Digital Marketing Specialist, Social Media Consultant,
and Tech Geek at Heart

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How to Get an Influencer’s Attention

March 24, 2010

Influence is everywhere, but it’s up to you to spot it. As information flow is infinite, many find that it is of utmost importance to capture the attention of the select few who serve as influencers — these are the people who can actually stop their followers in their tracks to help spread your message. Perhaps this might serve as the start of a real relationship. If nothing else, these influencers will help to share your story with their own audience.

I contacted a number of influencers to see what grabs their attention. I selected influencers in all different “walks of life” and areas of influence, from the blogosphere to the power users of Digg to founders of successful startups and authors of bestselling books. The question I asked, simply, was “how do you recommend people grab your attention?” The question was purposely left open-ended; I wasn’t necessarily seeking out attention in the form of a product pitch, despite the fact that many of those asked are prominent bloggers. As such, the responses are varied — just the way I wanted it. Here’s what they told me:

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11 Characteristics of Highly Influential Blog(ger)s

February 23, 2010

A few weeks ago, I posted about the seven characteristics of highly effective online video. Taking this theme a little further, I decided to branch out into the blogosphere, but using the number seven this time around was a tad too limiting. There are at least ten characteristics off the top of my head that make blogs and bloggers successful. These characteristics give the blogs mentioned below fame, fortune, and loyal followings.

Want to build your blog and following? Here are some key ideas and takeways — as well as inspirational bloggers you might want to follow — who can help you realize that dream.

Consistency

If you want your blog to be recognized as a household name, you better be consistent at providing quality content on a regular basis. The most popular blogs, according to Technorati, maintain that consistency by posting more than once a day. Granted, these are typically publications that have a staff of writers at their disposal, but they are like the newspapers of the blogosphere and readers have come to expect frequent updates. Blogs like Mashable and Gizmodo offer a consistent stream of stories every single day.

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Blogging Etiquette in the Face of a PR Pitch: What Miss Blogging Manners Would Do

February 10, 2010

As a blogger, I’m sure you receive a fair number of emails pitching you with products. As someone who does public relations for companies, I’m sure you carefully pick your bloggers for the pitch. We both have difficult jobs. Bloggers have to weed out the crap and PR pros need to find the right people for the job.

The job of someone who does blogger outreach can be difficult. They’re tasked with contacting bloggers about different initiatives, sending out story ideas and “press releases” (hopefully with a social component, since those are preferred by many bloggers). Unlike traditional journalists, if you’re doing blogger outreach, your focus should be a lot more on relationship building with the right people.

It’s not always the people doing blogger outreach who don’t get it right. Public relations representatives sometimes actually do a great job sending targeted pitches to the right people. They invest a lot of time finding just the right bloggers, carefully cherry picking out the right people to whom to send a perfect pitch. These are the people who really make a solid effort — they review the blog content and realize that their pitch might be a further extension of content that they had already seen on the blogs they are targeting.

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The Blogger and Marketer’s Cheat Sheet to Getting High Profile Jobs and Blog Mentions

August 18, 2009

Sometimes you can’t tell the difference between a marketer and a blogger. A blogger might say that he wants to write for a specific publication, sending emails and instant messages asking, “Hey, I really like that you write for this publication. Can you get me a job too?” Marketing type folk, especially those representing a company’s service or product offerings, turn to blogs and ask to be mentioned in the blog. In both cases, the blogger and marketer will approach you when the timing is right for them and take advantage of these channels when they need to.

I don’t expect marketers or bloggers to have been reading specific blogs forever, but they should know about the blog’s culture before promoting themselves. There’s a pervasive theme that resonates with 99% of these email or IM requests: I expect marketers and bloggers to do a little more due diligence before they come pitching their product or themselves to a specific blog. In a nutshell, they should show that they know what the blog is about, and if they’re really looking for coverage or acknowledgments, they should be visible.

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Take the Private Beta Approach, Since It’s Inherently Viral

August 15, 2007

How many times has a private beta piqued your curiosity? How many times has it turned you off because of the nature of it being “private?” What about both?

While the notion of an exclusive crowd joining a social networking site probably does frustrate you (as it did for me on many networks where it took a bit of time for me to score an invite), private betas are still very smart. The buzz surrounding the brand new piece of software is complete word of mouth marketing, and it works quite well in the favor of those who opt-in for such private tests.

Pownce is still in private beta. I compared Pownce to Twitter over a month ago, and people have consequently asked me to invite them (I still have some invites in case you’re wondering). Mashable was able to get a sneak peek of Notifir. I now want in. Donna Fontenot gave me a Grand Central invite last month. My good friend Muhammad Saleem is always giving away invites. And of course, there’s also InviteShare, which was recently acquired by TechCrunch.

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