approach was made worse by the fact that I’d covered that topic two years previously. (Never assume!)

The second worst was when I was asked if I wanted to review a product. Within a couple of days, before I’d had time to respond, I was chased up twice, asking when I could send the review unit back. When I replied to say I’d never even looked at one, the PR’s response was just: “Oh. Sorry, thought you had.”

5. 3 things you HATE about being contacted by PRs

• Them not knowing which publications I write for or what topics I cover. I know you’re in a hurry and checking someone still works somewhere takes time, but it’s worth the effort
• The generic salutation. Starting an email “Hey there,” is better than the messages I get addressed to “Diana” or “Dianne”, but just barely
• Being sent loads of attachments, or conversely, not having the relevant info when I need more details. I’d really love it if all press releases were on a web page with loads of good quality images and all the additional info and contact details I need. Sometimes I want to write about something at short notice, and a PR can’t get back to me (with tricky little details like price) quickly enough. That means I can’t cover it and we’re both frustrated

6.  3 bits of advice if a PR is going to contact a blogger generally

• Don’t be over familiar. It’s a massive turn-off. The fact that blogging is more intimate and casual than other types of published writing (and thus you may know some very personal things about someone) doesn’t mean you should treat a blogger with any less respect than you would a features editor. Don’t be overly cosy, or too casual, and save the kisses in your sign off for people you’ve at least had some contact with before
• Understand that while a lot of bloggers are journalists, many aren’t. That means they might not understand that you’re contacting a lot of other bloggers with the same offers and info. That’s just one reason I think you can get better results by getting to know a handful of bloggers well and tailoring individual pitches to each one than by email-bombing 100 bloggers with a standard press release
• Think long term. Use social media to actually get to know bloggers as people, be pleasant to people even if they’ve left an influential job (you never know where they’ll end up, also it doesn’t hurt to be nice), and understand that a blogger’s responsibility is not to you, but to their audience (and if they have one, their boss). There will be times they say or hint that they can give you coverage, but it won’t come off. They may agree to review a product, get one for free, and then be really negative about it. Don’t sulk, “name and shame” them, or send them an accusatory email. If you’re gracious, they’re much more likely to work with you (and give your clients positive feedback where they can) in future

7. Complete this sentence: PR/Blogger relations could be improved by…

…more transparency. If companies knew more about what their PR reps or agencies were sending out on their behalf, I doubt bloggers would ever see emails like the one I once got, in pink text, all in lower case. (Ah well, it made me laugh.)

Bloggers also need to be clear on what PR companies are asking of them and whether they’re willing to deliver. (It’s not always worth doing so, if the brand doesn’t suit your site, or isn’t paying you enough.) And bloggers really need to be open with their readers about what they got for free, and what they were asked to do in response. (E.g. Are they only allowed to write a positive review?)

In the UK, it’s not the law to disclose that, but it is good practice, and some bloggers are still not very clear on the topic — which leaves their integrity open to question.

8.  Anything else you’re dying to get off your chest about PR? Good or Bad [We like good things too!]

I’ve had a lot of terrible PR experiences, and that makes me appreciate the good ones even more. I had an experience with a PR last year, when I was looking for an interviewee for a difficult topic. They found me someone fabulous who fit my brief perfectly, and I was so busy (I was moving a few days later) that I forgot to thank them as I should have done, or even to tell them I’d done the interview. They were completely lovely about it, just grateful for the mention, and I’d work with them again in a second. If a PR delivers what a writer is looking for, especially on short notice, they’ve made a friend for life.

Crib notes:

• Small is beautiful. Aim to know a handful of blog contacts really well, over a prolonged period of time
• Be clear: who you are, what you can offer, what your (or your clients’) expectations are
• A PR rep who does their job will is always appreciated – even if you never hardly ever get to hear it

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

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.

3.  How do you prefer to be contacted?

Email. I have a filter which archives emails sent to the email address on the site, so I can look at them all at once rather than have them bombarding my inbox.

Having said that, I admit I probably reply to/act on about 1% of the PR emails I receive.

4. What’s the worst “outreach” you’ve ever received?

As a music blogger I get invited to (or manage to wangle an invite to) the odd thing. It’s always a “name on the list” kind of affair, and of course there have been times when I’ve turned up and not been on the list at all. That combines timewasting with public humiliation, and each time it’s happened it’s taken me one step closer to never responding to any PR email ever again.

