Chris Abraham » Blogger Prospecting

Sometimes I get excited by something I post

Chris Abraham — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 16:39:41 +0000

Today my post came out over at Biznology titled The Long Tail of Blogger Outreach and I am really excited that you all read it even though I am no longer sure that “long tail” is the right way to describe it (thanks in large part to a 90-minute catch up chat I had recently with Richard Laermer, a huge mentor and supporter). Anyway, I guess this is the gist of the article:

People have only a finite amount of time, so their consumption of content, information, news, reviews and alerts are limited. The closer you can get to the media organ that your target market consumes primarily and religiously, the higher the probability that content will register with the reader, will resonate with the reader, and will feel like it is intimate to the reader and his local community and experience of the world.

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Practical Secrets to Getting Your Blog Read and Retweeted (chrisabraham.com)
Fire for effect when you can’t get a direct bead on your market (chrisabraham.com)
How to make friends and influence bloggers (chrisabraham.com)
Go To Bad Pitch Night School (socialmedia.biz)
Richard Laermer: Bad News Is Good News: All in the Pitch (huffingtonpost.com)
Bad Pitch is Teaming up with HuffPo & Reuters for SXSW 2012 (badpitch.blogspot.com)
For ranking algorithms, AdAge is no Google (searchengineguide.com)
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How to make friends and influence bloggers

Chris Abraham — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 13:00:39 +0000

Last week I told you how not to pitch a blogger in your PR outreach, so it raises the pregnant question of what exactly should you do?

For about five years now we’ve seen an extraordinary number of clients and potential clients who have frankly been afraid of blogger outreach because of the poor practices of companies and brands that have stumbled in their attempts to engage the blogosphere. So today I wanted to walk through our process to show you how it’s done. Just how do you pitch a blogger?

First off, we see if we already know anyone. We know folks at the top tech blogs, so we give them first bite. By the time that shakes out, we’ll have a couple-few-thousand blogs to QA and sort out. While we’re seeing how the A-listers pan out, we develop a message model that is inclusive enough to not alienate any single blogger but specific enough that each blogger is completely clear as to who our client is and what we want from them (a post, a tweet, an embedded video, a review, etc).

Then, we send out the first outreach and send four or five online analysts to man the inbox so that potentially a thousand replies can be triaged and responded to, like in a hospital emergency room. Who is spitting mad? Who needs more information? Who needs a little prodding or convincing?

Time should be a primary consideration

More conversions have been made with charming, patient, quick emails than have ever been made through just the pitch

Time is of the essence. More conversions have been made with charming, patient, friendly and quick emails than have ever been made through just the pitch. Why is time ticking? If someone is a little pissed when they get the email and hit reply, they’ll be a lot more pissed and maybe drop an unhappy tweet if they’re ignored for a few hours. If they’re ignored for a day, they will amplify their displeasure by posting it onto their blog, effectively making it very sure they’re heard.

It has less to do with bloggers being vindictive or making their fame on your client’s good name but has way more to do with stepping up displeasure. “I want to be heard, I need to be heard, I have a grievance, and I will be heard no matter what.” To be honest with you, that never happens to us any more because we’re endlessly kind, patient, giving, indulgent, compliant, respectful and super-quick.

Super-quick is the biggest, most important thing. Latency is always punished. And have a system, because it is inexcusable to allow any of these thousands of “nobody” bloggers to ever get less than exquisite service. Don’t play favorites. Triaging the responses has nothing to do with the bank balance or Rolodex or fame or celebrity or reach of the blogger. It has to do with whether a blogger is

willing to post gladly
willing to post but needs more information
willing to post but leery of legitimacy
maybe willing to post but generally conflicted or confused
how did you find my blog and get my email?
unwilling to post but maybe willing to tweet
unwilling to post
unwilling to post and please remove my name
who the hell are you and how did you get my email address or find my blog
wrong topic, I don’t care about this
you’ve insulted me and I will seek vengeance

Honestly, even #11 is fine as long as you don’t meet that blogger with the same anger and menace as is being shared. Remember our mantra: “Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.”

Walking into a drama that’s in progress

I always like to say, when I am speaking at conferences and on panels, that my online team never knows what they’re walking into but that responses like rage and frustration are almost never the direct result of our simple, minimal, friendly email pitch. In a majority of the cases, we’re walking into a drama that is already in progress. Sort of like when a beat cop responds to a domestic 911 call.

Cops hate responding to a domestic disturbance because nobody’s more likely to shoot someone than when they feel like their life is imploding and the only thing that can make someone that crazy is love. Too many cops have been shot as the direct result of unknowingly stepping into someone else’s personal or collective hell. So my team is trained to at least emulate endless patience, love, acceptance and generosity, though my colleague Leslie Quiros tells me that she really sometimes needs to stop, think and breathe, before responding online sometimes. God bless her.

Even more, after we collect and log all of these positive, negative and neutral responses, we wait a week and do it all again, but reaching out only to the bloggers who have not responded at all. While a few of these folks might be ignoring us by not responding, we have concluded that the vast majority of folks who don’t reply during the first outreach just don’t see it or missed it or, more likely, either intend to later but forget or simply don’t know who we are at first and just assume the pitch isn’t for real.

When we reach out one week later and then again a week after that, they’ve seen the email a couple of times and give it a try and are pleased to see that it’s authentic and that there are friendly online analysts more than happy to be friendly and kind at the other end.

It’s not about fooling the bloggers, it’s about authenticity

People are funny and I quite love my species — and I think that attitude is our secret AH sauce: We don’t consider the people we pitch to be the enemy that must be fooled into helping our clients. Quite the opposite. I started my company because I believe that there are lots and lots of vocal proponents on any topic under the sun who just have not been activated yet. Who don’t realize that their voice is important and that agencies like mine and clients like mine find that their choice to create their publishing empire, no matter how modest though it may be, is very exciting, very useful, and very cool to us and to our clients, to be sure!

And, unlike the simulated world of the elaborately constructed inbound link sellosphere, shilloshere, linkosphere, or whatever it is, blogger outreach is authentic. When we send out two-thousand emails pitched to two-thousand bloggers, the 400 bloggers who post over the course of a month don’t have to. We don’t pay them, we don’t trade horses, and we don’t make empty promises.

Not all 2,000 post, only the 400 for whom the message resonates. It is earned media. It is real, even if the blogger simply embeds a video or quotes the pitch email verbatim or copy-and-pastes the social media news release full-text, it’s up to each blogger. No matter what they say, no matter how editorialized, or matter how off message their interpretation may well be (and when it is, it is generally our fault for not being clear enough). It is a thing of beauty and it is ceaselessly amazing that folks online are so endlessly generous and active.

But it all starts with the right attitude–putting the blogger first is the secret of how to pitch a blogger.

Via Biznology and Socialmedia.biz via Marketing Conversation

How to pitch a blogger (biznology.com)
Agencies are too afraid of bloggers to do their job (chrisabraham.com)
Fire for effect when you can’t get a direct bead on your market (chrisabraham.com)
Blogger outreach is scary (biznology.com)
How not to treat bloggers and how not to pitch blogs (socialmedia.biz)
Why are you so afraid of engaging bloggers? (socialmedia.biz)
Seven Tips for Presenting Guest-post Ideas to Bloggers (donbeehler.wordpress.com)
How Not to Pitch to a Blogger (blogworld.com)
How NOT to pitch a blogger (biznology.com)
Mutiny on the Versatile Blogger ship (tritetales.com)

Our Big List of Prospected Blogs and Bloggers

Chris Abraham — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 12:40:03 +0000

Since the inception of Abraham Harrison LLC, we have been focused on blogger relations and blogger outreach. Social media is our bread and butter, not just something we tacked on. Over the last several years, we have prospected over 40,000 bloggers across a wide-variety of topics (see below) and over a growing number of languages, including Spanish-speaking, Portuguese-speaking, and Russian-speaking blogs wordwide.

