According to a little test I took based on something I saw David Gelles play on Facebook, I went overt to I Write Like and took a bunch of my copy from my silly little blog-based spy novel, Hill Mole, and it turns out that I writer like David Foster Wallace — amongst my favorite writers. I am pleased with myself. Have you read Infinite Jest? W00t!
I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!
Thank you very much to Cynthia Price over at Cynthia’s Communique as she accomplished three Very Important Things: 1) wrote an awesome piece about a panel that Dan Krueger and I were on at the Nonprofit 2.0 Unconference in the form of Courting Bloggers 2) a reminder that Dan, Sara and I still really need to do a write up on that panel and 3) an excellent mirror to what we at Abraham Harrison do every day, 7-days a week. Thank you very much Ms. Price!
Blogger outreach is all about the courtship.
At least according to Chris Abraham, president and founding partner of Abraham & Harrison, a company that “offers a complete menu of services to build a company’s online presence.” He shared his insights at the recent NonProfit 2.0 Unconference.
When his firm engages with bloggers he says, “We’re clear about what we want from you and what we can give you.”
One of the most effective ways to reach bloggers is to use a social media news release, which is one of the services of Abraham & Harrison.
When identifying bloggers to reach out to, Dan Krueger, director of client services for Abraham & Harrison, says it’s important to determine the demographics you need to target and the key words, or as he says, “the universes that would be receptive to the message.”
Dan also cautions about targeting mommy bloggers since everyone wants that group.
The list of targeted bloggers should be either geo-targeted or topic based. And, it’s important to always refresh the list of bloggers.
Once the bloggers are identified, an email is sent. “Follow-up is the most important thing,” Chris says. “This is when you begin conversing with the blogger.”
The initial email is a plain text, short message with a link to the social media news release.
The social media news release is critical because it provides everything the blogger needs. “We create one scrollable page that bloggers can post to their site,” Chris says. “They get all the digestible information.”
Following the first email, Chris says the metrics are simple: “They post or they don’t.”
His firm never sends more than three emails, but notes that the second and sometimes third email usually get a higher response than the first one. “We need to reach out multiple times. People are busy; they don’t always get to the emails immediately,” Chris says. “We’re their nudge.”
If the outreach and conversation are successful, the blogger posts. And that, Chris says, “is an earned media mention.”
[I originally posted this over on Toytown Germany] I am constantly amused by how gentrification is considered some terrible plague by some along the same lines of a city blight or a flight.
It is always the artist’s fault. They move in to these neighborhoods because they’re poor and the ‘hoods are cheap. They open galleries and ultra-cheap-but cool little bars or get lots of square-footage lofts for cheap.
All is well until they invite a yuppie. It might very well be a patron of the arts or art collector or even a friend-of-a-friend who makes it to the bar.
Then, it is discovered and all that interest comes in: cheap new hip place that’s cheap and then the speculative real estate investors come in.
So, it is generally not the fault of the yuppies it is the fault of the cheap and poor hipsters who move into these new finds because they’re affordable and pristine and authentic — and then they create awesome little holes in the walls, boutiques, galleries, and show venues.
Hell, I am an entrepreneur and I guess yuppie and I would totally move to Neukölln now. Completely cheap and there are amazing green grocers and lots of U-Bahn access!
And I would probably feel OK to pay €500-€1500/month for a super-fly pad. And spend money in the neighborhood. Does that make me a villain?
Also, because I am there, it may well attract people who want to sell to me even though I am super-happy to shop at the Turkish groceries and bakeries.
The only way for places to remain authentic and cheap is to remain undiscovered and, at least in the USA, they need to remain red-lined and perceived at a little rough and dangerous– or at least alien and unforgiving.
It is a little too late for Neukölln but what of Wedding and Moabit?
I just found the coolest app for my new Android phone, so I made a video review of it!
Transcript:
Today I found an application for my new android phone that just really blew my mind. The application is called “Talk To Me Cloud”
It runs on Android 1.5 and above and it is essentially the Universal Translator from that Gene Roddenberry television show, you know, “Star Trek”.
You speak and then it translates into spoken foreign language for you. German, Spanish. . .
So that I can say things like, “I really believe that we live in the future.”
(Phone translates in German)
And then my phone speaks it for me.
Now it uses an external server to send the data that you’re speaking and then to send back the processed audio file which is then played. . . So you have to have a pretty good connection, but still you have an interface to a universal translator in the palm of your hand constantly. And this is proof, that we live in the future. That is why (phone says “I really believe that we live in the future.” in German).
Absolutely folks. Absolutely.
Now, keep in mind it only translates about as well as Google translate or Babelfish. So there’s going to be some mistranslations here and there, but it generally will translate well enough for you to have a small conversation, get directions to the train station, find your way to the hotel, order a meal, order some beers, order, whatever you need to. . . And then they can also speak their language into it and then it will translate back to English if you like, which is really amazing as far as I’m concerned. I really don’t care that it’s kind of badly translated here and there, because it still translates better than I can. So there you have it.
Alright, folks give it a try if you have the android phones, any of them. I use the Motorola i1 which is the new Boost Mobile prepaid one. I like prepaid. I like android, because I can develop on it. And I’ll catch you guys another day.
At Abraham Harrison, online social media PR is what we do all day, every day, and have been doing for years. We’re not an old-media PR shop trying to quickly jump on the new-school bandwagon, hoping we can figure it out (and making all the mistakes on your dime). We are a well-practiced team of 40+ professionals who work exclusively in the social media world. We’re very pleased to put our skills and experience at your service to deliver the extraordinary impact new media operations can have when practiced by true online experts.
