Summary: Consider these three tips for better blogger relations before getting your company caught up in a negative blog storm (or missing out altogether).

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Is your company reaching out to bloggers to spread the word or take part in larger conversations on the Web? If so, how are your blogger relations efforts going? Chances are that there’s room for improvement. Here are three simple things you can do to pursue even better  blogger relations for your business:

1. Stick to Your Market – Look beyond bloggers with generic “influence” and instead focus on bloggers who have direct influence over your existing target market. Building relationships with bloggers takes time, and you should invest it wisely. Be selective. Remember that blogger relations is about more than simply pitching bloggers about your next product launch. (Check out the two small-scale examples of authors exercising excellent targeting and blogger outreach I recently highlighted at All Book Marketing.)
2. Target Brand Advocates – Search for bloggers who are not only relevant to your company, products, or services, but who are already talking about you! On the surface you may think it’s best to start off targeting bloggers not yet writing about you, in order to increase the numbers. However, those who already promote your company (like happy customers leaving great reviews) run less of a risk. Remember, bloggers don’t generally have an editor to answer to. They’ll share their opinions whether you like it or not – and if you annoy a blogger by pitching them something irrelevant or something they simply don’t care for, you may get coverage albeit not what you were hoping for. Also, your brand advocates (or fans) are the most likely bloggers to want to hear from you–in fact, they may be completely tickled that you even took the time to look at their blog. These are people that want to build a relationship with you. At the very least, this is a good place to start.
3. Give Them What They Want – Bloggers are about more than getting free stuff. In fact, there’s a large segment of the blogging community that strongly looks down on anything that could be construed as trying to “buy” bloggers or their attention. Solely taking that approach is another risky move that could lead to negative coverage. Instead, think about what’s often important to bloggers. For example, many niche bloggers work hard to build and maintain an image as an authority in their field. Allowing them to break a small news story is extremely appealing to them (it can give them a traffic boost in addition to more credibility). Having respected members of their industry participating on their blogs is another way they can achieve that goal–consider offering to do an interview or write a guest post for them, or if you enjoy the blog enough to read it regularly comment publicly as often as you can (and as often as you have something of value to add to the post). These things allow you to not only initiate a relationship with relevant bloggers, but directly engage with their readers.

Before jumping head-first into a blogger relations campaign, do what you’d do when preparing to launch any marketing, PR, or advertising campaign–think about who you’re ultimately targeting. Understand what the blogger’s readers want, and then work with bloggers in your industry to give them that. The best thing you can do to ensure a good blogger relations campaign is help bloggers give their readers what they want–then everyone’s happy.

I worked for a large online organization who naively believed that RSS feeds were a substitute for email newsletters. I’ve since come across several other webmasters who believe the same thing. It’s become quite the pet peeve. (more…)

Business blogging, or corporate blogging, has potential PR value for even small business owners. If you’re considering setting up a company blog for your small or online business, there are several things you might do with that business blog, including:

1. Using the business blog to present company news, or the owner’s (or other high level executive’s) take on industry news issues.

2. Using the business blog as a way to educate the public, and more importantly your target market, about your products, services, etc.

3. Using the business blog as a tool to offer free industry information or articles, as a means of then driving Web traffic to other areas of your business site.

By creating a business blog for any of those reasons, you also have a free or inexpensive, yet powerful, PR tool. There are a variety of public relations benefits to business blogging, such as:

1. The ability to disseminate news.

2. The ability to quickly and directly gather feedback from your target audience.

3. The ability to build a company or personal reputation as an authority source in an industry or niche.

In order to best take advantage of the PR benefits of blogging (sometimes referred to as the marketing benefits of blogging), it’s important to keep the blog honest and ethical by industry standards. As much as blogging can be a PR benefit, it can also lead to negative publicity just as easily (such as if you were to release false information or just hype about a new product release), so always keep your business motives in mind when deciding to launch a business or corporate blog, and when deciding whether to blog yourself or hire a ghost writer as your business blogger.

Not everyone has what it takes to be a successful freelancer. Several qualities that differentiate a freelance success from a freelance failure are simply character traits that are difficult to alter. Still other factors can be learned. Here are three keys to freelance success; all things that you can actively work to improve upon in your own freelance career:

Planning – Just as business owners should create a business plan for their new business, a freelance professional should create a variation of a business plan for their freelance career. Without understanding their target market, competition, and goals thoroughly, it’s nearly impossible for a freelancer to reach their maximum potential. Proper planning is also essential for a freelancer to be able to set appropriate rates and fees, which is a common problem for new freelancers.

Networking – You don’t have to be a natural social bug to be a success when it comes to business networking. When working as an independent professional, getting a gig will sometimes simply come down to who you know. Meet other freelancers in your industry or related industries (for example, a freelance content writer could benefit from knowing freelance copywriters, because leads can be passed back and forth). Also make an effort to meet industry professionals and leaders who might become clients, or who may think of you and refer to for work in your area that they later hear about. You can network in more traditional environments, such as by joining professional organizations, or you can network a great deal online through forums, social networking sites, blogs, etc.

Marketing Ability – It doesn’t matter how good you are at what you do if you can’t effectively market your services to potential clients. You have to make them aware of you, and be able to “sell” them on your services as compared to your competitors. It’s a good idea to learn about the principles of marketing, and then learn about more specific tactics and strategies once you better understand how they work.

Work to improve those three areas, and you’ll improve your freelance career as well. Put time into planning, network with those who can help you, and learn to position yourself through your marketing efforts, and you’ll be well on your way to freelance success.