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.