The Reality Check Guide To Blogger Outreach

Heidi Sullivan @hksully

Vice President, Global Media Research

Cision

Why Bloggers?

33

The Conversation Shift

Traditional

Media Model

The Public

The Media

PR/Marketing

Us

Social Media Model

44

Bloggers and voices on social sites vie for

influence directly with traditional media.

If the news is that

important, it will find me.college student quoted in

New York Times, March 2008

Facebook now drives more traffic to

PerezHilton and the Huffington Post than

Google does. WebProNews, May 2009

55

Case Study

Goal – increase beta users by 100K

Method – Targeted Blogger Outreach

&

66

I saw your post a couple weeks ago, “Think Before You

Voicemail,” so I know how you feel about voicemail, and I agree

with you on all points. I try to avoid leaving people voicemails, at

work and in my personal life, and would much rather send and

receive emails or texts. But, as you mentioned, sometimes you

need to use voicemail – to convey tone or emotion, or because

you’re on the road and need to relay more information than you

can type while driving or otherwise multi-tasking…

Case Study

&

- Pitch to

77

I work for a PR agency and have a client that just launched a new service

today. I thought of you because this service has the potential to make the

celeb dating scene a lot more interesting, if that’s even possible! It even

has a cool name – slydial!

If LC could leave Heidi a voicemail without the possibility of Heidi picking

up the phone, what do you think she would say? What about Mario

Lopez? He got caught cheating on his long-time girlfriend….

Case Study

&

- Pitch to

88

Case Study

Resulted in 381 Blog Posts in 1 Month (including TechCrunch and Perez Hilton)

ROI: “By hitting online consumers from all angles, the program helped boost slydial’s 5,000 private alpha users to more than 200,000 beta users in less than two weeks.”

&

Section Divider

The Niche Nature of

Blogging

I’ve got blogs whose target audience is 100 people – the right 100 people.

Chris AndersonAuthor of The Long Tail

and Free

1111

Using social data for long-range predictive analytics

Acceleration of conversations on blogs often precedes both the

manifestation of a trend and its news coverage

By identifying new opportunities for investors, bloggers helped bring

green tech investing out of its 2009 slump

166 VC investments

61,300 blog mentions

8,540 mainstream

news mentions

Q3 2008 Q3 2009 Q3 2010

“Green technology” investment, blog discussion and news coverageSources: Cision Media Research, Treehugger.com & Cleantech Group

Solar-powered coffee maker

1212

Many blogs are focused on niche topics

which news outlets tend to cover more

sporadically and reactively

Blogs are where industry tastemakers lay

out their thoughts and predictions, which

get re-circulated on Twitter and Facebook

Influential blogs are updated constantly

Photo courtesy Alan Levine via Flickr

1313

The devil is in the details

About one quarter of bloggers tracked in Cision’s media database

cover one of 26 “first tier” general topics. The rest cover more

specific topics.

General 23%

Specific 77%

Source: Cision Media Research

Section DividerThe Who, Why & How

1515

Blogger Outreach

The Four “R”s:

Research

Relationships

Relevance

Respect

“Tailor to how we

cover beauty.

Demonstrate that you

get our approach.”

– Lesa Hannah,

Beauty Director for FASHION

1616

Research

Look at writing

style, voice and tone

Research past coverage

(bylines, reports, posts)

Know what they DON’T

cover

Be aware what they’re

looking for

Update your lists

1717

Relationships

Compliments never hurt!

Follow them on

Twitter/social networks

Comment on blog posts

Connect IRL

It takes time, nurture

and maintain them

1818

Relevance

Better to send out

fewer, personalized

messages

Never send a pitch

without some introduction

Make it clear, keep it brief

Only send material you

know they’ll read

1919

Respect

Know their preferred method of contact

Don’t leave long voicemails or follow up via phone

If you haven’t heard back, don’t panic

Know when to step back and when to push

When in doubt, include an opt-out

Keep your word!

Section DividerDo Bloggers Really

Influence

Opinions?

2121

of any population will be active content creators

will be participants

will simply "consume" that content online

1%

9%

90%

Data from:

It used to be that in order to have a powerful voice in the

Momosphere, you had to do what I did: write four

books, appear on dozens of national morning shows, speak at

parenting groups and more…

Now thanks to social media, moms have been able to - from

the basement in their house in Iowa, to the deck in their

backyard in San Diego - build an audience not by going to

traditional media or writing a book, but gather audience based

on the power of their voice, the clarity of what their expressing

and the resonance it has with their audience.

Stacey DeBroff@momcentral

Anyone Can Be an Influencer

2323

Do bloggers truly influence the masses?

Gladwell’s Law of the Few

“The success of any kind of

social epidemic is heavily

dependent on the involvement

of people with a particular and

rare set of social gifts.”

Duncan Watts: Trends are

Unpredictable

“A rare bunch of cool people

just don’t have that power. And

when you test the way

marketers say the world

works, it falls apart.”

2424

Who is right: Watts or Gladwell?

Both. Trends still begin with a small few and are spread by

those with connections.

Bloggers can change over time – and anyone can become

an influencer.

However, a general rule of thumb is that bloggers and

influencers tend to talk to each other.

Immersing yourself in that community will help you spot

trends as they emerge.

2525

Remember the 10%

Regardless of whether or not bloggers truly

influence, only 1 out of 10 people is truly sharing and

creating content online.

Spreading the word makes them influential.

• Know your community.

• Read, read, read!

• Identify what’s new.

2626

Heidi SullivanVice President, Global Media Research

Email: heidi.sullivan@cision.com

Homepage: us.cision.com

Blog: blog.cision.com

Facebook: facebook.com/hksully

Twitter: @hksully

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/heidisullivan

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