There’s a wealth of good advice available on how to run a blogger relations program — see Guy Kawasaki, Michael Arrington, Lee Odden, Emergence Media (PDF), Brian Solis (PDF), Shift Communications (PDF), Rohit Bhargava (PDF) and Vocus (PDF) to start with — so, I’m wondering why would public relations firm Good Relations send me an e-mail like this –

From: PR-Agent-Name (pr-agent-name@gri.co.in)
Date: Mon, Mar 31, 2008 at 1:25 PM
Subject: Entrepreneur-Name unveils his second entrepreneurial venture Startup-Name.com
To: PR-Agent-Name (pr-agent-name@gri.co.in)

Greetings:

Please find below press release on Startup-Name.com, a second entrepreneurial venture of Entrepreneur-Name. It will be great if you can review the website and write your personal experience.

Should you be interested in interacting with Entrepreneur-Name, please do not hesitate to contact me.

Thank you

Regards,

PR-Agent-Name

Account Manager
Good Relations (India) Pvt Ltd

I typically receive 2-3 pitches for startups every week, but they are usually from someone in the startup team itself, and very different from the pitch above.

The person making the pitch either follows me at Twitter, or reads my blog, or knows me through a friend, so there’s already a connection. Often, we end up chatting (on Twitter, IM, mail or phone), and some of these pitches have even led to friendships.

If I totally love the person, or the pitch, or the startup, I write a totally over-the-top I-really-love-it check-it-out-now review, because what’s the point of writing a review for someone/ something you don’t totally love?

So, here is the question I’m asking myself: why do startups themselves ‘get’ how to pitch bloggers, but PR agencies who represent startups do not?

I think startups ‘get’ how to pitch to bloggers because they are often bloggers themselves and understand that there’s bigger value in building a relationship with an influential blogger than getting one indifferent review out of them.

Most public relations firms, on the other hand, probably think of blogger relations as ’sending 1000 e-mails to a database of bloggers’.

But really? Why would someone be stupid enough, or lazy enough, not to Google “blogger relations tips” before sending out a mail that is destined to result in a “PR sucks” post instead of the intended review?

ShareThis

Background: While blogger review/ blogger relation programs have become popular internationally over the last two years, they are virtually unheard of in the Indian context. At the @MumbaiTwit tweetup last Sunday, I was speaking to a friend about setting up a blogger review program, and decided that it will be useful to put down my thoughts in the form of a how-to guide.

Scope: In this how-to guide, I’ll focus on running an effective blogger review program, not a blogger relations program. A blogger review program is typically a tactical, short-term, time-bound campaign focused on getting bloggers to review your new product or service. A blogger relations program involves building more strategic, longer-term, open-ended relationships with bloggers who are influential in your product or service niche. In terms of applicability, blogger review programs can be effective across a wide variety of product and services categories, including books, music CDs, movie DVDs, websites, gadgets and restaurants.

Step 1: Set up the blogger review program

I’m assuming that if you are planning to run a blogger review program, you already have a website, and probably a blog, for your product. If not, you should create both, and also consider creating a profile (or page) on social networks like Facebook/ MySpace/ Orkut.

While the specifics of a blogger review program will vary according to your product and your objectives, the following elements would work well for most blogger review programs –

- Offer bloggers a freebie in return for a review on their blogs. The freebie may be a complimentary copy of a book/ music CD/ movie DVD, a sneak preview of a new gadget/ website, or a discount coupons for a restaurant. Ideally, offer a freebie that is directly related to the product being reviewed, not money, as many bloggers are likely be offended by a monetary offer. In any case, specify that the blogger is expected to give an unbiased opinion on the product.

- Clearly define who and how many are eligible to participate in the program. If you are giving away expensive gadgets, you would want to restrict participation to a few dozen influential bloggers on a “by invitation only” basis. If you are giving away free books/ CDs/ DVDs, you can restrict participation to the “first 100″ bloggers who request to participate in the program. If you are inviting requests, you should consider putting up a form that asks for details about blog URL, blog description, blog authority, apart from contact details.

- To make the program even more attractive to bloggers, offer to link back to their review on your own “review blog”, so that the blogger gets both the freebie and a linkback in return for a review.

- Set up a separate (easy to link) page on your website or blog for the blogger review program and prominently display a link to the page on your homepage. Structure the programs page as a social media newsroom, and include additional resources that will be useful in writing the review, including background information and easily embeddable photos (book cover, CD/ DVD jackets, or author/ artist/ executive pictures, possibly hosted on Flickr), videos (movie clips, music videos, or author/ artist/ executive interviews, possibly hosted on Flickr), videos (movie clips, music videos, or author/ artist/ executive interviews, possibly hosted on YouTube), and presentations (product/ website demo, or restaurant menu, possibly hosted on SlideShare).

Step 2: Announce the blogger review program on your website or blog

After you have set up the blogger review page on your website or blog, announce the blogger review program on your blog. Include a link to the program page but also include details of the program and links to the embeddable resources instead of just saying “click for more details”.

Step 3: Request influential bloggers to participate in, or promote, the program

After you have announced the program on your own blog, approach influential bloggers in your niche via e-mail and request them to either participate in the program, or help you promote the program by announcing it on their own blogs.

Take care to only approach bloggers who already write such posts on their blogs on a regular basis. For instance, it doesn’t make sense to approach a business blogger to review your restaurant, but it may make sense to approach him to promote your blogger review program.

Also take care to personalize your e-mail, address the blogger by name, and include links to a few posts written by the blogger on similar topics, which show that the blogger is indeed likely to be interested in your product.

Step 4: Ensure a hassle-free experience for the blogger

Once a blogger has shown interest in reviewing your product, ensure a hassle-free experience for the blogger. Respond to e-mails promptly, clarify doubts or give additional details wherever required, ship books/ CDs/ DVDs/ gadgets on time, give demos on time and in the manner promised — in short, don’t give the blogger a reason to have a negative impression of the program or the product.

Step 5: Set up a “review blog” to compile all the reviews

Finally, once the blogger has experienced your product and reviewed it on his blog, link to the review on your own “review blog”. The blogger benefits because he gets a linkback and you benefit because you have a record of dozens of (positive) reviews in one place. If you want to be super-smart, send a thank-you note to the blogger, after you have linked to his review on your review blog.

Now that I have written the how-to guide to run an effective blogger review program, I can’t wait to implement it first hand. Watch this space for some real-life case studies coming soon.

Also see:-

- Nokia N-series blogger review program: N90, N95, N91, N70, Washington Post, Matthew Miller at ZDNet.

- Eldelman’s WalMart blogger relations program: Shel Holtz 1, Shel Holtz 2, Richard Edelman 1, Richard Edelman 2, Jeff Jarvis, Dan Gillmor, New York Times.

ShareThis