Blogger Outreach

I spend a lot of time writing a blog but it's not often I get to define myself as a blogger. Normally I'm on the other side of the fence, helping people to identify useful blogs and do a bit of "blogger outreach" - asking bloggers to spread the word about an activity or campaign that we're running. And it's not an easy task.

Every campaign has a different topic or a unique theme so quite often we're starting from scratch. We not only have to identify opinion leaders, we have to understand the topic so we can talk to them without looking like sad noobs.

Here's what we've learned so far:

Cold calling mostly flops - it's no different to any other cold calling. Unless you can demonstrate a really compelling reason why a blogger should pay attention to a total stranger, it's likely that they won't. A lot of bloggers spend way too much time reading emails from marketers that start "I read your blog and it's really interesting. I think it would be a perfect fit for a campaign we're currently running about [insert totally unrelated and irrelevant topic here]". It's left many recipients feeling pretty jaded and you'll need to overcome that.

Build relationships - this is like every other social media interaction. If you find a blogger you'd like to connect it with, then take some time to actually read their blog and make a valid connection with them. Comment on posts, be useful - make suggestions, link to their blog in your own social media posts if it's relevant. Try to make sure they're aware of you and appreciate your attention before you ask them anything.

On a related note Keep it personal. There's a whole clutch of Do's and Dont's here. Avoid sending template emails. Try to customise each message to make it relevant for each blogger.  Bear in mind that it's possible they may compare notes, especially if they are in the same interest community and neither of them have ever heard of you. Similarly, make sure you look smart and consistent. Be up front about what help you need and why and, if you're working with other departments, colleagues or an agency, make sure you all have access to a master list of people being contacted - and keep it updated and checked regularly. Few things are going to make you look as bad as one group not knowing what the other is doing. 

Do your homework - find out more about the bloggers you want to contact. Has anyone in your organisation dealt with them before? Are they already supporters? (this goes back to looking joined-up again) The connections you find may not even be in relation to work. Recently one of our fundraisers helped connect us to the mother lode of crafting bloggers since she blogs about that in her spare time and was able to introduce us to some of her peers online. Alternatively, have a look at Linkedin - do you have any mutual contacts who could make an introduction? It may sound excessively formal but the best way to be taken seriously is to show you take the other person equally seriously. And bear in mind that an increasing number of bloggers write professionally and expect to be treated as journalists. 

Show how it might help them - Let's be realistic here. The best way to get anyone to help you is to demonstrate that it will also benefit them. Don't insult their generosity but if you can see positive advantages for them in helping to spread your message it's OK to highlight those.  Ideally if you've been involving yourself within their community, the bloggers will already see the benefit of your input and you will already have some credit. However if you haven't been able to forge some solid connections beforehand, then try to illustrate any ways in which they may benefit. 

Disclaimers/Disclosure - keep it transparent. Be clear about who you are and where you work. This isn't as relevant for charities as for companies getting paid placements of stories but it's still worth keeping in mind.Similarly the bloggers may ask to include a disclaimer on anything they write. However that should only be in cases where they're receiving payment of some kind and shouldn't really apply here. 

Interns. Interns are fab. However it's not fair to give them projects where you can't support them properly.  The whole point of working with interns is that it's a two-way street. You get extra help and they get a chance to learn and develop their skills.  However, if this is a task that you've never done before - and I'm assuming that may be why you're reading this post - then there's not a lot you can do to support them. It's great if they can still complete the project and learn the necessary skills anyway but, unless you get properly involved, when they leave those skills will go with them.

Make it easy for them If you've ever had to handle a press release you'll know this bit already. Although any copy you supply is likely to be edited to fit with a blogger's own voice, that shouldn't stop you supplying suitable copy with all the necessary supplementary information - website and email addresses, dates, images etc. Don't just email a URL and expect them to go there and forage. 

Original content - this bit is sometimes hard. Naturally bloggers need to produce original, unique blogs. They're really not interested in simply repeating what their audience could have seen elsewhere. Sometimes that can be a problem since there's only so much content to go round and print media often takes priority. There are no easy solutions to this. You can try using your own online network to find examples and case studies - appeals on Facebook can work really well. However, over time you'll find that your work will prove the value of bloggers to the rest of your organisation and case studies will be easier to allocate to them.


And lastly a quick summary of the little obvious things that I'd hope you'd do without being told.

• When someone blogs about you, tell the world about it and LINK to them. 
• Remember to say thank you. Tell the blogger about the impact their work has had - hopefully they might feel inspired to do it again in the future
• Assemble a portfolio of your successes - use them to help sell your organisation to new contacts and also to help promote blogger outreach within your organisation.

So that's it. Simples eh? Let me know in the comments how you get on.

Celebrity retweets

This man can melt our
webserver with a single retweet

Since I'm one of the people who keeps an eye on mentions of Macmillan on Twitter, I regularly see a lot of tweets like this

@[celebrity]- I'm running a marathon for @macmillancancer. http://www.justgiving.com/Imrunningamarathon Please RT

Sadly, I hardly ever see any retweets of posts like that.