Please scroll down and explore some of the blogger-types we have collected and engage on a daily-basis. Of course, when a client needs something new — such as our upcoming engagement with Russian and Polish bloggers — we’re very efficient and experienced in researching, locating, and harvesting the most appropriate bloggers. (Via Abraham Harrison and Marketing Conversation)

A-list Bloggers
Academic Bloggers
Activist Bloggers
Africa Bloggers
African-American Bloggers
Alumni Bloggers
Animal Bloggers
Anti-Facebook Bloggers
Asia English Speaking Bloggers
Baseball Bloggers
Big Brothers/Sisters Bloggers
Cancer Survivor’s Bloggers
College Students Bloggers
Colorado Bloggers
Combined Top & Marketing Bloggers
Contest Aggregation Bloggers
Corporate Social Responsibility Bloggers
Craigslist/Online Auction Bloggers
Daddy Bloggers
Deaf Community Bloggers
Democrats Bloggers
eBay User Bloggers
Education Bloggers
Environmental Bloggers
Ex-Patriate Bloggers
ExPatriate Health Insurance Bloggers
Food Bloggers
Foster Family / Adoption Bloggers
General Political Bloggers
Grandparents Bloggers
Green Bloggers
Health Bloggers
Hearing Impaired
Illinois Bloggers
India (english speaking) Bloggers
Investment Bloggers
Job Seeker Bloggers
Lawyer Blogs / Blawgs and Blawgers
Liberal Bloggers
Marketing Bloggers
Military Bloggers
Moderate Bloggers
Mommy Bloggers
New Education Bloggers
New Mexico Bloggers
Newest Marketing Bloggers
NY Area Bloggers
Ohio Bloggers
Online Dating Bloggers
Pennsylvania Bloggers
Photography Bloggers
Portuguese Speaking College Bloggers
Portuguese Speaking Daddy Bloggers
Portuguese Speaking Job Seekers Bloggers
Portuguese Speaking Mommy Bloggers
Portuguese Speaking Real Estate Bloggers
Portuguese Speaking Saving Money Bloggers
Portuguese Speaking Tech Bloggers
Real Estate Bloggers
Real Estate Brokers /NYC Bloggers – TriState Area
Rebate and Coupon Sites Bloggers
Recent College Grads Bloggers
Reconnectors Bloggers
Running/Jogging/Marathon Bloggers
Russian Mommy Bloggers
Russian Tech Bloggers
Saving Money Bloggers
Social Networks Bloggers
Spanish Language Job Seeker Bloggers
Spanish Language Saving Money Bloggers
Spanish Language Speaking College Bloggers
Spanish Language Speaking Mommy Bloggers
Spanish Language Speaking Real Estate Bloggers
Spanish Language Speaking Tech Bloggers
Spirituality Bloggers
Sustainers Bloggers
Tech Bloggers
Teen Lifestyle Influencers/Teen Bloggers
Top Blog Bloggers
Top Environmental Bloggers
Top Liberal Bloggers
USA: North-East State Bloggers
Video Sharing Sites Bloggers
Washington DC Bloggers
Women’s Lifestyle Bloggers
Women’s Self Help Bloggers
World Food Day Bloggers
Yoga/Soccer/Martial Arts & Sports Nutrition Bloggers
Young Volunteer Bloggers

You Can’t Sell a Nothing Burger to Bloggers

Chris Abraham — Thu, 28 May 2009 11:27:12 +0000

: Image via Wikipedia

Taylor Donlan (hire him), employee number one at Abraham Harrison LLC, emeritus, started our hallowed tradition of ensuring our clients provided us with a worthwhile gift to our bloggers, be it embargoed news, exclusive content, newsworthiness, humor, a perfect fit, or even a $2 off coupon in the case of Snuggle Creme — and if you’re honest, is it entertaining?

When all is said and done, earned media blogger PR doesn’t cut it unless bloggers are willing to take up the cause and blog about our clients. We’re not a paid placement company like some and we can’t make anyone do anything, especially bloggers who are the epitome of cat herding. They need to choose us, we can’t just tap them.

When we have a kick-off meeting about a new client, we always carefully consider whether what the client has to offer is compelling enough to actually earn coverage online — and they oftentimes don’t make the grade.

In fact, we recently went through this ourselves and we discovered that this needed to become a collaborative litmus test: Dan didn’t think the US Investment in Africa Study had any legs because it was academic but Mark and I knew there were lots of other Foreign Affair wonks like us in the blogosphere; Mark and I didn’t think bloggers would want to blog about Snuggle Fabric softener, but Dan knew he had a star on his hands and the metrics proved true: more earned media blog posts and tweets ever in our history, to date!

In fact, we have done a lot of thinking about this:

Why am I on about this this morning? Well, my friend Sally Falkow did it again in the form of her latest blog post Online Success is About Telling Stories:

Every business is now a publisher, said Vaynerchuk. The right content is the key to engagement. But you have to figure out what content will fill a need for your audience. It’s about providing information, being useful and being entertaining.
[...]
It’s vital to be listening to your audience and responding with content that makes sense and offers value. The major shift in media consumption, and the low barrier to entry for publishing online, make it possible for anyone and everyone to create content.
[...]
Success online is about telling stories and producing great content. The right content creates engagement. Engagement creates loyal followers and customers.

So true.

In order to be compelling enough to attract bloggers to blog about you or your clients, you must be appealing, you must be attractive, and you must be willing and able to tell your story, share your process, and tease out your narrative.

Our favorite clients thinks about this quite a lot — the best clients to work with generally already get “entertaining:” advertising agencies and content companies.

At the end of the day, if we are handed a nothing burger by our client, it is off to the drawing board to develop the story, to explore a narrative, to ask the right questions and prospect the right bloggers and self-selected interest groups.

Sometimes, even with the best narrative ever and the most generous gifts, you wind up with a nothing burger with nothing sauce and you sit back and scratch your head. What we have discovered over time is that these sorts of failures often have to do with targeting, messaging, or oftentimes both.

This happened to us recently as well. Perfect gift, great story, excellent narrative, the whole nine yards; however, we were reaching out to Central and South America in Spanish and Portuguese. Well, Latin America hated our messaging for cultural reasons. In many Spanish-speaking countries, young, successful, wealthy entrepreneurs are considered villians instead of being heroes, a very American view.

We didn’t need to change our gift, we just needed to change our angle of attack which came down to our messaging, our pitch, and a couple-few adjustments to our Social Media News Release and that did the trick! It was cultural!

Via Marketing Conversation

Become a Rockstar to Get and Keep Your Job

Chris Abraham — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 02:13:31 +0000

: Image by luc legay via Flickr

I keep on telling undergrads that they need to start blogging in order to get a job — they need to become a publicity rockstar because becoming a rock star blogger in marketing, PR, and communications before you even leave college is a complete competitive advantage — none of your fellow students are doing it (believe it or not). Well, Mosnar gets it. They see that becoming a publicity rockstar with a rockstar brand while in your company can become the competitve advantage that lets you keep you job, PR Tips to Keeping Your Job: Become a Indispensible Publicity Star:

How to become a publicity rock star for your company?
Start making trade publications – If you have ideas, expertise, concepts etc this is newsworthy information that would be of interest to trade publications.
Join social media sites – Yes, joining sites such as Twitter, Facebook, Stumbleupon etc can bring a lot of recognition as well as exposure. These sites are excellent outlets to promote business services.
Write articles for promotions – Use your expertise and write articles that can be submitted to sites like Ezinearticles.com. Also submit articles for publications to media resources with audiences that your company targets.
Launch a company blog – If you company does not have a company blog you can pitch your boss on the great branding exposure and how you can be the editor for the company blog.
Incorporate a personal blog – A great way to attract business is to start a personal blog and mentioning your business for brand exposure.

