As a former newspaper reporter and editor, I’ve been horrified at how quickly my old business is imploding. Five years ago, few people in newsrooms worried much about the Web. Three years ago, we became aware that it was nipping at our heels. Today, there are newspapers and TV stations whose very existence is being threatened by the exodus of news, entertainment and advertising (particularly classified) to the Web.
A relative handful of bloggers and bloglike aggregator Web sites are now assuming some of the functions of the traditional mainstream media. (Relative, that is, when you consider that we’re talking about a few hundred or thousand blogs out of some 130 million.)
In celebrity news: Perez Hilton. In politics: Daily Kos. In business: The Big Picture. In travel: Vagablond. There are many others.
These blogs bring issues to light and prompt debate. They spur people to action. They provide a forum for people with shared interests to connect and comment. They push topics into the public sphere. They entertain. All things the mainstream media did, though the blogs carry on with a relish and an unabashed point of view that has been missing from the MSM since the yellow journalism era of 100 years ago. In many cases (Drudge being a prime example), they actually are setting the agenda for the MSM.
On a smaller scale from these blogosphere behemoths are many bloggers who handle topics related to a specialized interest (say, green living) or a specific city or geographic region. These bloggers, too, are performing some of the traditional MSM functions, albeit on a smaller scale than the giants like Perez and Kos.
In my view, a popular, well-read blog de facto takes on some of the public trust that the mainstream media have always assumed. Many bloggers don’t really see it that way, however, and that poses a challenge for those of us whose job it is to communicate with them. I’ve read any number of articles about the care and feeding of bloggers, and I’ve attended roundtables where bloggers talked about what they do and how they do it.
The typical playbook: Don’t send press releases. Don’t phone. Cultivate a personal relationship if you can; hang out at the blog, post comments, become part of the community. Good advice, and I see value in it.
But let me play devil’s advocate: Why shouldn’t I send you a press release? If you’ve got 2,000 readers, you’re like a small newspaper. Newspapers don’t complain when we send them press releases. They may throw the release away, but they don’t write articles ridiculing the person who had the audacity to send it, as some bloggers do when they get an unwanted release.
The fact is, in a very short time, you’ve become a key cog in our society’s communication machine. You’re part of something that’s destroying the old model; at the same time, you’re being given the opportunity to help create something worthwhile to take its place.
Don’t get me wrong: I’m not saying that you have an obligation to actually write about what’s in press releases. The world will go on whether you tell your readers about XYZ Widgets or not. But understand that you have an audience and people are going to want your ear. Accept that as a compliment, and don’t be indignant when it happens.
You may not have asked to be part of the public information infrastructure, but it’s asking you. That’s an honor. Go with it.
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June 19th, 2008 - 8:50 am
“If you’ve got 2,000 readers, you’re like a small newspaper.”
Yeah, but I don’t put unleaded in a horse just because it’s roughly the same size as my Jeep and they’re both used for transportation.
However, I do hope for more maturity and intelligence from all sides: traditional reporters, new-media reporters and “reporters,” PR professionals, dumbasses who pretend to do “PR,” etc.
June 19th, 2008 - 6:21 pm
More maturity! Heaven forfend! A blog is bar talk, the soapbox speakers’ corner, a place for people to shoot their mouths off.
Love the unleaded/horse image. What about ethanol, corn-based? Horse might like that.
Reinan’s question makes sense for blogs that break news. Most blogs are just people like me gassing. I think we have a responsibility to back up what we say on our blog, give some evidence, but that’s just how I think any discourse should go. A responsibility to society? God, society’s in trouble if bloggers like me are responsible for it.
But the blogs like Daily Kos that John talks about — yes, I guess they have some responsibility, because they do some reporting, not just commenting.
The biggest issue is will any MSM still do reporting? Will they have the resources to do it? Blogs ain’t gonna take their place. I still want to read what happens in the world in the NY Times, then go comment on it. I fear, with John, the diminution of real reporting in all MSM. Maybe the little blogs can pick up some of the slack, but not all of it.
Good questions, John.
June 20th, 2008 - 1:52 pm
John, the truth is that many newspaper writers don’t want your press releases either.
I have a core group of subjects I cover and know the media contacts for that group well. Releases from them are part of my job.
But I get several dozen - and sometimes several hundred - releases weekly from PR flacks around the country. It’s really nothing more than spam, and no matter how many times I politely, always politely, ask to be removed from their lists, the releases just keep coming.
If I were a blogger, I’d do everything I could to avoid getting on a PR mailing list of any sort, because it’s inevitably going to lead to the same spam barrage.