Other than that, I’ve been addressed by names that aren’t mine; I’ve been addressed as “Dear Blogger”; I’ve been called about things that have nothing to do with my site. I’ve been hassled to ask some questions to an “artist” via email… and when the answers come back they’re barely-usable, monosyllabic crap

5. 3 things you HATE about being contacted by PRs

• Receiving an email – obviously as part of a bulk mail – which says “Contact me for guestlist!” and then responding with just such a request, only to be greeted with a reply of the “Uh, who are you?”/”I’ll see what I can do!” variety. Don’t mention guestlist to people who have no hope of getting on it
• I suppose it was always likely to happen, but when a PR decides to bother me on Twitter because I haven’t replied to their email it does annoy me. But then again I can understand them using all the “tools” at their disposal to get what they want
• Being called in the daytime, while I’m at my day job, and being pitched without being asked whether it’s a convenient time to talk. I hardly ever give my number out for this reason.

6. 3 bits of advice if a PR is going to contact a blogger generally

• Flattery doesn’t hurt, but if possible try and go beyond “Hey! Great site!” and say something specific to the person in question. If there’s nothing in the email to indicate that it hasn’t also been sent to 10,000 other people, it’s easy to ignore
• Are you funny? Be funny in your emails then. People like funny emails
• Don’t dangle some kind of carrot and *then* ask for a blogger’s traffic figures. If traffic figures for the sites you’re contacting are important to the campaign you’re working on make this clear from the outset

7. Complete this sentence: PR/Blogger relations could be improved by…

PRs understanding that most bloggers don’t do it as their main job.

When you approach a blogger, more often that not it’s not like pitching Cosmo and going “BUT MY CLIENT’S NEW SKIN CREAM HAS HYPOALLERGENIC LIPIDS, WHAT DO YOU MEAN IT’S NOT SUITABLE FOR A FEATURE???”

If a blogger owns a site and spends their own precious time on it they don’t have to justify anything that does/doesn’t go on there to anyone. Even hinting that they may need to means they’ll probably take a personal dislike to you.

8. Anything else you’re dying to get off your chest about PR? Good or Bad [We like good things too!]

I’d just like PR people to know that I do feel guilty looking at all the emails I don’t answer. Also, as I’ve experienced being “on the other side” I do understand the pressures of getting coverage/pick-up. I think there are a fair amount of bloggers who don’t, and I generally disagree with the practice of blithely bashing PR folk on Twitter because an image file didn’t arrive on time (even if names aren’t mentioned). Some of them do kind of ask for it, though…

Crib notes:

• Don’t contact a blogger and then ask them prove why they’re worth being in contact with
• Don’t promise and not deliver
• You’d never dictate editorial to a journalist, same goes for bloggers (I can’t believe this even needs to be spelled out)

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

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!

3. How do you prefer to be contacted?

I like friendly, to-the-point emails that have both my name and the name of the site they’re targeting on it. I write for a few sites and some people still think I write for Catwalk Queen (I actually left 18 months ago) so knowing their expectations means I don’t mislead anyone in terms of where I can give coverage.

I like all the info in the body of the email. Word and .pdf attachments are unnecessary, as are dozens of images (one or two is fine – if I want more I’ll ask).

Don’t follow up with a call unless it’s absolutely necessary. I’m incredibly antisocial and I hate talking on the phone

4. What’s the worst “outreach” you’ve ever received?

An email with the subject ‘Press release’. The body was completely empty, and there was an attachment called ‘PressRelease.doc’. Needless to say, I didn’t read it.

There have also been plenty of the usual ‘Hi blogger’ type template emails. I’ve been called Sarah, Laura, Genna, Jemma…I even got ‘Hey there, G‘  once (I’m not even joking). I’ve also had lots of emails that don’t even ask for coverage, they simply tell me to write about their client. Finally, emails asking me to write about a competition that’s running on another site. No, no, no!

