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.
This is a preview of Blogging Etiquette in the Face of a PR Pitch: What Miss Blogging Manners Would Do.
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January 5, 2010
It’s my birthday! And like last year, I have a gift for you.
Every year, I read hundreds (thousands?) of articles on the topic of Internet Marketing, from SEO to social media to web usability and then some. And every year, I hand pick the best articles that I’ve read and compile them in a resource that I hope will last a long time. Here’s my list for 2008. Here’s 2007. Here’s 2006. I painstakingly go through these resources with the hopes that these posts will serve as references for you in years to come. Yes, that’s right. Despite the changing landscape, the articles I list here are typically those that I feel are “timeless” in that they could be referenced in the future and still have utility. These posts are not in response to newsworthy events, nor are they displayed in any particular order. They are strategic guides that hopefully will enhance your internet marketing experiences in the future.
Every year, I can only read so many articles. I try to keep this as exhaustive as possible, but even so, I don’t know every great resource. Like last year, I enlisted in help from my followers on Twitter, many of whom gave me some great posts to add to this list. If you’re looking to be included on 2010′s list, you now know what to do.
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Always be Listening. Social media rocks because it’s one of the most amazing tools for “free” market research. Your investment is merely that of time. Take the time to hear what people are saying about your business. If you’re the frugal type, take advantage of the free alerts from Google, YackTrack, Social Mention, BackType (which gives you alerts from blog/article comments, which other services do not include), and Trackur. 
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Tamar Weinberg is a social media enthusiast with a passion for all things tech and productivity. She provides consulting in internet marketing and manages Community Support & Advertising at Mashable. Tamar is also the author of 
Digital Marketing Specialist, Social Media Consultant,
and Tech Geek at Heart