June 20th, 2008 - 3:00 pm
John,
I just wondered the very same question this morning–why mainstream media people seem to be busy enough to just ignore an irrelevant press release, but some bloggers have the time, motivation, and energy to rant out loud against the high quantity and low quality of press releases they receive.
It’s akin to the best way to avoid content you perceive as being offensive: change the channel, turn the page, switch the station. If a blogger gets an e-mail that isn’t useful to his or her purpose, it can be deleted in one click.
June 20th, 2008 - 3:07 pm
God love ya, Kevin. Well said.
June 20th, 2008 - 3:42 pm
The logical flaw is so obvious, it’s easy to miss.
The reason it’s not okay to send me a press release, the reason that bloggers rant about this is simple: friction.
The cost of sending a press release to the 100 top magazines, by fedex or even mail, is thousands of dollars. As a result, flaks are careful about who they flak.
The cost of sending a “press release” to every single blogger in the world is exactly zero. There’s a name for this. Spam.
As my name and address are added to more and more lists, the number of press releases received approaches infinity. As economics indicates it will. It costs nothing, sometimes it works. That’s why the mafia sends out spam to sell Viagra. Same deal.
The difference is that I can’t do anything about the mafia. What I can do is point out that if you send me a press release, I will never, ever write about you and your products. That creates a cost. Friction. It slows down the inevitable, perhaps allowing me to actually read all my mail, mail from readers, instead of hiring someone to be a filter.
The only people who seem to have a problem with this are PR flaks. My readers tell me it’s a good plan. If you’ve got something great, you don’t need to spam people.
June 20th, 2008 - 3:58 pm
Good points, Seth, and it’s hard to argue with your personal point of view. But since that was the point of my post, I can’t back down so quickly.
When I was a reporter, I got hundreds of e-mailed releases a day. I’d go through them two or three times a day and quickly delete just about all of them. It took a minute or two each time. Sometimes I probably deleted things that might have been useful, but them’s the breaks.
What I’m saying is that our society needs channels for people to get their business information out. For decades, the main channels were the print media. Now those media are failing. People like you — credible, informed, independent sources of information — are part of what’s replacing them.
For you and others like you to spend five minutes a day deleting spam doesn’t seem like a lot to ask in return for killing the dinosaurs that so many people depended on.
June 20th, 2008 - 4:11 pm
What a presumptuous and self-serving question! It figures that a marketing agency would equate spamming bloggers with press releases as a “public trust” important to “society.”
As a blogger, I only owe a duty to my readers. None of them are begging me to read or print canned press releases.
If you won’t take the trouble to know me, why should I take the trouble to learn about your very unique, paradigm-shifting client, who happens to be a leading provider of best-of-breed iterative database platforms providing novel solutions to unmet needs with seamless Web 2.0-enabled B-to-C connectivity?
June 20th, 2008 - 4:25 pm
Bradley, I’ve never used any of those terms in a release. I’m pretty sure nobody else at our agency has, either.
Most people in my business think pretty carefully about where to send information. You call it spam because you didn’t ask for it — fair enough. But in most cases, the person who sent it to you did so because they thought it was pertinent to your area of interest. In most — not all — cases, that sort of material is not sent randomly or in shotgun fashion.
But there is a larger question here, I think, and it is: where do people get their information?
For decades, centuries even, the sources were largely centralized. Now they’re becoming much more dispersed. All I’m saying is, if you blog about homemaking issues, and I have a client who makes a new kind of baking pan, your readers might want to know about it. And you shouldn’t be upset if I send you some information about it.
That’s it in a nutshell.
June 20th, 2008 - 5:03 pm
JohnR.
I am also a reporter, and the vast majority of my work inbox consists of canned pitches sent without the least regard for whether it fits our newspaper. A few messages are actually pertinent and sent from people who know about our newspaper. I suspect some of these are just sent out shot-gun style from a list, and productivity is measured by how many journalists are contacted.
My most recent email is typical. It was from some group called “Student Loan Justice, addressed to “Fellow Student Loan Borrower”. I’ve never taken out a student loan, and my college days are long behind me.
If your group sends me a personalized pitch — either to my work or blog address — I guarantee I’ll read it and pay close attention. And by “personalized,” I don’t mean inserting my name into a form email. I mean actually demonstrating that you’ve read the publication and know our parameters.
Whenever PR people think to ask me what our publication is looking for, I try to be as helpful as possible, so we don’t waste each others’ time. But most don’t ask. With a few honorable exceptions, the people in your profession need a major reality check.
June 20th, 2008 - 5:24 pm
Well-played, sir.
