What Do You Do When They Throw You A Curve Ball?

It is an undeniable fact that everyone has started to take notice of the powerful impact that a well targeted blogger outreach campaign can have on a product. PR shops tailored specifically at reaching bloggers are popping up all over the place, and why shouldn’t they? There are millions of bloggers and even more blog [...]

It is an undeniable fact that everyone has started to take notice of the powerful impact that a well targeted blogger outreach campaign can have on a product. PR shops tailored specifically at reaching bloggers are popping up all over the place, and why shouldn’t they? There are millions of bloggers and even more blog readers. It would be a tragedy to leave these influencers untapped.

In my position at Abraham Harrison I am fortunate enough to serve as a bit of a gate-keeper in regards to the various pitches that come in for Chris Abraham. Since we are in the industry of blogger outreach, and have been for 5 years now, I find these pitches to be quite interesting (even if they aren’t necessarily pitches that are applicable to Chris).

I like to look at the layout of the pitch. Are they tracking the email? Do they include links? Where are they linking to? Is there a social media news release? How easy are they making it for bloggers to post about their product?

Now I have a confession to make. On occasion, I like to take this curiosity one step further (I view it as scoping out the competition) and well, I like to respond. But not with your typical responses of “Great, I’ll make sure Chris sees this!” or “Thank you, but no, this isn’t a fit”. I like to throw them curve balls. Most recently Chris received a timely pitch for a Facebook app called The Mural of Love (here, I will even throw y’all a bone and provide the link he was sent http://apps.facebook.com/themural).

What caught my attention was this email was a follow up email to an earlier sent message that I had merely chosen to ignore. I admired their persistence, it is something we incorporate into our campaigns as well. If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.

So, I read the pitch and clicked the link.

Side note: to access the application I had to grant permission to my Facebook page, that is where I declined and lost interest altogether. I find whenever I do that, ”I” end up posting on ex-boyfriend’s walls, or inviting my 75-year old Nana to play “Drug Wars” with me, completely without my knowledge or endorsement. Had I been provided with a Social Media News Release and more information before having to allow access perhaps I would have continued. I digress, back to the story.

Now, if any of you know anything about Chris you know this…While he may be a hopeless romantic/social media guru, the odds of him combining these two things and paying to send virtual teddy bears, flowers, and chocolates to his potential suitors’, Facebook pages are pretty slim. At his age, and this point in his seasoned love life, I truly hope he has advanced past this type of digital flirtation. For goodness sakes, he is a Forbes Top 50 Most Powerful Social Media Influencer, he can’t just be posting teddy bears all over the place!

Curiosity killed the cat and I had to email back. I said….

“Thank you, XXXXXX, but Chris is a middle aged bachelor so I am not sure that this app has much relevance to him. I do admire your persistence, the brevity of your message model, and as a fellow practitioner I have some suggestions. I really think you all could benefit from incorporating social media news releases into your pitches. When you are “cold emailing” and asking someone to click on a link and grant access to their Facebook wall more information prior to making that request would be beneficial. We do social media news releases for all of our clients. They not only make it easier for bloggers to post, but they also provide any and all information available for the blogger to research. So they can rest assured that this is a legitimate pitch, offer, product, etc. I would love to hop on a call with you and/or your CEO and talk a little bit further about SMNR’s and how we might be able to help you offer them for your clients.”

What response do you think I got back?

………….radio silence……………

Which resulted in what? Me writing this post as a precautionary tale of how you need to have a contingency plan for all kinds of responses. Bloggers are an eclectic, cheeky, and brutally honest bunch. You can’t just fire and forget because you don’t like the response you get back, or it is something out of the ordinary. The out of the ordinary responses are the ones you have to be the most careful with!