How blog PR works
Here’s an interesting email correspondence that demonstrates how online PR sometimes operates:
Hi Damian
I was passed on your details by my colleague and they said that you sometimes offer people the chance to do guest posts. Please can you let me know if you would be interested in posting some content on your site.
I have attached an example of something I would like to put on your site. Please let me know if this would be of interest and also if there is a fee
Thanks
Victoria
Hey Victoria
We do accept – unpaid – submissions. This copy however doesn’t suit our style (in all honesty it reads like marketing-speak).
We prefer more personalised stories if possible.
Cheers,
Damian
Hi Damian
I will have another go at the copy. Would that be ok for me to resubmit?
Thanks for the feedback
Victoria
From: Damian
To: Victoria
Sure thing (heh heh, though my guess is you work for one of those ad agencies trying to get all trendy and get to the yoof through social media…)
Hi Damian
I work for an online PR agency and we feel that the best results for promoting something is through personal blogs. It is better to have an informative post rather than a paid advert because people don’t look at banners anymore.
It is difficult to write content for someone’s personal site which is why feedback is better so at least I can try and help you by sending content to give you a break from writing so hopefully it works both ways
Please let me know if this is more suitable. T Thanks again and have a great evening
Victoria
The guest posting never did get onto the blog in question.
And a second exchange involving the same blogger, but different PR went as follows:
Hello Damian,
My name is Gagan and I am working for a Brisbane Blog which is located at …
I have written an article on ” Experience a Wild Night at …..” and would like to publish it on your blog as guest Post. Please let me know if you accept guest posts and i can send you the article for review.
Hoping to hear from you soon
Best Regards
Gagan
From Damian
Sorry. Not really our style. Don’t want to be mean, but your site reads like marketing/PR.
We prefer authentic personal views and experiences.
Good luck finding a place for it elsewhere
Well at least she was trying. It might have been better to disclose from the start, and write with a full disclaimer of whatever she was spruiking. If the product or service is good enough, advertorial can be interesting and relevant.
Dressing it up as editorial NEVER is.
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“It is difficult to write content for someone’s personal site” should be the first clue as to why you don’t let submissions like this get published.
It’s the perfect example of a PR agency trying to syndicate fodder to popular websites.
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“so at least I can try and help you by sending content to give you a break from writing…”
My, how thoroughly generous!
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That conversation sounded like the PR was tried to get a ‘sponsored post’ in as a guest post! How is that even remotely ok for the blog to publish a gushing ‘personal’ post and have it not seen as an advertorial?
Either pay up for a sponsored post or hope that a blogger likes your product enough to write about it.
Some PR’s just don’t get it.
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Sounds like an online bylined article submission
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She contacted the blogger, addressed him personally, asked permission and offered to pay. Seems like an unnecessary PR attacking post
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I briefly had a fair bit of traffic to my now defucnct but then modest blog as a result of writing up a number of the Women’s World Cup cricket games. All of a sudden I got a similar email from an agency-type asking me if I’d be happy to publish their copy or use their copy for my blog. I wasn’t but they were at least entirely up-front about their motive/organisation.
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“to give you a break from writing”
Hilarious!
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I don’t even agree that she explicitly offered to pay.
Presenting yourself as an independent writer and then asking about a fee… surely an editor would assume she was asking for a freelance fee (as in for the blog to pay her, not the other way round), hence the editor’s response above
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Damian sounds great – just gotta love the smarmy ‘though my guess is you work for one of those ad agencies trying to get all trendy and get to the yoof through social media…’
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*yawn*
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Poor lass was just doing her job; trying to get her client’s content published in relevant identified outlets. She was polite, asked permission, attempted to re-write the copy (probably invested a bit of time on it too). The bit about ‘giving you a break from writing’ is a bit dumb, but y’know we all say stupid stuff sometimes. On the other hand, Damien was needlessly snarky. Give her a break. JS
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Why didnt she just write an amazing, topical, informative PR piece and send it through to the blogger for their consideration…? If it was good it might well get in!
Would you read a newspaper if the advertisers wrote the content? Well I suppose some people do read the Daily Telegraph…
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Oh this is silly. This can’t be true. This almost, sort of, possibly, conceivably implies that public relations professionals are stupid. And that can’t be right as I work in PR and I know! I do, really.
It is just scandalous that anyone could think such at thing.
And anyway, you wouldn’t want to imply something like that with Karalee Evans around as she’ll have you for toast thank you VERY much: http://justanotherprblog.wordp.....-bollocks/
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This sort of practice gives PR a bad name:
1. The PR hasn’t read the blog
2. She’s blantantly trying to use the blog as a vehicle for the clients message and the reason for doing this is the fact that banners don’t work anymore!
