Back to bloggers. By now you’ve probably found some great blogs in your area of expertise to follow and you’re probably itching to become a guest-blogger or have your book or product featured on it. But remember the first post I did about pitching bloggers? You’re not going to be pitching bloggers like you would the traditional media. Actually let’s take “pitch” out of your PR vocabulary right now because it’s not pitching, it’s relationship building.
So before you reach out to the blogger, make sure you know the blog and you’re keeping up with the kinds of content that is being posted. Note if they have guest bloggers, do reviews, etc., and ask yourself whether or not this blog is truly a good fit for you and your expertise. If it is, start by posting comments with good commentary or additional thoughts wherever you can. The goal here, is to show the blogger and its followers you’re an avid and engaged fan of what they have to say, and you have a genuine interest in being part of this community. And that’s really what a good blog is — a community of like-minded thinkers who more or less have the same goals and inspirations. Why wouldn’t you want to be part of it?
Once you’ve established yourself in the community, it’s time to reach out to the blogger with an email. Make it short and simple, telling them you really enjoy the blog and was wondering if they were in need of anything. Ask if they accept guest-bloggers or do reviews of books and products. By now though, you should have a good idea whether they do or don’t, but ask anyway and give them a taste of what you could offer. The key here is to be extremely polite and not to overload them with information. Keep it short and sweet. It could take a couple of exchanges before you get the results you want, but remember it’s relationship building. It takes time. I’ll be posting soon about how to follow-up with bloggers once you’ve done a guest-post or had your book or product reviewed on their blog. Stay tuned.