Position your key staff as experts in their field online

Chris Abraham — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 03:22:26 +0000

If you Google the name of our President and COO, “Chris Abraham“, you will see what it means to dominate the search engine results and own a position as an expert in a field. We can do the same for your key staff.

Methods: Blogs — Yours & Others: Dominating the Online Space as an Expert & Generous Contributor. We will get your blog infrastructure and your content production policy established. This involves installation, set-up, and design of the blog software. To drive SEO it is important to get the relevant social bookmarking, ping server, etc. accounts and plug-ins set up and installed.

To further drive SEO, a powerful additional methodology is to mirror your blog content across multiple other blogs on highly-ranked blog hosting sites like blogspot, wordpress.com, etc., or under additional aggregation blogs you may set up under your own domain names. This process will be automated at the outset and run without human effort thereafter.

Blog Content Creation Policy
We will help your team get the blogging policy right, following best practices in line with the informational guidelines of your company. There is a clear culture of blogging and respecting and adhering to its norms and expectations will make the difference between you being welcomed as a respected contributor and being mocked as a soulless corporate shill (or an embarrassment and danger to your company).

It is essential to have a clear policy for your company’s bloggers, particularly in terms of outlining and reserving their freedoms as writers. With a clear understanding by the blogger and by the company of what freedoms are allowed, you avoid cramping, overly-careful, stuffy-sounding, self-censoring while also avoiding cringe-inducing embarrassments of inappropriate disclosure and language.

Blog Content Creation System
The best system of content creation is to have the key staff members whose reputations are to be built writing the blog content themselves — that leads to the most honest, transparent, and bi-directionally informative information exchange. However, sometimes those key staff members simply don’t have the time, inclination, or writing talent to create that content. In that case a content creation system and methodology must be put in place:

Hiring or assigning professional bloggers or staffers with good writing abilities to produce the content under their names or
Establishing a ghost-writing system where topics are suggested (by the writer or the key staffer), concept outline given by key staffer, posting written by the professional writer, posting edited and approved by key staffer, posting proofed by editor (optional), and article posted.

If this route is taken, there are workflow blog softwares that can be put in place and set up to manage this process.

Appearing on Others’ Blogs
By generously contributing to the community via bloggers in your spaces, you can get broad coverage and enjoy the implicit (or explicit) endorsement of these influencers. We would help you get these content contribution requests by executing a Blogger Outreach. This is done by:

Giving of yourself in the form of interviews, etc.
Interviews are excellent relationship-builders that give you direct, personal access to the bloggers and builds up a connection for the future. Interviews can be given via:
- Email
- Chat
- Phone
- Podcast (voice)
- Vlog (video — either onsite or via video VOIP)

This list is by order of “live-ness” of the interview with email being very asynchronous, allowing time to reflect and gather info and Vlog interviews being very live.

Guest blogging by the key staff
Guest blogging is very warmly welcomed since it gives bloggers good content that they don’t have to write themselves, and it makes them look good because they are being honored as a valued platform.

Being a guest blogger gives you coverage on another site, increasing the number of locations you are appearing while giving you total control over your message and while driving your SEO by adding link-backs. Additionally, you get the implicit (or explicit) endorsement of the blogger in front of his readership.

It is important to be writing interesting, engaging content as a guest blogger and avoid presenting something that sounds like a callow pitch.

If the key staff member is not interested or capable of doing the guest blogging, then the ghostwriting approach outlined above can be followed

Podcasting and Vlogging (video blogging)
Podcasting is very much like blogging, but in audio format. While it is not as SEO-friendly as text-based blogging, it has a stronger “star-quality” effect, as the listeners develop a stronger human connection to the podcaster. The lower SEO-friendliness can be counteracted by posting transcripts of the podcast along with the podcast itself.

It can be done very simply, but generally it is good to have quality raw audio, a polished intro and outro, and good tone balancing so that the podcast sounds somewhat professional and is auditorily a pleasure to listen to.

We can guide your staff in setting up the recording mechanisms, get your intro/outro composed, and have the raw audio balanced and cut into a finished podcast.

It is also good to have clear, interesting concepts to speak about and an effective style of delivery. It’s easy to be boring or irritating.

While the ghostwriting approach outlined above can be followed, much more responsibility lies on the key staff member who is recording, since it is a very “live” experience — you cannot read a pre-written article and come across as a compelling Podcaster.

The staff of Abraham Harrison, LLC, can get the transcripts written and assist in the posting of the podcasts and the maintenance of the podcast blog website.

Vlogging follows the same rules as podcasting in regards to production and quality, but the pressure on the “star” is that much more intense.

Abraham Harrison’s staff can guide your staff in getting the recording and production infrastructure set up.

An advantage of vlogging is that it has the even higher “star” effect upon the key staff member doing the vlogging, and the videos can be posted on all the video-sharing sites (dozens) to get more coverage and dominate search results.

We at Abraham Harrison can handle the video asset distribution for you, or train your team in the method.

Contact Mark Harrison, CEO of Abraham Harrison, for more information

Thank You Fresh Air Fund Holiday Bloggers!

Chris Abraham — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 18:46:30 +0000

In December, we at Abraham Harrison helped the Fresh Air Fund reach out to bloggers and folks online in order to remind the online Fresh Air Fund friends and family that they both need donations during this time of year as well as needing families to host children for the summer. Since the holidays, over ninety bloggers have responded to Fresh Air Fund’s call to action with the placement of banners, with tweets, and with blog posts. We are much obliged to you, Fresh Air Fund bloggers! (via Marketing Conversation)

My Top 91 Social Media Blog Posts

Chris Abraham — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 03:30:11 +0000

I am not willing or able to say that the following 91 blog posts about social media, blogging, new media, social networking, etc, are the definite top-91 posts because I didn’t have the time or attention to go through all of my 5,437 blog posts:

The Powerful SEO Benefits of Blogger PR Outreach

Chris Abraham — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 18:06:05 +0000

When I sell Abraham Harrison‘s blogger outreach and blogger PR services I tend to focus on the initial promotional and profile benefits associated with having hundreds of highly targeted organic earned media blog posts show up almost overnight on behalf of our clients. If you would like to know what this sort of campaign looks like, check out our case studies.

That’s not it, there’s more. As I have mentioned before, unlike SEM, these blog posts, reviews, and mentions are permenant and not ephemeral.

Finally, there is the issue of the powerful and amazing SEO benefits associated with having over 100 bloggers choose to write about your brand, product, campaign, or service.

Unlike pay-for-play services like Review Me, PayPerPost, or IZEA, the blog posts written by the bloggers we reach out to are not pay per post, they are earned media. When my team and I reach out to our A-Z list bloggers along dozens of verticals targets, it is up to each blogger to choose to accept our message and decide that what we’re offering is worthwhile to post or Twitter.

There is real power associated with this sort of thing. Like any journalistic or consumer-generated promotional pitching, results are not guaranteed; however, we have done this for over two yearsd and our penetration, success, and results have improved over time.

If you want to see the sort of posts that are associated with this kind of blogger PR pitch outreach, here are some examples:

I am always to allow these things to be as transparent as possible. What’s more, linking back to all of the fine blog posts that bloggers have shoehorned into their busy days is sort of a link love thank you.

And, to be honest, Google thinks were the bees knees because the content that our messaging drives real content. In all cases, we’re at the mercy of the blogger — if we’re not smart, generous, engaging, charming, positive, responsive, and even supportive, we’ll get tarred and feathered, and so will out client.

We’re better than that.

With each blogger outreach that results in a hundred or more organic earned media, highly-textual, brand-centric, keyword-dense and diverse, and often times almost completely based on the Social Media News Releases (SMNRs) we create for the client, the level of powerful Google, Live.com, Technorati, Ask.com, and Yahoo! love is not only formidable, but, over time, and much sooner than you think, both our social media new releases as well as our blogged content can challenge our clients for top-spot, which is OK because we’re not their competitor.