June 20th, 2008 - 8:09 pm
Bradley J. Fikes,
Despite your last point, I still think John is in the right here. For those PR professionals that do take the time to personalize a pitch to your publication, blogger still seem to whine about it. Don’t contact me, they say, usually with some underlying tone that they can’t be persuaded like those hacks in the MSM.
I’ve seen an inbox full of unpersonalized pitches as a reporter. It’s absolutely easy to delete them. And for those personalized pitches, I did spend more time with them.
It seems though, that there is this cadre of bloggers who just find themselves too important, too on-high to be bothered with any type of pitch.
That brand of obstinacy doesn’t serve anyone.
June 20th, 2008 - 9:36 pm
John:
Here’s something even larger to ponder. In an age where technology can (or at least ought to) make it much easier to connect to a far larger number of people… and to get the news from the “horse’s mouth,” why do we NEED press releases and the traditional role of the p.r. person.
My work at Minnesota Public Radio for Public Insight Journalism really makes it far easier to gain understanding without the tip-off of intermediaries.
But here’s the point:
Just as role of journalists are changing… so too are the roles for those in public relations. Maybe, rather than pitching stories to mainstream press or bloggers or whatever… they are acting more as facilitators, teachers to their clients. Maybe they are showing them how to reach out, on their own, to tell their stories.
Just a thought
June 21st, 2008 - 4:41 am
John,
Thanks for the thoughtful response.
I think your agency is making a strategic blunder.
IF you are sending personal notes to bloggers you already interact with (including me), that’s going to work, it always has and it always will, because it’s not spam, by definition.
If, on the other hand, you are agitating for a blanket pass on PR as a public good, then why on earth would you have your team limit what they send? “But in most cases, the person who sent it to you did so because they thought it was pertinent to your area of interest. In most — not all — cases, that sort of material is not sent randomly or in shotgun fashion.” You get points for being a good citizen, but it’s unrealistic.
The tragedy of the blog commons is that the shotgun fashion costs you nothing. And your competition isn’t holding back, that’s for sure! So even though you mean well, it’s inevitable that clients with a profit motive will push for the shotgun. It helps them, in the short run.
My argument from day one (1992?) is that anticipated, personal and relevant notes sent to people who want to get them is a long-run strategy that won’t fail. And that spam always hits the wall, sooner or later, but breaks systems as it goes.
June 21st, 2008 - 7:36 am
In responding to you, Seth, I risk being the unarmed man in a battle of wits. You’ve been writing books about these topics for years, and I’m just an ex-newspaper reporter who’s still getting used to the new world he’s living in.
Our agency is actually doing things right now in the way you suggest. We do build relationships with key bloggers and provide pertinent information to them. As you point out, that’s a long-run success strategy.
My post — admittedly as a devil’s advocate — wondered whether there could be a third way. With the sheer proliferation of bloggers, it’s not possible to build relationships with everyone who might be blogging about a topic of interest for you. Yet I don’t advocate the shotgun approach, either. So I wondered whether it would be possible to offer relevant information to bloggers with whom one hasn’t built a relationship, but who might be glad to get useful info even if it came from a source they haven’t interacted with in the past.
For example, I’m a regular reader and commenter at Barry Ritholtz’s blog, The Big Picture. I don’t currently have a financial services client, but if I did, I might credibly offer Barry some information based on my status as a member of his community.
But there are hundreds, even thousands of other financial bloggers. I can’t possibly develop relationships with all of them. If I have some interesting or pertinent information, wouldn’t it be OK to send it to those people, even though I don’t have a relationship with them? They might find it useful.
Mike C. in #12 may have pointed the way: teach your clients how to reach out and tell their stories on their own.
June 21st, 2008 - 11:50 am
P.S. Seth, how does your publisher sell your books? I’d be surprised if it’s done using only communications with carefully selected outlets where a previously cultivated personal relationship exists. If there is no mass marketing involved, that would amaze me.
I’m not asking that to be a jerk. It’s just that ultimately, our economy is based on everybody selling stuff to everybody else. Word of mouth is a powerful force, but if everything is based solely on word of mouth within small, cultivated circles, then I’m afraid a lot of us are going to be out of work.
So, as the mass media rattle and thrash in their death throes, can the new, personal media take on some of the mass role? Or are they just two separate worlds, serving separate functions, and forever bound to be that way?
I guess that’s the fundamental question.
June 21st, 2008 - 6:06 pm
John,
You are doing the right thing by asking the question on your blog. You even got Romenesko’d.
Here’s a positive suggestion if you feel you must send out mass emailings: Ask the recipient on an opt-in basis if they wish to continue receiving your emails. If they don’t, take them off the list. And if they’re interested, ask them what kind of information they want.