There are a lot of reasons for this. Before I get started though, let's be clear that this isn't going to be a charity person having a pop at unhelpful celebrities. The celebrities who work with Macmillan are a great bunch who are all willing to go the extra mile to help and we love 'em to bits. However we also know of at least one presenter who now refuses to work with any charity whose supporters swamp them with fundraising requests.

Let's look at it from the celebrity's point of view:

Imagine you're a celebrity with a twitter account. You run the account yourself and you try to follow everyone who follows you but a lot of people want to contact you and it's making things pretty unmanageable. In fact you have so many followers that you've had to turn off twitter alerts on your phone as they were flattening the battery.

Consequently, when you check your twitter feed, there are several things you'll be prioritising:

1. Check for messages from friends or fans you already know.
2. See if there are any messages you need to get answered urgently
3. Make sure no-one's being too rude about you

Let's assume that once all those are cleared out of the way, you still have time to read other messages and you see one addressed to you: "@[celebrity]- I'm running a marathon for @macmillancancer. http://www.justgiving.com/Imrunningamarathon Please RT". Let's also assume - unrealistically - that it is the ONLY charity retweet request you've received (in reality there will be loads)

Now, if you've got time to do anything with this, firstly you'll ask is "who is this person?". Do I know them?. Is this from a fan?. Have they tweeted me before? You take a look at the sender's Twitter page and it looks like this:

I'll leave aside the fact that this account has obviously just been set up and the sender can't even be bothered to do it properly.  Anyone looking at this page will realise a few things -
1. "This person is spamming" (even if they don't intend to)
2. "I don't know them from Adam"
3. "They're asking lots of people for help; if I don't have time to do anything they probably won't notice".


The response of most people would be to block this account and report it for spamming. However, you're a beneficent celebrity so you don't do that. In fact you give serious thought to a RT but you have a responsibility to your followers. What will happen to your reputation if you pass on a message that turns out  to be a scam? With no other information available, how on earth do you make sure this person is legit?

And at that point our beneficent celebrity finally gives up - and who can blame them?

So how can a fundraiser stop that from happening? What can make one tweet stand out from a load of very similar posts?  Here's some ideas. They don't guarantee success but I promise they'll work better than spamming a bunch of overloaded celebrities.

1. They'll pay more attention if they know who you are
Firstly don't set up an account just to promote your fundraising activity. This may sound obvious but it isn't. If you already have a twitter account use that. Make sure you've got a sensible photo in your bio and some genuine information. Use the link option wisely too - either link it to a page about the event itself, or to your Justgiving page.

Additionally, you're much more likely to get a retweet if you have a pre-existing relationship with the celebrity and they recognise your name. I'm not suggesting you have to take them out to lunch, but taking the time to have a chat, making it clear you know who they are and what they do can make a difference. That may sound like a lot of work but you're much more likely to get a response from a few celebrities you've taken the time to engage with rather than 50 you've casually spammed.

2.Keep it personal
 Pick your celebrities wisely. It helps if you know they are already interested in a charity or a cause. Highlight the connection if you can (although if it involves a illness or bereavement, you'll need to be very tactful about it). Alternatively explain why this fundraising is personally important to you.

Make it relevant - if you're taking part in a  local event, approach local celebrities. They may not have as many followers as Lady Gaga but their audience is more likely to be interested in what you're doing.

3. Avoid looking stupid - do your homework
Rather than blundering in, check out your celeb beforehand - see what kind of messages they post and what time of day they're likely to be online.

• Does your celeb run their own account or is it clear that someone handles it for them? - if it's clear their agent tweets for them, asking for a retweet during office hours might work better. Also if you can connect with the agent themselves, perhaps they have another client who might be interested in tweeting your request?
• How Twitter-savvy are they?- whilst I'm not suggesting you exploit newbies, I did once get a lot of publicity via a retweet from an actor who had only just signed up on Twitter. He got over 2,000 followers overnight and was innocently happy to publicise the awareness week I was working on.
• Do they normally retweet fundraising requests? If it's clear from their twitter stream that they rarely pass on fundraising messages, you may be wasting your time.
• Have they already published guidelines on their website about how they handle retweet requests? - Big twitter users such as Stephen Fry and Philip Schofield have been asked for RTs so often that they have put up useful guidelines on their own websites. The best way to annoy a celebrity who has gone to that kind of trouble is to ignore the guidelines and expect them to pay attention to you regardless.

4. NEVER indulge in sour grapes.
Obviously if they retweet you, make sure to thank them promptly for their help. However if, after doing all that work, you STILL don't get any attention the worst possible reaction is to complain about it.  That just makes you look petulant and will get you blocked. Everyone's human - perhaps there wasn't time, perhaps they didn't understand what you were asking them to do. So rather than whinging, see if there's anything you can learn from the experience.

And, with a bit of homework and some effort you can get that retweet.....

....just don't ask Stephen Fry; I wasn't kidding when I said he can melt our web server.