5. 3 things you HATE about being contacted by PRs

• Lack of research – one 5 second look at my site and you’ll see I’m not interested in brands that stop at a size 12
• People trying to write my copy for me – unless you are paying me to write sponsored content, I will write whatever I want (within reason)
• Getting invited to things, emailing an RSVP and being asked to give my traffic figures before I’m told if I can attend or not. Don’t send the invitation if you’re not *really* inviting me

6. 3 bits of advice if a PR is going to contact a blogger generally

• Read the blogs you’re pitching to. REALLY read them. Don’t pretend you’ve read them by sending an email saying “I loved your post about…” with the title of the most recent post. We’re not stupid, don’t patronise us. You wouldn’t pitch to a magazine without at least flicking through it first. Do us the same courtesy
• Research! I’m convinced the same people go to events time and time again because PR’s google ‘[fashion/beauty] bloggers event’ and just invite the first 20 blogs that come up. You’ll get much more interesting coverage if you find bloggers that really have a strong opinion of your client, rather than just going for the usual suspects (who’re all probably bored of cupcakes, cheap fizz and manicures by now anyway
• Be nice. If a blogger has written something erroneous / libelous / problematic or broken an embargo, approach them tactfully. Don’t go in all guns blazing threatening legal action – you’ll end up with that email posted all over the internet with hundreds of bloggers ranting about you

7. Complete this sentence: PR/Blogger relations could be improved by…

…both sides getting off their high horse and realising that people are Just Doing Their Job.

8. Anything else you’re dying to get off your chest about PR? Good or Bad [We like good things too!]

I poke fun when someone emails me with the wrong name, sends me a wildly irrelevant press release littered with typos or invites me to something 2 hours before it’s happening because someone more important clearly pulled out last minute…but most of my dealings with PRs in the last couple of years have been great. I think it’s all too easy to jump on the big #PRFail bandwagon and forget that bloggers make just as many mistakes.

So to any PRs reading this, please don’t be scared off by the minority of bloggers who jump on their soapbox about every tiny little issue. Most of us just want to be treated as human beings and given access to information and resources so we can write about interesting things!

Crib notes:

• It’s only an email, but there are so many ways you can get it wrong
• Be respectful, just because you’re not approaching a “journo”, doesn’t mean you can approach online writers like second-class citizens
• Don’t become paralysed with fear. Be informed, pleasant, helpful. In other words… just do your job

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

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.

3.    How do you prefer to be contacted?

Email

4.    What’s the worst “outreach” you’ve ever received?

I’m not sure this counts as “outreach”, but the worst experience I ever had was with a well-known footwear brand, whose PR took exception to a comment I’d made in an otherwise very positive post, about the fact that they’d recently increased their prices fairly substantially (which they had). I’d also noted that they liked to give their shoes amusing names, and apparently they took exception to this, too. It could’ve been an excellent opportunity for the PR to talk to me about WHY the price had increased (better quality, perhaps? Finer craftsmanship than their competitors? New designer?), and just what it was that made them think “Ploopy”* was a good name for a shoe, but instead I received an angry email from the PR, who ranted at me for a couple of paragraphs, before telling me that in future I was “welcome” to continue writing positive things about the brand, but was not allowed to write anything “negative”.

I’d love to think the email was the work of a trainee, or someone having a very bad day, but during the exchange that followed, I got the strong impression that she’d simply thought, “Oh, it’s just a blogger: I bet if I yell at her she’ll be intimidated and think she’s not allowed to write about us unless it’s something nice.” It was a shame, because it was a brand I’d actually really liked, and she had an excellent opportunity to make me like them even more, but instead she managed to do exactly the opposite. I did email her back and said I was very surprised that she seemed to feel she was able to dictate my content to me, and that I didn’t expect she’d have emailed a traditional journalist with the demand to “only ever write positive things about us”. She did apologise, but by then the damage was done.

*Shoe name changed to protect the guilty

5. 3 things you HATE about being contacted by PRs

• Emails that address me as “Dear Blogger” or begin with the words “Hi, Police!” (Yes, one of my blogs is called The Fashion Police, but surprisingly enough, that’s not MY name…) and go on to talk about how the PR reads my blog ever single day, and how it’s their very favourite blog on the whole internet, while making it crystal clear that they didn’t so much as run their eyes over it before sending the email. I understand that PRs can’t be avid followers of every single site they pitch to, but if you’re going to claim to be my number one fan, at least get my name right, and if you can’t be bothered getting my name right, don’t try to pretend to be my number one fan: I will have more respect for you if you just admit that you’re approaching me with a business proposition rather than trying to flatter me when it’s very obvious that you couldn’t pick me out of a line-up
• Being chased up. If I’m interested, or have questions, I’ll get back to you. I particularly dislike it when someone sends me a sample for review and then contacts me the very next day to ask why I haven’t posted a review yet. If you send me a skincare product that says “Results visible in 14 days”, it’s going to take me at least 14 days to know what I think of it…
• The assumption that all bloggers live in London. It’s a fair assumption if you’re dealing with print media, because so much of it IS based in and around London, but one of the great things about blogging, and one of the reasons it has become so popular, is that it can be done from anywhere, with no barriers to entry. I’m in Scotland, and I receive dozens and dozens of emails per week about events that are being held in London. It’s always nice to be invited to these things, but it would be nicer still if there could be some recognition of the fact that people blog from everywhere , not just from London. It becomes particularly annoying when I have to repeatedly tell the same PR that no, I STILL don’t live in London! Haven’t moved since the last time you invited me to brunch there, three days ago!