But simply continuing to send unsolicited emails is a sure way to get your email address blacklisted.
June 22nd, 2008 - 10:36 pm
JohnR–interesting analogy you brought up regarding the marketing of Seth’s books (several of which I own).
I have a book published by a major New York publishing house. The primary reason I received that book deal (other than my literary brilliance, of course) was that I approached an agent who (unbeknownst to me) knew an editor at the publishing house who was interested in the topic on which I was writing. In this case the agent did a favor to both the editor and me by acting as a filter for all the “unwanted” submissions being sent to the editor.
PR people could do the same by developing relationships with bloggers, and then keep up to date on what the bloggers are looking for. And then, and ONLY then, pitching clients who fit the bill. It takes longer, and it may mean turning down clients who don’t have a saleable story. But in the long run, it may be more palatable for all parties involved–including the client ostensibly writing the checks.
June 23rd, 2008 - 9:51 am
Kevin — No question that “who you know” is an efficient and effective way to get things done. But it’s not the only way. I’m still a big believer in the notion that there is always a home for quality, regardless of contacts.
Let’s carry the book analogy further. I sit on the board of a great literary non-profit publisher, Milkweed Editions. Milkweed’s editorial staff takes great pains to read every one of those “unwanted” submissions you cite. Call it literary spam, but it’s Milkweed’s lifeblood. As a non-profit, it simply can’t offer the kinds of advances and sales routinely offered by the for-profit houses, so they have to work a little harder and be a little smarter to ensure they consistantly have great books to sell. Because Milkweed has a reputation for quality and employs some of the finest book editors in the country, great mansuscripts have a knack for finding their way to their doorstep, whether submitted by a smart agent, ferreted out by a knowlegable Milkweed staffer, or submitted on a lark by a hungry, unpublished author.
I do think every marketer has a story to tell and can find an audience for its messages. (Consider the Long Tail). As a marketer,(and President of Fast Horse) I like to think my shop offers potential clients what Milkweed does its authors. And like Milkweed, that doesn’t mean we’ll take on just anyone. But once we do, our job is to do the hard work of helping our clients figure out what’s different and relevant, and then find creative ways to spend their precious marketing dollars to engage the people who might care.
If we’re pitching information we have not run through our “process,” we stand a pretty good chance of earning the ire of bloggers, reporters, consumers or anyone else we might try to engage with it. And we should. However, I think we’d be doing our clients a disservice if our efforts were only directed at those with whom we have a personal relationship. It’s unrealistic and, I’d argue, unneccesary if you’ve got the goods.
June 23rd, 2008 - 12:11 pm
I wish all of you would stop making insightful, rational comments to this post–I’ve got a lot of work to do, and it won’t get done if I keep coming back to see who has said what (and on that note–curses to you, Seth Godin, for reminding me that your blog exists–there’s another 10 minutes out of each day that I now have to spend checking out your latest update).
Jorg–you have a great attitude about your firm’s mission, and how to serve your clients while performing the delicate dance of getting information only to those who want it. Ironically, the technology that Seth and BJF rightfully bash for allowing undiscerning PR people to spam at will, may one day help firms like Fast Horse provide a more efficient link between subjects and writers.
July 10th, 2008 - 6:37 pm
“But there are hundreds, even thousands of other financial bloggers. I can’t possibly develop relationships with all of them. If I have some interesting or pertinent information, wouldn’t it be OK to send it to those people, even though I don’t have a relationship with them? They might find it useful.”
If you’re asking “why can’t I spam these hundreds, even thousands of other financial bloggers?”, then may the deity of your choice have mercy on your soul.
Any blogger worth her salt is already inundated with information that *they choose to receive*. Adding yours — unsolicited — to the torrent is why you get held up for ridicule.
What you need to do is get your stuff in the torrent in a solicited fashion, which is to say, by a channel the other bloggers already are receiving information. If you have something of value, and if you get it promoted by the bloggers that you actually bothered to create a relationship with, that message will already reach some percentage of the other bloggers you’re trying to reach, since bloggers tend to follow blogs in related industries (like your own blogroll on this page). So now the blogosphere is divided into four groups:
1. Those with whom you have cultivated relationships
2. Those who see the message from the bloggers in group #1
3. Those you think you want to have see your message but aren’t in group #1 or #2
4. Everyone else (e.g,. bloggers on unrelated topics)
The “let’s spam!” attitude wants to rewrite the definition of group #1 to “those I sent my spam to” and to fold groups #2 and #3 into #1 by sheer dint of email traffic. Bad, bad monkey.