Here are some examples of client SMNRs we especially like, feel free to check them out:

I have almost ten-years of SEO experience and have always done things the right way, and Social Media and Blogger PR is the right way. None of us coerce any of our bloggers into blogging, we’re just able to figure out how to appeal, how to give, how to engage, how to message, and how to ask for what we want from our long tail list of upwards of 500 A-list blogger and 30,000 B-Z list bloggers.

Anyway, if you’re interested in learning more or getting on a call with my Director, Dan, my CEO, Mark, and/or me, pop me an email and we’ll sort it out.

(Via Marketing Conversation)

Can You Nail a Cold Pitch to A-List Bloggers?

Chris Abraham — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 22:10:43 +0000

In an effort to really get to know the folks who are “in my space” and in the space of my firm, Abraham Harrison, I downloaded the AdAge Power 150 OPML and hacked it into a spreadsheet. Then, I had my team look up the names and emails behind the 781 blogs of the Power 150. Then, I reached out to all of them, looking to see if we could maybe do something together, may be get to know each other a little bit better. I offered the list I collected for free and offered to help put together some sort of community. Well, who knows if these things ever work or not; however, we at Abraham Harrison LLC have had a lot of practice at reaching out to bloggers via email on behalf of our clients and earning hundreds of supportive and awesome “earned media” blog posts. Jon Burg’s Future Vision agrees in his article The difficult art of cold pitching – Chris Abraham’s pitch to the AdAge Power 150. Thanks, man — I really appreciate the kudos!

the difficult art of cold pitching – Chris Abraham’s pitch to the AdAge Power 150
Call it ePR, blogger outreach/relationship management, networking, social media activation or social marketing… at it’s heart, this is the practice of speaking with the community; enlisting bloggers and the community at large, to speak about your efforts and on behalf of your brand.

If you have a relationship with a blogger, you can leverage this relationship to drive your brand/client.
If you do not yet have a relationship, you have to start building one.
If you need something done today, and don’t have a relationship, you need to resort to the daunting cold pitch: pitching your product or service without any prior interaction.

Chris Abraham, a noted blogger and popular twitterer, recently sent out a private email message to many of the bloggers on the Ad Age Power 150 list, asking them to register their contact information.
His note was personal, personable and extremely well written. It felt like he was really speaking to me. No, he didn’t mention any of my previous posts. And yes, there is a strong likelihood that this letter was a form letter. Nevertheless, this letter feels somewhat warm, an incredible accomplishment for a cold pitch.
The Pitch

Hi there Jon
I wanted to reach out to you since you’re a current fellow member of the AdAge Power 150 with Future Visions. Please excuse the form email but there are over 780 current Power 150 members. I am popping you this note for two reasons: first, I would like your help to do something with this list; second, I just want to update you as to what I am up to.
To create this list, I collected the OPML file free off of the Power 150 page on Adage and expanded it into a list with names and emails. I would love to share the list with you so please pop me an email if you would like a copy. I was hoping we might figure out a way to keep in better touch as a group of marketing, PR, and advertising bloggers. Please shoot me any ideas you have. I was thinking we could create a community group to share news, ideas, and opportunities to work together. On that note, I am the president and COO of Abraham Harrison LLC, a firm specializing in social media PR, blogger outreach, online engagement, and online reputation management. I would love to schedule a call so that we can explore possibilities to collaborate.
On a personal note, I have started blogging for AdAge and have had so much fun with that that I am looking to find as many opportunities to blog as I can. Please let me know if you know of anything or if you would like me to guest blog. Also, if you’re in the DC area I would love to get together. To be honest, I would love to meet you the next time I am in your neck of the woods.
Thanks so much and I appreciate your time and attention. I wish you a very fine 2009 with much luck and success.
Cheers,
Chris

So what do we think? Is this a cold pitch done right?
Note: After reading this letter, I’m still unsure of what will be done with my contact information. Is this being gathered as a closed list/community for AdAge? Is this a contact list for his firm? Will my contact information be shared with anyone outside of this community?

Thank You Operation Survivor Bloggers!

Chris Abraham — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 17:10:01 +0000

Veteran’s Day this year is especially poignant since it has been 5 years since the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan began. Thank you to everyone who helped Survivor Corps get the message out about Operation Survivor and all the amazing work that Survivor Corps does for vets, for returning troops, and for their families. Here’s a list of all of your fine work:

Please Help Me Support Our Troops on Veteran’s Day via Chris Abraham.
banner via On the Upside.
Veterans and PTSD via Where There’s a Will There’s a Way.
Support Our Troops NOW via MamaBugs…Homeschooling Where the Air Force Sends Us!.
Peace be still. It?s Armistice Day. via Short Woman.
Do Not Abandon Our Vets via understanding the effects of unresolved abandonment issues.
Helping the Walking Wounded on November 11 via Serge the concierge.
Support ‘Survivor Corps’ this Veterans Day via Americanthinker.
Veterans Day via Bodhi Baby.
Veterans Day via The Adventures of Super Mommy & Spitup Boy.
Operation Survivor via Britannica.
Veteran’s Day via Danny Fisher.
Donate to help our Troops via Make it Happen.
Remembrance Day via Around the World in beautiful Shoes.
Operation Survivor via Big Blueberry Eyes.
In Their Boots via Holly’s Fight for Justice.
In Their Boots via Holly’s Fight to Stop Violence.
Veterans Day via Chip’s Quips.
Help Our Troops This Veterans Day via Locust Fork Blog.
Banner via Socialism.
In Banner Rotation via Redline.
Veteran’s Day via Weapons of Mass Discussion.
Help Our Troops This Veteran’s Day via Culture11.
side bar banner via Mommy Bytes.
Veteran’s deserve not just a word but also a hand: Operation Survivor via Rich Kirkpatrick.
Survivor Corps: Help a veteran break the cycle of violence via Hormone-Colored Days.
Veterans Day via On the Fringe.
The bridge the sacrifice more via The Common Ills.
Someone alerted me to the good work that Survivor Corps via Big Bark.
Survivor Corps Supports Returning Troops and Their Families via GoMekong.com.
Support ‘Survivor Corps’ this Veterans Day – American Thinker via Survivor.
Helping Veterans (a day late) via Just Enjoy Him: Ramblings of a Mid-Life Mom.
Survivor Corps: Operation Survivor via Political Reps.
Survivor Corps Website via Untreatable Online.
Survivor Corps Operation Survivor: A Worthwhile Cause to Consider via Mount Virtus.
Veterans Day via State of Ohio Blogger Alliance.
A Day To Honor Those Who Have Served Their Country via Political Vindication.
Courage via Last One Speaks.
banner via A Disgruntled Republican.
An Appeal via Don Surber’s blog.
Mojo Mom says thank you to military families via Mojo Mom.
Survivor Corps via Miss Cellania Blog.
For a Good Cause via The Local Crank.
Operation Survivor-Survivor Corps and TroopTube via Where the Hell Am I?.
In Honor of Veterans’ Day via James Kotecki.
banner” via Into the Woods Living Deliberately.
Survivor Corps Supports Returning Vets and Their Families! via Zimbio.
Please Help the Veterans via Yaw and Mog.
posted banner and review of I will not be broken” via Writing in FaithWriting in Faith: Previews and Reviews.
banner’ via Pardon Me For Asking.
Veterans Deserve Your Help via New Zeal.
I Will Not Be Broken via For the Heck of It.
Per a Request via Budget Nomad – US Ex – Pat on the Move.
banner’ via Blog Mommas.
banner via Myrtus.
banner via Married to the Army.
Survivor Corps. Rise Above. Give Back via All 4 My Gals.
Re: Vast Write Wing – November 2008 via Be Logical.
Survivor Corps. Help for Surviving Troops via Mommy Does it All.
Survivor Corps Supports Returning Troops and their Families! via Right Michigan.
Indigenist News Items for: 11-14-2008 via Inteligentaindigena Novajoservo.
banner via Gary Presley.
banner via Seven Wheelchairs.
Operation Survivor via The Political Junkie.
Need a little Inspiration? via My Life As A Military Spouse.
Banner via Preemptive Karma.
Operation Survivor – excerpt from website via Arthriticyoungthing.
banner via Rightwingchamp.
Survivor Corp-Returning Troops via What’s Delmer Look Like?.
posted banner via Screw Politically Correct B.S..
palin survivor corps heroes and more via Sex and Politics and Creeds and Attitudes.
banner via Bearing Drift.
banner via Kentucky Progress.
Supporting Returning Troops via Donklephant.
banner via Gapers Block.
Katrina vanden Heuvel is an idiot via Ruth’s Report.
Supporting Our Troops via Book Errising.
Survivor Corps – Electronic Media News Releases via Soldiers Angels Network.
A Belated Veterans (Day) Post via The Moderate Voice.
posted link on blogroll via Political Grind.
They don’t go away when Veterans Day ends via Around the Island.
Survivor Corps offers peer support to injured vets via Media Dis&Dat.
Survivor Corps via A Leg Up.
Supporting Our Troops: Operation Survivor via The Daily Gotham.
Survivor Corps: Founds Operation Survivor Project to Assist U.S. Military Combat Veterans in Transitioning to Civilian Life via A DC Observer.
banner via Iraq The Model.
Survivor Corps Supports Returning Troops and their Families! via Young Philly Politics.
banner via The Inside Dope.
Survivors of War via Ponderings on a Faith Journey.
Survivor Corps via Charming Just Charming.
Survivor Corps via Knee Deep in the Hooah.
Tis the season to help our troops via Manatee’s Military Moms.
A Belated Veterans (Day) Post via Funny Blog.
Support ‘Survivor Corps’ this Veterans Day via American Thinker.
Supporting Returning Troops via Northloop Neighborhood.
As Per Request via Budget Nomad – US Ex – Pat on the Move.
Some Odds and Ends of the Election via The Liberal Life of a Navy Wife .
Returning Troops…A Noble Cause via Dodgeblogium.
Survivor Corps Website via Untreatable Online.
Standing up for Max Cleland on Veteran’s Day via Informed Comment.
Standing up for Max Cleland on Veteran’s Day via Big Bark.
Read Terrance D.C. via Oh Boy it Never Ends.
Katrina Vanden Heuvel is an Idiot via Ruth’s Report.
Iraq snapshot (The Common Ills) via Like Maria Said Paz.
Tuesday November 11. 2008. via This French Life.
Survivor Corps Program-Help! via Swimming Against the Red Tide.
Survivor Corps via Kung Fu Monkey.
banner via Leucadia Blog.
banner via Bearing Drift.