6. 3 bits of advice if a PR is going to contact a blogger generally

• Don’t patronise us. Not all bloggers are hobby writers sitting around in their pyjamas feeling absolutely thrilled at the prospect of getting a free bottle of shampoo to feature on their “little blog”. Some of us are professional journalists who’ve seized the opportunity to get into a new form of media, and who are making a full-time living out of it. It’s patronising to get emails which seem to assume we know nothing about journalism, and that we’ll be willing to write about any old rubbish in exchange for a link, or “exposure”, or a freebie. It’s also patronising to be invited to an event and told that “we’ve arranged this for a Saturday so you can fit it around your day job!” This IS my day job, and I don’t want to work on the weekend any more than you do, thanks
• Have at least a cursory look at the blog you’re pitching to. Just echoing the answer to question 5:  it’s really, really obvious when you lie about being “a big fan” of my blog and then try to pitch me a story about tractors, when I write about shoes and makeup
• Use email, put the pitch in the body of the email, and don’t send huge images or attachments in mysterious formats that I have to spend half a day working out how to open. Make it easy for us to open it and read it. And those of you who’re still sending out paper press releases, have a thought for the environment!

7. Complete this sentence: PR/Blogger relations could be improved by…

each party putting themselves in the other person’s shoes. Especially if the shoes are Louboutins.

8.    Anything else you’re dying to get off your chest about PR? Good or Bad [We like good things too!]

I think I’ve said more than enough

Crib notes:

• Don’t fake it. If you don’t really read the blog all the time, don’t say you do (looks worse when you make a mistake)
• Don’t make assumptions: about location, full-time profession, or anything else
• Just send a plain email with some simple attachments or links to where further info can be read or downloaded if you want your info to actually get read

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

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.

3.       How do you prefer to be contacted?

Email is preferred, and I absolutely cannot stand being contacted on my mobile, which is happening more and more often.

It’s fine if it’s an agency I deal with regularly, or even if there’s some urgency behind the call. What I cannot abide is unsolicited cold-calling to check whether they can send me a release–or worse, cold-calling to check I actually received their release. If the story was of interest, I would’ve written it up by now. However, I do appreciate the demands some clients place on their agencies.

4.       What’s the worst “outreach” you’ve ever received?

A few situations spring to mind, and funnily enough they’re mostly at the hand of so-called “social media experts” or “digital PRs,” hired to do blogger outreach. Bloggers may moan all they want about traditional PRs, but most of the unsavoury dealings I’ve had have come from people who should know better–social agencies.

From not checking whether I’ve already been contacted/invited to an event by the company’s other agency, to being completely patronising and treating me like it’s a major honour to be invited to a press event, usually I steer clear of social media outreach agents.

5.       3 things you HATE about being contacted by PRs

• I find it frustrating that often, they can’t take no for an answer. Either I’m not interested in a story, or not interested in reviewing a product, and no matter how hard I try to explain that they shouldn’t bother sending me a product to review, they inevitably do. I get a surprising amount of unsolicited review samples turning up at my door – never mind that I barely do reviews, and that our site only reviews the odd mobile phone! – but to then get chased day after day for coverage…well, it’s enough to drive me ’round the bend
• It makes the mind boggle that PRs quite often don’t check whether we’ve already covered a story. Fair enough, I know that the site has a high output of content, but it doesn’t take long to Google whether we’ve written something up. Phoning or emailing to ask whether I’d be interested in writing a story based on their release (which in itself is irritating), when we’ve already done so, just smacks of unprofessionalism.
• This is minor, but seems to happen with alarming regularity. A press release will be sent out minus some crucial information (such as hi-res images, or a link to find said images), and when I’ve shot off an email to them asking for further help, I receive an out-of-office reply. Judging by the number of tweets I’ve seen from other journalists, this happens quite often

6.       3 bits of advice if a PR is going to contact a blogger generally

• It’s common sense and really shouldn’t be said, but do your research
• Find out whether we’ve written up similar products/news before (even from that client), and whether we’ve already written that particular story up before
• Actually proof-read your email before sending. The number of times people have got my extremely short first-name incorrect…

7.       Complete this sentence: PR/Blogger relations could be improved by…

Greater understanding and empathy from each side. Bloggers (and journalists) should be aware that PRs are quite often under massive deadlines forced upon them by clients who sometimes ask for unachievable returns. A little bit of courtesy and politeness wouldn’t go astray either–neither would taking the time to explain to the PR why that story/product is unsuitable for the site. It will only help both sides.