Instead, what you want to do is two-fold:
a. help the bloggers in group #1 improve their reach, so group #3 naturally folds into #2 by virtue of more of them following the bloggers in group #1
b. ask the bloggers in group #1 to introduce you to bloggers in group #3, to help create new personal relationships and move them into group #1
Pattern ‘a’ is more nebulous but offers a greater potential results per unit effort than pattern ‘b’, which you’re probably already doing. Pattern ‘a’ simply means asking group #1 “how can I help you grow your audience?”. It might be sponsorship $$$. It might be donated or reduced-fee work on their behalf. It might be inviting them to some event you host. It might be helping them make connections of value with other people (bloggers, industry insiders, etc.).
Grow group #1 in breadth (more bloggers) and depth (bloggers with better reach). Group #1 will reach group #2 in a way group #2 actually likes, and group #3 will slowly shrink as they get introduced to you (and become part of group #1) or start following those you’re helping (and become part of group #2). The rest will take care of itself…assuming you have messages worth anyone’s time.
July 11th, 2008 - 3:08 am
hat if rather than sending an email to a blogger (generally just an enthusiastic home computer user) each of these press releases you sent out were real mail. How would you feel if the amount of JUNK email, since you yourself claimed you just “binned” most of it, in you actual mail box? Something tells me you’d be mighty upset if you accidentally overlooked that final demand bill because you couldn’t find it mixed in with all that JUNK.
July 11th, 2008 - 7:43 am
How arrogant.
Why should ANYONE be required to accept anything from PR or Marketing?
It’s one thing if you establish a relationship with the blogger and send him press releases that are relevant to the readership, it’s quite another to say “you have a responsibility to bend over and take what I give you”
Why should *I*, a reader of such a blog, be subjected to something that is superfluous and completely irrelevant. Why should I be subject to what amounts to a poorly conceived attempt to reach into my wallet in some way? That’s what most press releases seem to be these days.
People hate marketers because of attitudes like this. Marketers have devalued trust, devalued the language to the point of meaninglessness all in the name of the almighty buck.
So tell me…why the hell should a blogger subject his readers to your irrelevant releases?
July 11th, 2008 - 10:31 am
Anonymo — Strikes us as a bit of a strawman argument you’re making. Nobody is suggesting that bloggers “bend over and take” “irrelevant” releases. In fact, we have as big a problem with irrelevant releases as anyone. What my colleague is asking is simply: if I have information that our research indicates might be relevant to your readers, what’s the problem with sending it to you for consideration?
Look at it another way. The good people at TechDirt, who are sending a bit of traffic our way on this issue, seem to want it both ways. On the one hand they say to PR people –”Don’t send us your ’spam’ releases. They are all spin, and they won’t help us do our job. And if you do, we reserve the right to hold you up to riducule.” At the same time, they are happy to accept revenue from banner ads that certainly are not relevant to every single visitor to their site. So, in essence, they are willing to “spam” their visitors with unwanted content, while denegrating PR people for sending them press releases.
I think the common ground here might be to accept that some releases have value, as do some ads. If you don’t want to do the work of clicking through to find the ones that have value, that’s your choice. At the same time, I can choose to find other blogs to read that just give me the content I want without bombarding me with cheesy ads for products I don’t want. That’s my choice. Perhaps each of us loses something if we choose that path. Or not. It’s worth discussing.
July 11th, 2008 - 2:25 pm
Your TechDirt comparison is nonsense. Here are some equivalent scenarios:
– Anyone who advertises on billboards must be willing to entertain every door-to-door salesperson trying to sell them stuff
– Anyone who advertises in newspapers must be willing to spend 5 minutes minimum with each telemarketer that calls them, at home or at work
– Anyone who advertises on the sides of buses must stand up for the rights of beggars to panhandle
In all these scenarios, the comparison is between display advertising (passive) and direct marketing (interrupting). Likewise with banner ads (passive) and PR spam (interrupting) in the TechDirt scenario.
July 11th, 2008 - 3:10 pm
It’s not that clean, Mark. The premise of your argument is that “passive” advertising is easily ignored, so it can’t be offensive to anyone. Take a drive down any interstate in America and tell me billboards don’t “interrupt” the scenery. A lot of people hate them as much as they do door-to-door salesmen.
When the person who markets on those billboards starts to bitch about having dinner interrupted by a door-to-door salesman, then I think it’s fair to point out the hypocrisy of that position.
I’m not here to defend spam, billboards or door-to-door salesmen. I do reserve the right to knock guy who is not exactly pure off his high horse.