“Do it Wrong Quickly: What Corporations Need from PR in Today’s Transforming Marketplace”Mike Moran begins the afternoon keynote with what is perhaps the most salient point of the whole conference. We don’t need to be the expert in new media or blogs. We need to be the expert in how to solve our client’s problems. Otherwise, we might as well give up. We’ll never be the blog expert because the blog experts exist, and they’re not getting any dumber.

Moran’s tone is optimistic, and not at all condescending, which is a refreshing change from many speakers on this topic, who seem to want to tsk-tsk us for not having discovered social networking years ago. Oh, and they are eager to inform you that whichever social media platform you have succeeded in engaging was obsolete in 1999. Moran eschews alarmism to good effect.

PR types tend to view new media as a sort of death knell for Public Relations. Moran sees them as an opportunity. The new model allows Public Relations to deliver hard results where we know we are making an impact on behalf of our clients. We can target more closely, measure results more accurately, and respond more quickly to customer feedback.

Mainstream media is losing it’s luster and PR firms are scrambling, fumbling in some cases, to reach out to the influential blogerati in the hopes to capture shifts in audience information consumption. OMB recently published a blogger relations guide as well as a long list of what not to do when pitching blogs. Here’s an exceprt:

• Don’t pitch irrelevant stories
• Don’t send emails to anonymous recipients. Use a name.
• Don’t send blanket solicitations to bloggers in the same general industry.
• Don’t embargo an announcement for more than a few days.
• Don’t demand to be covered as if you’re gods gift to the blogosphere.
• Don’t insult the blogger, even as a joke, especially if you don’t know them.
• Don’t lie or make promises you can’t keep.
• Don’t send story ideas that are about as exciting as mall music.
• Don’t send a regular pitch with a press release to a blogger.
• Don’t use traditional media relations tactics with bloggers, but rather, make an effort to connect with them individually.
• Don’t play bloggers like a numbers game.
• Don’t be rude and not thank the blogger for covering your news.

By Lee Odden

In a recent post by Steve Rubel, he points out the decline of traditional pitching and the upswing of social community participation. I sent this to Bill Arnovich in our PR office, who as a FT media relations guy, took somewhat of an issue with the notion that traditional pitching is dead. Bill conducts traditional pitching every day, 9-5 and he’s good at it. There’s no sign of a decline in his eyes (or mine from his pickup reports). He also continues to get positive feedback from the journalists he’s helped to find great ideas and companies (our clients) to write about.

I tend to hit the middle of the road when it comes to “this tactic is dead” types of posts. The “pitching is dead, long live participation” idea was no different, so I did a post at our Online Marketing Blog, “The Future of Online PR and Reputation Management” to dig a bit deeper into the continued need for traditional pitching in combination with the use of technology and social community/blogosphere involvement.

By Mike Yanke, Account Manager

I’ve just returned from my first major conference and business trip, and luckily, it was a great one.

I wanted to share an early lesson inspired by the session “Pitching and Working with Bloggers: Advice From the Top”, a panel featuring Josh Hallett, Phil Gomes & Patrick Hynes.

To communicate our client’s stories today, PR pros will have to rely not only on building professional relationships with the press, but friendships with industry bloggers.

Luckily, if this is done right, everything else will come naturally. After all, it’s easy to tell your friend a story because you know who they are, what they’re interested in, and most importantly, what they love.

So, for my introductory post, let me tell you what I love. I love everything about marketing and public relations. I love getting to know people in the industry, following the trends and seeing the rules of the game change daily, and trying to anticipate these changes.

What is it you love about what you do?

One of the interesting things about writing a modestly popular blog (Online Marketing Blog) that gets pitched daily and also working as a partner in a public relations firm is a view of both sides of the fence on blogger relations.

I just got off the phone with a rep from yet another big PR firm following up on an email pitch he sent yesterday about a company recently acquired by Google. I had not written about the news but here’s the insight I gave him that I think is probably true with other bloggers that also have successful day jobs.

Yes, I write a blog. Yes I am interested in story ideas. I’m also the CEO of a fast growing company. That means I have limited time to blog our own editorial schedule let alone pitched story ideas.

To make progress in such a situation, the PR professional must follow all the other rules of effective pitching such as being relevant, personal and timely, but it’s also important to make it as easy as possible for the blogger to quickly use the pitch in a blog post.