8.       Anything else you’re dying to get off your chest about PR? Good or Bad [We like good things too!]

The trendiness of slagging off bad PR practice on Twitter is tiresome, and even though I’ve occasionally partaken in it, it always leaves a bad taste in my mouth. PRs barely ever react with the same public outing of journalists/bloggers, so why do they think it’s acceptable to name and shame? I’m not innocent by any means, but when simple errors such as forgetting to BCC media contacts occurs, it really isn’t necessary to take to Twitter with a pitchfork. Just be thankful you were included on that mailing list in the first place.

Crib notes:

• PRs need to get a handle on individuals writers – do they take press releases? prefer email? need access to events? Get it right and maybe you’ll get the coverage. Also, get it right the first time, don’t keep approaching over and over again via different mediums
• Before pitching, check if a site has already covered your client or client’s news – it’s a no brainer
• Not all online writers publicly “out” bad PR practice, but do yourself a favour and double or triple check you’re getting it right to avoid leaving a bad impression at a personal level

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

Paul 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.

3.       How do you prefer to be contacted?

Email – always email.  If your pitch can be 140 characters it’s likely lacking something.

4.       What’s the worst “outreach” you’ve ever received?

The usual stuff really – bad use of mail merge, lack of focus, bad targeting.  I think I have seen some bad ones but mainly people are just spraying and praying.  Counsel your clients, know what is news, build the trust and you won’t need to do this.

5.       3 things you HATE about being contacted by PRs

• General assumption that their idea/client will fit
• The only high-res images offer
• Basic relationship faux pas – only calling/emailing when their client/they need something – shocker – the world goes on after you email me!

6.       3 bits of advice if a PR is going to contact a blogger generally

• Be honest with what you have
• Follow up but don’t harass
• Be a resource when you don’t have something to sell

7.       Complete this sentence: PR/Blogger relations could be improved by…

A greater understanding of the relationship and motivations of both parties involved.

8.       Anything else you’re dying to get off your chest about PR? Good or Bad [We like good things too!]

I think most people/agencies are getting better at producing content and thinking about ‘the post’ but we’re long way from Utopia.  Pros can benefit from running and posting blogs themselves.

Crib notes:

• It’s still about relationships, be available even when you don’t need the coverage
• Put your own motivations aside and really think about what the other side might be interested in
• Think about blogging yourself to understand what works on the content side

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

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.

Some people joined in and started debating the issues (and I thank them for their contributions) but since then I’ve noticed it’s still far more likely to see people taking a pop at each other and dragging the collective industry down. FFS!

Enter Claire Thompson and the successsfull thupr events. Claire has dedicated the next one to ‘Cleaning up Communications‘ which is a chance to “put away the bolly and look at some of the campaigns to help raise the game and have a collective think about what can be done in future…”

Claire has invited me to talk more about #fixPR (thank you) in good company with:

• Richard Ellis, PRCA (Public Relations Consultants Association)
• Molly Flatt, 1000 Heads, offering the online perspective
• Adam Parker, Realwire, on An Inconvenient PR Truth
• Tim Phillips, freelance journalist, on Talk Normal

I’d love it if you could attend, not just because we’ve managed to get women speakers outnumbering men (wow, finally representative of the PR industry) but because I’d like it to be an event where we actually SAY something and not just sit around stroking our own egos.

I’m in a bit of a feisty phase at the moment -  so if you know me at all it should be fun

Please come along and add to the collective intelligence if you’re impacted by communications in any way; PR, writer, content producer, marketer, whatever…

[Image: DanBrady]

#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

• Hannah J ‘When trying to fix PR, why should you think of the Golden Gate bridge?‘

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‘

Image: denise carbonell

Where did it go wrong and how can we fix it….?

