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.

Event Essential: The Goody Bag

Following on from  How not to run a social media conference in London I saw this from Gemma Cartwright praising The Body Shop for a recent bloggers event and explaining why it worked. [Organisers Headstream should take a bow for this]

If you’re collecting advice then back in the day I also wrote on the Shiny Red blog  top tips pitching to the UK’s top tech bloggers following a panel discussion.

You may have caught my previous thoughts on women being under-represented at industry events. So while it’s fantastic to see Social Glue initiate a Female Social Media Guru UK Award it caused a few rumblings and raised some questions for me…

Couldn’t we just recognise these women amongst their peers [male & female]. I think this is the heart of the problem the award is attempting to address.

Jamie has justified thus:

This is a debate we have had over the last few weeks. You are right there should be no division on gender but if you look at speaker panels there clearly is. Hopefully this combats the problem.

The “you missed off so-and-so” outcry was almost certainly due to lack of criteria [it seems to be just something to do with the internet and having a vagina being female] and probably a misconception there’s only a small number of fantastic women in Social Media.

I also found the later ranking of all nominees, with number of votes displayed, in poor taste.

I don’t want to get too down on Jamie. It was intended to address a very real issue and was well intentioned but comparing these women across their diverse areas is bit like like apples and oranges.

Here’s some of my faves and the areas where I think they are Social Media gurus. I’m pleased some of them made the list.

Contribution to the Social Media Industry: KATIE LEE

Aside from being “gadget girl” before anyone else was doing it, Katie Lee co-founded Shiny Media, the UK’s first commercial blog publisher. Over the years she’s been responsible for finding and nurturing a range of online writers and establishing credibility for bloggers in mainstream media.

http://shinykatie.blogspot.com/

Fashion & Social Media: GEMMA CARTWRIGHT

You don’t hear enough about Gemma as she’s been head down managing Shiny Media’s  fashion network for the past few years.

You never hear about her work within fashion to promote the benefits of Social Media to the industry and build relationships, particularly in PR, that just didn’t exist before. Graduate Fashion Week, touring agencies to educate, and dealing with the uncomfortable first fumblings of Fashion PRs has been Gemma’s lot. Again she’s made blogger/PR relations seem so normal these days.

http://gemmacartwright.com/

Technology & Social Media: SUSI WEASER

Picking up the mantle from Katie Lee is  this talented person who left PR to follow the Social Media dream via Shiny Shiny and become a UK trailblazer for online video.

What’s cool is that she’s just launched a business doing this type of thing.

http://susiweaser.com/

Promoting the cause of women in the industry / Mobile: HELEN KEEGAN

She’s  a mover and shaker in mobile regardless of  having a vagina being female. What I love is that she’s been so vocal about the lack of women speakers at events that’s got us all questioning this state of affairs.

http://technokitten.blogspot.com/

PR & Social Media: MICHELLE GOODALL

Michelle has been doing this long before most, irrespective of being a woman. If you’d ever read her posts & reports over on econsultancy you’d get that she knows her industry inside and out and is a bit of a hero to PRs like myself. She also just creates great campaigns.

http://econsultancy.com/blog/authors/michelle-goodall-2

Social Media Marketing: SANDRINE PLASSERAUD

If you haven’t heard about Sandrine, despite her tireless blogging (how does she find the time?), it’s because she’s always working to design & deliver awesome campaigns for her clients. She does that by being one of the most authentic users of Social Media working in an agency that I know.

http://sandrineplasseraud.typepad.com/

Social Media & Start-ups / MSM: JEMIMA KISS

Jemima landed on the scene at the Guardian’s Media section and all of sudden Social Media became mainstream. Her enthusiasm gives many new start-ups a much needed helping hand in the beginning. She’s inundated with 1000s of calls and emails daily but still manages to personally respond to tenfold more than she should have to as part of her job.

She constantly gets overlooked, most annoyingly in last year’s Evening Standard 1000 most influential Londoners. (No doubt because of who she writes for).

http://jemimakiss.com/

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Of course I know many other wonderful people, both male and female, working in this industry. But with this “girls of social media” theme currently percolating I wanted to take time to give them special mention.