A lot of military organizations have contacted me in the past few weeks for some tips on reaching out to the blogosphere.
I think this great post from Beltway Blogroll (a must read, IMHO) sums it up best:
Washington flacks should read it and ponder what will work best for them. Here it is:
– Church Of The Customer: “Get to know bloggers before pitching them. Build a relationship before a pitch. Introduce yourself to a blogger with an email or phone call. Explain your work and your clients. Ask … if future news about your industry or clients is of interest to them. Seek permission.”
– Emergence Media, which has compiled a guide on how to pitch bloggers: “It’s one thing to know the A-list bloggers; its another to know what mid-tier blogs they read. Just like in regular PR, you may need to hit the mid-tier bloggers (who are read by the A-list bloggers) before you get covered by the big leagues. Don’t be fooled by looking only at Alexa data or Technorati rankings; see who links to them, too.”
– WebProNews: “I’ve been involved in several blogger outreach efforts recently. In each case, I carefully read several posts and comments, along with ‘About This Blog’ details, then crafted an individual message to that blogger. … [M]ost bloggers appreciate solid content they can write about that’s consistent with the focus of their blogs, assuming you approach them correctly.”
It’s all about relationships, folks. So play nice with bloggers.
To which I would add, send out an email to your public (usually I would say customers and prospects, but in this case I would say public) and find out which blogs they read. Those after all, would be the important blogs.