Measurement

PR agrees to be measured by some really dumb things sometimes

Before I even continue I have to reference Measurement Camp as probably the best group looking at this issue and pro actively solving it with industry-wide collaboration. They have an excellent wiki and hold regular meetups. This will probably be more useful to you than anything you’ll read here.

So listen, PR is not a Google Adwords campaign. Yet time and again PRs agree to, and dare I say even suggest, that a campaign’s success hangs on whether it drove traffic to a website or microsite. While I’m not saying that social media measurement shouldn’t look to drive traffic, it doesn’t have to be the be all and end all for a few reasons:

• PR activity will never drive comparable volume traffic like Search and Advertising campaigns
• A link resulting from PR activity is online ‘forever’ so, unlike a Search campaign you shouldn’t be evaluated within a set time
• PR links don’t have conversion rates like online advertising does, that’s because they’re supposed to do very different things, so why apply the same measurement?
• Sometimes a website or microsite isn’t the core offering, so consumers ultimately aren’t very interested to go there

You'll never win comparing apples and oranges

I know it’s not uncommon for a Marketing Director to say “Well I’ll get more bang for my buck by putting money I would’ve given towards PR into online advertising and SEO.”

Come on PR! You don’t need to compete in that way. You are well versed in how to debate the old PR vs Advertising issue. You just need to update the script to a social media version. [In fact, one advantage to online PR activity is for the first time the traditional PR metric of  word-of-mouth can actually be measured by a host of “buzz monitoring” tools.]

Ok, so what *should* you measure? Well you *should* set some objectives first. We know it’s bad practice but it’s amazing how many social media drives are initiated and then everyone gets to the end and isn’t sure (or even worse, disagrees) whether it was successful.

In addition setting an objective means that you may not know exactly what to measure but you’ll know what you want to achieve and can check a range of data to see if you’re doing that.

Let’s use an analogy that three different businesses wanting to start something in social media are like three people who decide to take up running.
Person 1 – wants to run a marathon
Person 2 – wants to be fitter for their 5-a-side team
Person 3 – has just moved to the city and wants to join a club to meet people

All three will approach learning to run in different ways because they have very different objectives (i.e. you wouldn’t all jump on Twitter and try and grow to as many followers as possible)

Imagine if we said at the end of a couple of months “Ok, who can run the longest and furthest. That person’s the winner”. Obviously  Person 1 would’ve been trained for endurance and perhaps completed a marathon by now, it wouldn’t be fair to hold the other runners to the same measurement when they wanted to achieve different things.

Let’s say Person 2’s five-a-side team had won every game and they’d managed to play each game the whole way through without alternating with other players. W00T, they’re a winner!

Person 3 may not be a great runner at all, but have made lots of friends in the process, which was their key aim in running in the first place. Yay, they’re a winner too!

What about if Person 2 also found that they’d lost a stone and reduced their cholesterol? That would be a happy side benefit, no? You’d be mad to say “sorry, that’s not of interest”.

My point is…are you still with me… you have to measure what’s important to the business and you also have to include positive and unexpected benefits as part of learning what works in social media for a particular brand.

If you’re realistic about what’s possible from the outset (remember you wouldn’t measure offline PR directly by sales, don’t make the same mistake online) then you can define your own benchmarks and success metrics from a range of options.

Being facetious I propose the following social media measurement scale. I call it the “Ahrens Scale”a.k.a “The Good Thing, Bad Thing scale”

Here’s how you would apply it.
Drove traffic = Good Thing
Resulted a in a lot of negative commentary and formation of a hate group on Facebook = Bad Thing
Got a link from a blog or website = Good Thing
No increase in online conversation in any way = Bad Thing
Your online content re-purposed and re-used by online fans = Good Thing
Data capture = Good Thing
Rich media content like images or video was submitted by users = Good Thing
You created a Microsite = Bad Thing (Just kidding, I have a love/hate relationship with microsites)

Who could fix this?

1. Monitoring providers: Need to sell their products based on measurement benefits “you can track and measure X, Y, Z”
2. Agencies: Update your social media knowledge, study good practice, so you can lead on metrics

Solution? Become expert in what can be measured, then apply relevant metrics to pre-defined objectives. Shout about unexpected side benefits which result from activity.
Crib notes:

• It’s a no brainer: Set objectives before activity starts
• Don’t measure by non-PR measurables
• Look for side benefits and then perhaps use as benchmark or KPI for next time
• Don’t build microsites (Kidding again!)

Image: Dano