You have done an amazing thing for the vets and also for the mission of Survivor Corps domestically and around the world. Thank you for your posts and for your banner placement. Never hesitate to contact me personally or my team at Abraham Harrison. Also, always please feel free to contact the entire Survivor Corps team.

Three Mistakes PR Folks Make Pitching Bloggers

Chris Abraham — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 20:22:22 +0000

Krishna De just wrote an article called How Not To Pitch A Blogger and it is brilliant and useful — “here are three of the many mistakes they made in the pitch:”

there was no personal connection in the email to me about why the story may be of interest to me and my readers
they did not give me anything of value to bring to my readers – no inside scoop so to speak or an offer of speaking to me to answer any questions
they made me click through to read the article in the press – many bloggers won’t take that extra click – and what’s more the article in the press was at best boring and certainly not newsworthy.
Busy blogger’s are like journalists – they want an inside and unique story that is going to be of value to their readers and they don’t have time to have to go into hours of research.

I personally don’t agree with the third bullet point if what Krishna is saying is that the entire pitch has to be inline. We find that all of our most successful pitches are as long as three brief paragraphs and as brief as one, with an “extra click” in the form of a Social Media News Release (SMNR). Here are some examples we have for I Will Not Be Broken, Survivor Corps, and Life Changing Box, for example. When it comes to email pitches, you have to have the blogger “at hello” and the trouble with big, annoying, inline content (inline in the body of the email or, egad, offered as an attachment) is that it is stuck in the INBOX and isn’t readily available to the blog — inline graphics can’t be copied and pasted to a blog post, but if you copy and paste something from a web page, it easily posts.

Offering content in an attachment or an inline pitch makes it impossible for simple posting — images and graphics break because they’re often locally hosted and not available online.

If you off-link to an SMNR, the blogger can readily copy and paste the content and also, in the copy-and-paste, include the inline graphics, images, and links in the blog post itself.

When we create a pitch and then link off the blogger pitch to an SMNR, we try to KISS — every extra link and extra paragraph and extra “rich text element” such as HTML and inline graphics that a pitch includes increases the change — the probability — that the pitch isn’t even going to get to the blogger and will end up either in the SPAM box or, even worse, stuck in the maw of the ISP itself.

The more brief and plaintext the pitch is, the better. We absolutely refuse to include more than one link from our pitches, even killing all hot links from the signature or anything else.

If you don’t have the blogger at hello, you’re done for, no matter how you do it: inline or linked-out.

Via Krishna De’s BizGrowthNews

Stevie Wilson on The Swag Culture of LA

Chris Abraham — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 23:13:29 +0000

I just posted an article onto Marketing Conversation called Gifting Bloggers Doesn’t Mean Pushing Swag and within minutes Stevie Wilson of LA-Story wrote the most amazing comment on the culture of swag that is commonplace in Los Angeles, California… (via Marketing Conversation)

Swag is the name of the game in Los Angeles– in a city that lives and dies by celebrities getting swag and quite frankly are the least needy for that – because they have the $$ to pay for anything given to them.
Swag has a bad connotation because it smacks of pandering and quite frankly payola. However when it comes to blogging– depending on the topic of course–one can hardly blog about a skincare line if one hasn’t tried it — or has tried it for only one week and doesn’t own up to the fact.
Gifting is somewhat different. Sometimes it’s a holiday or birthday gift that really is a “gift” between a corporate entity and the blogger for the support (if there has been support and I don’t mean Perez Hilton type support that has been advertised) that the blogger may have given. Or it can be something that the corporate entity has done to gain the attention to the brand in such an unusual and interesting way that it definitely gains the immediate attention and enthusiasm of the blogger– like a video iPod that has videos of fashion shows or make-up tips from NY Fashion Week .
In LA there is a gifting process that is quid pro quo but typically for the more visible press— which means stylists who bring in celebrities to a suite whose promoter gives them a trip or a great big fat goody bag of stuff (the same goody bag given to the celebrities)
However that being said, even the stylists get shunned despite bringing or sending in celebrity friends, clients or contacts.
Some PR and brands don’t think that bloggers count. Trust me– we can reach people faster if you are kind, polite and friendly.
Agreeing with Chris here that offering me some worthy information is well worth it — whether it’s to be written about or giving me some heads up on a trend or event that’s about to launch.
I have PR people who slip me the 411 on celebrity clients wearing the brands they represent before anyone else has it. You can bet I run that information and pronto!! Others tell me about new things just because they know I can help support that when it launches– because I can “plan” for blogs around it.
It all depends on how and what you value. I have yet to see anyone gift me something so amazing that I would jump .. Been promised things (cars to come get me and other trinkets), but they never come through– suddenly bloggers are persona not so grata.

