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Quick Summary: Indian public relations firm Good Relations provides me the perfect case study of how not to run a blogger relations program.

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?

• Is Customer Service the New Marketing? Of Course Not! (14)
• How To Run an Effective Blogger Review Program (4)
• Web 2.0: Is the Bubble About to Burst? (0)
• The Best of Indian Business Blogs: A Weekly Digest by Business Bloggers You Trust (Week Two) (1)
• The Best of Indian Business Blogs: A Weekly Digest by Business Bloggers You Trust (Week Three) (2)