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.”