Where Chris Abraham Clarifies the Notion of Swag

Chris Abraham — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 14:07:03 +0000

Well, in the blogger-to-blogger dialog between Norman Birnbach and me, starting with How Do You Establish Metrics for a Blogging Initiative? Take a page from the campaign for Jerry White’s book then moving onto Guy Kawasaki on the impact of bloggers on PR and buzz, then Gifting Bloggers Doesn’t Mean Pushing Swag, Stevie Wilson on The Swag Culture of LA, finally onto To Swag or Not To Swag — Actually Chris Abraham Clarifies the Notion of Swag:

To Swag or Not To Swag — Actually Chris Abraham Clarifies the Notion of Swag
In response to my blog entry, Guy Kawasaki on the impact of bloggers on PR and buzz, Chris Abraham has provided additional perspective about swag in his post, “Gifting Bloggers Doesn’t Mean Pushing Swag.”
Check it out, but here’s some of what he said:
“Gifts don’t have to be free stuff — like books or iPods — gifts can be in the form of knowledge, intellectual property, insider access, or blogger exclusives; gifts can be informational, gifts can solve a community problem, or customer service issues.
“What a gift needs to be is super-valuable to the recipient — the value of a gift is based on perception. You need to be willing to give the gift that the blogger wants and not the gift you are prepared or want to give.
“What is not cool is half measures or crappy, throw-away gifts, the Internet version of key rings and a bowl of candy. Offering throttled, limited or restricted demos (without access to the full version when it is released); offering a single book chapter (without the whole book being an option); or granting “exclusive” access to something that is already released is just plain lame and will result in severe negative consequences.”
“It is pretty bad to not give a gift when you reach out to bloggers just because you feel entitled or represent a fancy client but it is worse to be stingy about the gift you do give. Make sure the gift is generous — give until it hurts.”
This is very useful. I’m sorry if I misrepresented what Chris was telling me about swag.

Thanks, Norman, I appreciate the follow-up post that better explains my methodology and the implemented strategy and best practices of Abraham Harrison.

Gifting Bloggers Doesn’t Mean Pushing Swag

Chris Abraham — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 16:01:51 +0000

This morning, Norman Birnbach wrote an article wherein he suggests that I emphasize giving swag:

One of his tips is to “Give swag” — a point that Chris Abraham emphasized in a recent interview. The reason is that blogging is often a second career and there are few perks so swag can make a difference to get bloggers to respond.

He is not wrong, but I think I need to clarify my definition of “gift-giving.” I don’t emphasize giving away swag, necessarily — what I do emphasize is gifting — and giving ’til it hurts, “What a gift needs to be is super-valuable to the recipient — the value of a gift is based on perception.” The following excerpt is from Be Generous, Not Stingy, When Engaging Bloggers:

“Gifts don’t have to be free stuff — like books or iPods — gifts can be in the form of knowledge, intellectual property, insider access, or blogger exclusives; gifts can be informational, gifts can solve a community problem, or customer service issues.
What a gift needs to be is super-valuable to the recipient — the value of a gift is based on perception. You need to be willing to give the gift that the blogger wants and not the gift you are prepared or want to give.
What is not cool is half measures or crappy, throw-away gifts, the Internet version of key rings and a bowl of candy. Offering throttled, limited or restricted demos (without access to the full version when it is released); offering a single book chapter (without the whole book being an option); or granting “exclusive” access to something that is already released is just plain lame and will result in severe negative consequences.
It is pretty bad to not give a gift when you reach out to bloggers just because you feel entitled or represent a fancy client but it is worse to be stingy about the gift you do give. Make sure the gift is generous — give until it hurts.”

Marketing in the New Millenium is PR

Chris Abraham — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 13:27:56 +0000

My Director of Client Service, Daniel Krueger, wrote an insightful blog post over at Abraham Harrison’s PR and marketing blog, Marketing Conversation, called Marketing in the New Millenium. The story is in growing response to the fine article from Norman Birnback over at PR Backtalk, including Spread The Word: Blogs Matter We Just Can’t Measure It!!, Blogger Outreach is PR and Not Marketing and On Survivor Corps’ Blogger Outreach. Check it out:

TV & print are soooo 1900’s ;). Welcome to the new millennium. We’ve been here for some time now, but I think all of the social media and new initiatives for marketing – like blogger outreach and online campaigns – are really just starting to flourish.
I am currently managing a project for Abraham & Harrison for a non-profit company called Survivor Corps. The purpose of this campaign has been to promote the transition of the Landmine Survivors Network into Survivor Corps and to promote the book, ”I Will Not Be Broken,” written by Survivor Corps co-founder Jerry White. The book is a fascinating story of Jerry’s own personal tragedy of losing his leg in a freak accident and then the rebuilding of his life. Jerry has interviewed thousands of victims and in this book shares what he and they have learned about living and thriving after a tragic event.
The main way we have handled this campaign has been through an online blogger outreach to demographics we thought would be receptive to the message that Jerry and Survivor Corps are trying to spread. Each blogging demographic we reached out to, was crafted a message for that particular group. Norman Birnback wrote a very insightful post about the method we used for this campaign and I think he hit the nail right on the head. While his article was focused on how to establish metrics in a blogging initiative, he saw that we didn’t cookie cut a mass email, but crafted our message to the particular group we were reaching out to. Two other very important parts of this campaign were the creation of multiple social networking groups and presences along with the creation of two social media news releases which basically give a “who, what, why” in a neat and tidy format.
Some companies and agencies, like Survivor Corps, are starting to look outside the box at alternative methods of reaching targeted audiences. As the blogging communities continue to grow, outreaches like this one are essential to make sure that the the group you are targeting is aware of your campaign.

Via Marketing Conversation

On Survivor Corps’ Blogger Outreach

Chris Abraham — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 16:50:32 +0000

Norman Birnbach just posted the first part in a series of articles about a recent blogger PR outreach that my company, Abraham Harrison, did on behalf of Survivor Corps. It is a very generous article and everyone here is very pleased.

Our goal for the Survivor Corps campaign was to promote both the introduction of Survivor Corps, formerly Landmine Survivors Network, and Jerry White’s new book, I Will Not Be Broken. Jerry, the co-founder of LSN and Survivor Corps, has been the perfect client and we are so lucky that they have allowed us carte blanche. Of course, the products sell themselves.

Another part of our campaign that Mr. Birnbach didn’t mention is social media outreach. We have created over 40 profiles on behalf of Survivor Corps, including very popular Facebook Groups for both I Will Not Be Broken and Survivor Corps, MySpace profiles for Survivor Corps and I Will Not Be Broken, as well as videos on YouTube. Please check out Norman Birnbach’s article, How Do You Establish Metrics for a Blogging Initiative? Take a page from the campaign for Jerry White’s book:

[...] I got an email from Jerry White’s organization, the nonprofit Survivor Corps., asking whether I would review his book, “I Will Not Be Broken: Five Steps to Overcoming a Life Crisis.” It provides a terrific perspective that has a number of different elements to it — and that’s one of the first lessons I took away, after talking with Chris Abraham, who is handling the outreach to bloggers.
According to Chris, the book appeals to many segments, including cancer survivors, veterans and their families, Christians and leadership. They’ve developed outreach for each segment. While that makes sense, too often organizations do a one-size fits all approach, and miss out working with individual segments.
What they’ve also done is make it really easy for bloggers to write and post about the book with a download page that provides:

Facts about the books’ publication schedule (including availability as an audiobook).
A synopsis of the book.
Sample chapter downloads.
Reviews and testimonials.
About Jerry White.
An overview of The Five Steps.
Various Excerpts.
About Survivor Corps.
Contacts.
Multimedia Elements.
Additional Resources.

Social Media and Tags.
They even made it easy for people to join Survivor Corps’ mailing list.
I will continue to explore other elements about blogging relations, based on an interview with Chris Abraham over the next week.
I will continue to explore other elements about blogging relations, based on an interview with Chris Abraham over the next week. [...]

