Blogger Outreach 101

Kevin BondelliApril 2008

One of the best ways to get your message out to an audience that is likely to be receptive to yourmessage is by working with established bloggers to cover your organization. Good blogger outreach isa subtle art, and this guide is a crash course in implementing a strong outreach program.

Step 1: Find the important political blogs in your state.

You can’t do blogger outreach without knowing who the bloggers are. One of the best resources forfinding your local blogs isleftyblogs.com,which has a unique blogroll and feed for every state. Your search should start here. Another great resource is Google Blog Search, which allows you to search avast directory of blogs using keywords. The right keywords are important here, so if you are looking forblogs in Wyoming you should try combinations like: Wyoming+Democrat, Wyoming+progressive,Wyoming+politics. Other resources that may be useful areTechnorati,DMOZ Open Directory Project, or my favorite little secret,Blogshares.

Step 2: Find contact information for those bloggers.

Blogging is a conversation, so most bloggers are good about putting their contact information on theirsite. For example, on my blog there is a Contact Kevinoption on my top navigation bar. Look for an about or contact page, or look at the blog sidebar for a preferred method of contact. A lot of bloggersmake it clear which method of contact is best for them. Add the contact information to your list of blogs. This will be your blog media list. I have created aGoogle Document of an example spreadsheethere. Notice that the spreadsheet include a lot of fields for the various types of contact information.Use what works for you. Also notice that I have phone listed as a field. You may know some bloggerspersonally and have their phone numbers (like many of you have mine) and that may be a way you areable to contact them. However, if a lot of people are going to have access to your media list make surethat it is okay for that person’s number to be listed. A more conservative is approach is to have thephone field just say yes or no, and possibly the name of the member of your organization that has thenumber. For blogs with multiple authors, the blog is listed as many times as there are authors withcontact information.

Step 3: Read through the posts of each blog.

Dip into the blogs archive and get a good feel for the kind of content that the blogger writes. Also notehow frequently the blogger posts. A couple of things to take note of is to see if the author posts pressreleases verbatim (I’ve been known to do this) or posts announcements of upcoming local events.

Step 4: Build relationships with those bloggers.

The best way to build a relationship with a blogger is to make

substantive

comments on their posts.Just leaving a “great post” or “interesting” isn’t going to cut it. If there is one thing a bloggerappreciates it is an active commenter as a member of their blog community. Most of the timecomment forms will include a field for your website URL, and if it does make sure you use yourorganization’s blog address (if you don’t have one, use your organization’s website, but read my poston blogging as a Young Democrat chapter and get started on that blog. You want to make sure that theblogger knows that it is you that has been making all those great comments on their site.

Step 5: You have the relationship, now use it.

Just be careful not to abuse it. Only contact a blogger about writing something that is important. If you are constantly flooding them with every little thing, at best your important stuff is going to be lostin white noise, and at worst you have a blogger that is annoyed with you and your organization. If there is one thing that you don’t want it is a blogger that is pissed at you. Ask the blogger if theywould like to be added to your organization’s press release list. Make it a point to ask this of bloggersthat you have seen post press releases on their site.Remember that bloggers are always looking for things to write about, so if you have qualityinformation to send them there is a good chance that they are going to use it. If you have a really bigpiece of news, contact the most read blogger of the bunch and let them know that they are gettingfirst dibs at it. Bloggers love being the first to break a big story even more than they love goodcomments. This increases your chance of getting covered by that top-level blog, and lots of bloggersfollow the lead of the top bloggers.

A couple of things to keep in mind:

•

Be professional and careful when emailing a blogger. You never know if that email is going toend up verbatim on one of their blog posts. There are some bloggers that absolutely love to dothis when someone sends them something ridiculous.

•

Never get mad and lash out at a blogger for not writing about something you sent or for notwriting exactly how you wanted.

•

Some of the people you know personally may be bloggers, and will be the most receptive toyou. Marshall Spevak of New Jersey contacted me over Google Chat to tell me about JohnAdler’s fundraising success, and from that Adler got a featured candidate post.

•

Blog outreach is not an overnight process. It takes time to build relationships and to establishyour legitimacy. The benefit though is that once a blogger trusts you they may even come toyou asking if there is anything going on with your organization they can write about.

•

The blogosphere is often an echo chamber, so by getting coverage your message could spreadall over the place, and that is exactly what you want.