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.

Personally I like the fact that even as she’s about to hit the big time she does all the MySpace / YouTube / blog stuff herself. It allows her intelligence and sense of humour to come across, and you can’t help warming to her. Of course if she really makes it that’ll all be handed over to a lackey, but at this point it’s an example of how pop stars can use “social media” to promote themselves beyond just bunging a few tracks onto their MySpace. Or making videos that make them look like dicks.

Is it all pointless once marketers get involved ‘helping’ maintain social media platforms on behalf of artists? Or, is this just something we need to stop being precious about, much in the same way we accept stars have been media trained and not every autographed pic will be signed personally. What do you think?

[How to promote your music via social media]