Online Outreach and Online Engagement Primer

Chris Abraham — Wed, 06 Jun 2007 11:47:26 +0000

As word of mouth marketing has proven to travel further, faster and more effectively than traditional marketing, the development of a comprehensive online advocacy program is vital to promoting any idea, product or person. (via Marketing Conversation)

A Guide to Online Outreach and Online Engagement

As word of mouth marketing has proven to travel further, faster and more effectively than traditional marketing, the development of a comprehensive online advocacy program is vital to promoting any idea, product or person.
It is popularly understood that highly-influencing opinion leaders are capable of influencing between 100 and 1000 consumers; obviously, influencing the influencers is a more effective strategy in terms of time, money, and staffing.
One must break the Internet down into communities and conversations, breaking them down further into influencers and opinion leaders, and then delivering a marketing message in such a way that is relevant and appealing enough to not only be received by these taste-makers but to be impressive enough for them to tell all their friends about what you have to offer as well.
Online advocacy requires a series of key steps, which are derived from two basic strategies: top-down and bottom-up.
Despite the simplicity of the terminology, the strategy itself isn’t this simple, it largely reflects two very separate approaches to targeting and reaching a given audience. In essence, these terms relate naturally to the picture that they paint – top-down buzz marketing being the strategy in which taste-makers or community leaders are defined, targeted and appropriately messaged to (online outreach); bottom-up buzz marketing, on the other hand, targets the everyday consumer via online engagement.
While Online Outreach (OO) is a structured approach to marketing to a given demographic, Online Engagement (OE) is much more organic and relies upon the natural echo chamber of the Internet – or the ability for messages to virally spread from community to community naturally. Additionally, online outreach requires the development of a topical and category-based Affinity Site Index (ASI) which be defined as a collection of Birds of a Feather (BoF) blogs, forums, and websites.
Affinity Site Index Development
Marketing to the entire Internet is impossible as it is a constantly growing and changing entity – one cannot broadcast to the Internet given its scope of millions of sites creating billions of pages.
For this reason, it is important not only to define an audience that can reasonably be reached, but also to be mindful of the constant evolution of the Internet.
Do not limit your concept of the Internet to the “blogosphere;” Instead, adopt a more Web 2.0 approach to marketing by allowing the community to include message boards, Wikis, social networks, social bookmarking sites, email lists, podcasts, vlogs, forums, IRC, SMS, IM, MMORPGs, Webcasts, Skypecasts, groups, online video games, 3-D virtual worlds (such as Second Life).
To kick off any Online Advocacy Program, our team spends considerable amounts of time researching and developing your BoF Affinity Site Index. This research is devoted not only to finding out where your current audience lives online, but also to finding like-minded communities that may be interested in your message. This includes thorough investigation within blogosphere; collecting hundreds to thousands of message boards, usenets and forums; scouring social bookmarking, social media and photo and video sharing communities.
Online Outreach
Following campaign and client research and Affinity Group Index development, online outreach officially begins by collecting contact information for community taste-makers.
Deciphering individuals from taste-makers is a key task within this processes. The Affinity Group Index is also vetted for appropriateness and for communities that tend to be receptive to the marketing message as well.
It is also important to note that while online engagement is very heavily focused towards reaching out to consumers within message boards, forums, usenets and other communities where the nature of online dialogue is participatory, online outreach is geared toward reaching out blogs, sites and online media outlets in which the tone is online dialogue takes a more editorial tone.
The primarily goal of any Online Advocacy Program – to build relationships between the you and the community leaders and taste-makers that will help shape perceptions of your brand.
The secondary goal is to have the blogger blog about you, your mission, your vision, and you, organically on their own; saying whatever it is they want to say. Ideally, if everything is done above board and transparently, and the prospects are tried and true, then any and all coverage will be either very positive or at the very worst, neutral in tone.
The tertiary goal is to seed Google and other search engines – the real Internet – with a permanent message – your message. Talks, podcasts, time on Second Life, interviews, and meetings are ephemeral and don’t endure online longer than a moment; as a result, it is essential to be aware of the enduring nature of text online.
Getting blogged about online is one of the best ways to enter into immortality; that said, whenever anyone else, who isn’t you, adds to the online conversation about you, you lose control of the message — of your message. You will have to be okay with releasing your message, your product, your services, and your insight into the wilderness. Think about it — if you, your product, or your services suck, then the blogosphere will quickly reflect that.
Online Engagement
Contrary to online outreach in which specific individuals are targeted and messaged to, online engagement involves finding and joining relevant participatory conversations that are already occurring within online message boards, forums, USENET and blogs.
In some cases, in which relevant conversation is not already occurring, online dialogue is initiated within communities that would be most receptive to your specific message.
Please note that relevant conversation implies online dialogue either speaking specifically to your brand or online dialogue centered on similar themes, implying the like-minded nature of conversation participants, thereby allowing messages specific to your brand to be seeded in a natural, seemingly organic fashion.
A powerful technique for building community on blogs is to find a compelling item about your industry, products, and services, then search for blogs that are already talking about it on Technorati and similar search engines.
It is much easier to message on blogs that are already having friendly conversation, evident in the tone of the comments section under each blog post.
Online engagement needs to flow and appear as responsive and organic as natural conversation. When preparing to infiltrate any piece of online dialogue, talking points are more preferable than preparing a script as the flexibility of these talking points allow for seemless entry into these discussions.
Engaging in online conversation as a member of an online community requires your language, delivery, humor, and tone to mirror that of the community. When in Rome, do as the Romans do.
Although it is likely that a number of these communities may already be included in the ASI (or within the demographics outlined in the ASI), the reality is that an even greater number may not pertain to these demographics. In targeting online conversation that is already happening, you are able not only to effectively reach your primary demographic, but also secondary and tertiary demographics which may also be interested in your brand and your message. Additionally, in seeking out online conversation that is already happening, we are able to better find and counter any negative dialogue that maybe occurring.
After posting a marketing message in any community, be it a blog, message board, usenet, listserv, etc. that conversation is constantly monitored for new activity. Online engagement at this point requires responding to any questions, concerns or criticism of your brand resulting from messaging. It is important to note that a vast majority of online consumers actively participating in these communities are often times as curious as they are skeptical – at times it is required to further inform these users about your brand before they are essentially “sold” on the idea.
In continuing to following up with messaging threads, we are able not only to maintain online engagement, but also provide you with real-time information about your brand and how it is perceived online.
Extensive use of ASI to discover new communities and new consumers that will likely be receptive to your message.
To spread the word online organically, tell them about your company, your culture, your history, your story, your products, and the services you offer – and do it openly and honestly and place your own name, your own email, and either the URL of your web site or the URL of the blog itself.
In a word where online consumers are very savvy to and and very sensitive of spam, it is as important to maintain the appropriate tone as it is to be fully transparent.

Advanced Blogging Workshop in Bethesda Today

Chris Abraham — Mon, 30 Apr 2007 23:51:59 +0000

“Okay, you have a blog and consider yourself a blogger. The next step is how to build your prestige, your readership, and your reputation. This class will demystify the process of taking your personal blog and developing it into a popular resource. Being brilliant, funny, insightful, and inspired is just the beginning; learn how to help your hungry audience find you. 1 session,” Advanced Blogging Workshop

Advanced Blogging

Writer’s Center Workshop Bethesda, May 1^st, 2007

Description

Okay, you have a blog and consider yourself a blogger. The next step is how to build your prestige, your readership, and your reputation. This class will demystify the process of taking your personal blog and developing it into a popular resource. Being brilliant, funny, insightful, and inspired is just the beginning; learn how to help your hungry audience find you.

Instructor

· Chris Abraham, Founding Partner, Abraham Harrison LLC

o www.abrahaharrison.com

o cabraham@chrisabraham.com

o +1 202-657-403

· Blogging since 1999 www.chrisabraham.com

Short Review of Blogs and Blogging

· Ease of publishing.

· Discoverability (Pings weblogs.com or technorati or another ping server)

· Conversationality (Trackbacks or as-they-happen referer logs, or now being part of Technorati and other blog search engines)

· Linkability (All posts should have permalinks)

· Syndicatability (All content should be available in RSS feeds)

· Commentability (All posts should welcome comments)

· Okay to be subjective and opinionated (encouraged!)