3. No effort to build a relationship/ add value
4. No respect for the blogger or the audience
Annoying.
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No, no, no.
Focus is yet again on PR staffers being let loose in an arena they don’t fully understand (and to be be quite frank, I don’t think anyone on iether side of the fence fully understands all of it).
It’s embarrassing to the PR industry when exchanges like this are made public – the onus is on the industry to get it right.
I bet there are more than a few bloggers out there with similar stories to tell, but to square up the ledger a little, consider this:
Approached again today by a persistent blogger seeking a commission from a client for every click through that lead to sale from a review on the blogger’s site. There would be no disclaimer.
So it works in both directions – we say “no” to as many inappropriate “business cases” on behalf of clients as I’m sure bloggers do from ill-advised PR approaches.
Whilst Victoria’s approach didn’t work with Damian, I’d love to here Victoria’s side of the story about how many took the bait.
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Bloggers are generally so concerned with their integrity (and rightly so) that they don’t – and often never will – trust unsolicited approaches such as this one.
It doesn’t mean that blog marketing is not possible however, bloggers just need to trust those people wanting to partner their blog. It shows the importance of having a broker like Nuffnang to bridge the relationship gap.
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…and think first and then edit before hitting “submit”… can’t believe the typos I just committed…
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Gold.
I agree Victoria should have been open with her ‘secret’ from the beginning, but the whole thing just comes off as feeling dirty.
Would love to know what the blog’s focus is and what she was trying to spruik through it.
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Tim, what are you trying to say?!!? Is this some sort of veiled attempt to suggest I should take you off my “CC: All Australian Bloggers Email List” for the bi-weekly Mundingburra/Nth Qld Dog Show eight page show preview and review pressa’s?
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Or should I just leave off the 6MB dog profile jpg attachments?
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It truly makes me sad to see people do this. That’s simply someone used to traditional PR trying to jam it in to online to see if it will work.
In my four years of doing online PR I have never once approached a blogger with an article and asked them to host it. That’s not what blogs are about. They are personal about personal experiences.
I would have no problem inviting a blogger, vblogger, website editor etc along to an event so that they could experience something themselves or to talk to them about something unique which they would be more than welcome to write about.
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Oh bloggers, the last bastions of truth and righteousness. How a lowly PR could consider themselves worthy of publication I just don’t know… If I had a tv, MP3 player or mobile phone for every time a blogger cracked the sads on their blog or twitterfeed over not being invited to a product launch I would put JB Hi-Fi out of business!
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I love it. Same argument that goes through the bloggers Vs journalism debate – “Some people on the other side are idiots which entitles us all to act like idiots.”
No one’s saying bloggers are the last bastion of trust and righteousness, or calling PR lowly, simply commentating that this particular person didn’t really go about handling this exchange the right way.
For example: if I was a pie maker and wanted to market to Kyle Sandiland’s (lowest common denominator) fans, going around throwing pies in their faces, punching them and telling them I slept with their mothers wouldn’t put them in the wrong but it also wouldn’t imply they were pinnacles of human spirit – all it would prove was that I wasn’t very good at my job…
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I will write about whatever I bloody well want to and you will not whore me out nor sell me out. On the other hand, how much are you willing to pay?
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OH SHIT! Bloody PR hacks and their lack of understanding of how bloggers work! Offering to pay them??? Can you belive they would ask that of bloggers who are above that and have so much integrity that they often don’t use their real name! And bloggers are real and write about stuff they know about! or sometimes they dont’ know about. And their write about their opinions – blatantly without presenting two sides to an argument and wouldn’t know what the term parenthesis meant because bloggers are better than that!
Gosh PRs c’mon – we know you probably went to University and had dreams of lobbying governments to change policies or thought you might find yourself at hanging out at the press club with laurie oakes but get real! get with the bloggers – they’re the future of journalism! didn’t you know???
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Maybe not the best outcome for this particular PR, but she was either doing what she was told to do or simply showing iniaitive – eitherway, just doing her job.
She may have missed the mark this time, and hopefully has learnt form the experience, but lets face it – there aren’t too many experts in the field as yet, so therefore there aren’t too many good teachers out there either.
We can listen to so called experts like Laurel Papworth who take an overly purist view (read as don’t really understand much about marketing, or much else for that matter) or we can have a go, just like this PR did.
The blogger acted with integrity in turning down the approach, however hanging her out to dry is a bit rough.
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Ok i sent that email, I am not in relation with the above PR Victoria as Damian says that is was the same Blogger.
I am not the PR but yes i want to promote my blog. I just asked Damian if he accept Guest posts and told him about my article. He said the topic is not relevant to his blog and I never disturbed him again.
I write on my friends blog or other established blogs to get some traffic to mine too but I am not a PR .
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