More Advice on Pitching Bloggers (and Other PR Blog Jots)

Know Your Audience

The Bad Pitch Blog

Kevin Dugan issues a well-deserved reminder to a large agency (which sent him a pitch implying he may not be aware of—of all things—Facebook): do your homework! It’s actually preferable that you strike up a report with the blogger before even approaching with a pitch, but at the very least, do a scan of their subject matter before embarrassing yourself. Kevin actually liked the site the pitch promoted, which means their pitch may have been spared landing on The Bad Pitch Blog if the PR rep had done a little research and tweaked accordingly. “Had they started the second graph with “While you are well aware of Facebook, clearly not everyone is.” By linking to one of my posts discussing social networks, they show they've done their homework. And I’d be posting about them on my other blog instead.”

Old School

The Flack

The latest issue of the Harvard Management Update features an article discussing the power of public relations, but fails to mention any of the 2.0 aspects of the practice. Peter Himler questions this approach, pointing out that while mainstream media hits are absolutely still valuable to clients, to not even mention RSS, user-generated content, or any of the myriad changes that have accompanied the social media revolution was a massive oversight. “Yet, the fact that the sea change in our industry didn't surface in this discussion of PR, except perhaps for the manner in which it played out on my desktop, makes me believe that a digital divide does exist in our profession. I'm just not sure whether it's geographical, by industry, or simply a matter of the curious versus incurious.”

Public Going Soft on Microsoft?

Crisisblogger

Gerald Baron, citing recent surveys showing Microsoft to be one of the country’s most respected brands, wonders how this turnabout took place and examines some possible explanations. He notes Bill Gates’ generally positive public image (no doubt due to his massive philanthropic efforts), and the seemingly endless lawsuits against the company that may have painted them as an underdog. But the best explanation, according to Gerald, is that increased competition has made the company vulnerable (or at least seemingly vulnerable)—and the public prefers it that way. “The simple principle is that we all hate a monopoly and we deeply distrust anyone with unchecked power. Power corrupts… Google demonstrated that there was someone to check the power of Microsoft, someone to challenge their market position and even someone who could make them look vulnerable. We love vulnerable.”