· Blogs can influence culture and mainstream media

· CGM, citizen journalism, citizen marketing, new PR

Blogging Best Practices

· Short, pithy, entries

· Constantly updated

· Only one long work a week

· Shameless, assertive, opinionated, unapologetic

· Shows respect, dignity, reciprocity

· Give more than you take

· Join the conversation and community

· Assumes good intent

Reputation as a blogger

· Techniques for building prestige and influence

o Reciprocal links and linking

o Blogroll and blogrolling

o Citations

o Comments

o Pinging ping-servers

o Press releases

o Email requests

o IM and email relationships

o Drinks, dinner, lunch, or coffee

Introduction to Viral Marketing

· Word-of-mouth, buzz, viral, and grassroots

· Authentic, transparent, conversational, honest

· Ask for what you need, give what others need

· Tell people who you are and why you are there

· “Astroturfing” is not worth the short term benefit

· The blogosphere is conversational

· Message, client message, messaging

· Network of weak blogs generally win over a powerful media

Introduction to Search Engine Optimization

· Google loves blogs (because Google loves text because it can “see” text)

· Google favors sites that are constantly updated (one a week at minimum)

· Make sure your blog pings: www.pingomatic.com/

· Make sure Google knows you: www.google.com/addurl

· Social bookmarking on Newsvine, Netscape, Digg, and Reddit

· Categories, tags, and tagging: del.icio.us, furl.net, spurl.net, reddit.com

· Be careful how you use pronouns (he, she, and it says nothing)

· Learn about Google Sitemap: www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps

· We aware of how you use keywords in your blog (density and diversity)

· Optimize your blog like a website (meta tags, alt tags, keywords)

Introduction to Online Brand Promotion

· Blogger advocacy and outreach – top-down,

· Develop a list of blogs appropriate to your campaign

· Mommy blogs, A-Lists blogs, marketing blogs, sports blogs

· Keep a spreadsheet of all the blogs you might want to contact

· Dig into each blog looking for their contact info (not easy at all)

· Develop general message (called a message model)

· Send an bespoke email of introduction and message

· Always give more than you take: gift is key

· Keep record of all blogs and bloggers who respond well

· Delete (remove) bloggers who request it

· Make explicit opt-in request from friendly bloggers

· Don’t assume they want your message

· Reputation is based on trust and fairness – never trifle or lie

Blog messaging and engagement – bottom-up, grassroots, organic
- Go to a blog search engine (Technorati, Ask.com, Blogsearch, etc)
- Type in a topical keyword, phrase, or topic
- Visit the blogs that are talking about your market, topic, or interest
- Where appropriate, leave a short note
- Come back tomorrow (or as often as you can) and do the same thing
- Make sure to message only where people might be interested
- Inform, don’t spam

Introduction to Online Brand Protection

User Google Alerts and other keyword email alerts to track online conversation
- Other tools exist, such as TruCast, TruView, Buzzlogic, and other tools
Reputation management should start long before any crisis needs management
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is always an essential consideration online
The last word counts most (especially on blog search engines like Technorati)
Recent posts get indexed (the current conversation counts the most)
Everything lasts forever on Google (make sure your side of the story is on record)
Request – never demand – bloggers and blogs remove defamatory content

Important reading

· Naked Conversations by by Shel Israel & Robert Scoble www.redcouch.typepad.com

· Handbook for Bloggers and Cyber-Dissidents www.rsf.org/rubrique.php3?id_rubrique=542

· Applied Blogging Workshop www.appliedblogging.org

· Abraham Harrison LLC Marketing Conversation www.chrisabraham.com/our-insights

Blogging Basics is a Very Basic Blogging Workshop

Chris Abraham — Fri, 27 Apr 2007 12:02:39 +0000

One of my students, Michele Capots, from last week’s class, Blogging Basics, did a review of her experience of the class that I was very interested in reading.

I just wanted to remind everyone that the Blogging Basics Workshop is super basic, such as “what is a blog” and “how to I join Blogger?”

Anyone nearly as rock star as Michele Capots really needs to attend the Advanced Blogging Workshop or have your company hire me to come over and talk turkey, strategy, integration, promotion, marketing, outreach, SEO, optimization, social outreach, etc.

Otherwise, it is a simple introduction to blogging 101 for folks who still use quill pens and parchment. That said, I did post an amazingly defensive comment about which I am very ashamed.

So ashamed am I that I have included it below for your amusement! (Because I am shameless as well, of course!)

Blogging for Basics April 27th, 2007 by Michele Capots blogs

“Earlier this week I sat though Blogging for Basics, a course at the Writer’s Center in Bethesda. Being a writer, I’ve taken many courses at the Writer’s Center over the years and was thrilled that they offered one on blogging. But what I learned is I’m not a beginner.

I’m not an expert by any means, but I knew Technorati. I knew some of the buzz words. The lingo. The class touted that I would learn how to leverage my own personal passion, my own personal artistic voice and my unique perception of the world into this online organ.

But I didn’t. I learned how to construct a blog. Literally, through WordPress. Step by step. I learned a blog should be short. And to write a lot. I could have found that out online. I didn’t learn about the words. The power of the medium. As a PR blogger, I didn’t learn what I should or shouldn’t say and the women who were there to launch a blog for their company didn’t learn how to do that either.

Apparently, I could have gone on instructor Chris Abraham’s blog and saved myself $65. All of the necessary tools are on there. And then some. There’s Bloggers Can Ignore Basic Journalism Ethics and Blogging Needs a Code of Honor, Not a Code of Conduct. This would have been helpful when I first started blogging. The class wasn’t.

He could have said, ‘so I want to be a blogger,’ ‘here’s how to do it, what to write, rules of writing,’ and finally ‘how to be successful at it.’ Personally, that would have been helpful to me and probably to the stay-at-home mom who wants to blog about her sick child and the traveling woman who wants to blog about her exquisite journey. Instead, he was all over the map.

There’s an intermediate class next month, but I think I’ll sit that one out. I’ve decided the only way to blog is to get out there and do it. Going to other blogs, seeing what they’re doing right will teach me more than a brick and mortar class. Although I will say, during the class, I couldn’t keep my eyes off Naked Conversations by Shel Israel and Robert Scobel on corporate blogging. From the looks of it, I just might read that.”

My amazingly defensive response, worth of shame and lots of weeping:

“I agree with everything you say. And you’re far from being a beginner. And I would rather eat broken glass and dance to ABBA than teach a beginning class that literally slows down to “how do I set up a Blogger blog” but you have to admit that the Writer’s Center is not the bastion of the bleeding edge. So, here’s some advice: in a world of education and training, Blogging Basics does literally mean “blogging basics.” Yeah, it maps directly. And, unlike, a class called Writing Basics, I also have to talk about “what a blog is” and “what makes a blog” and “what are some blog tools” and “how do I sign up for a blog” and “can you walk us through joining Blogger and joining WordPress?”

That said, I also want you to check out some other free resources:

Ideas of Chris Abraham & Abraham Harrison LLC

That is basically wherein I give the entire shop away!

Cheers for the review!

If you have ever made a blog, know what a blog is, etc, I would recommend you attend only the Advanced Blogging class.

Also, although this is a gorgeous blog, I would recommend going to http://www.livingstonbuzz.com/blog/wp-admin/options-permalink.php and consider changing your permalinks from “web URLs” to the “custom URL structure” which could change this article from http://www.livingstonbuzz.com/blog/?p=252 to http://www.livingstonbuzz.com/blog/2007/04/27/blogging-for-basics/ which might be longer but is a) easier to understand, URL-wise, as to its topic and it is also b) Google-nip. Also, you have lost an amazing opportunity to offer Meta tags (description, keywords, etc) and a number of other missing pieces.

Anyway, sorry to be showing off here but there is a lot more to blogging than learning how to blog and I would highly encourage you to consider attending the Advanced Blogging class.”