How to Get Free Publicity From Bloggers
Would you like to get free publicity from bloggers to help grow your business? Bloggers can be a great resource to help you spread the word about your business, product, service or brand. The problem is, every other business thinks so, too, which is why popular bloggers are inundated with requests from small and large businesses alike. So, what can you do to get exposure from bloggers?
Here are 7 tips to vastly increase your odds of success:
- Ignore the big blogs, at least for now. Everyone is asking the biggest blogs to write about them, which is exactly why you don’t want to. Remember, success often comes from seeing what the crowd is doing and then doing something different. Use StumbleUpon, Digg, Google, etc. to find blogs in your niche that are getting attention. Create a list of 20 to 50 of these. Guaranteed, some of them will be happy to hear your pitch. And you don’t have to limit yourself to bloggers – you might also want to add individual journalists at major publications as well.
- Don’t pitch. At least not yet. First, subscribe to the blogs and read them. Track where each of these bloggers hangs out online by tracking their comments on other blogs You’re discovering what they like and what they read and promote. The more you know, the better chance you have of influencing them.
- Get active. Join in the conversation, make relevant comments, comment on other comments, tweet their posts and be helpful. Don’t kiss up – do treat them as intelligent, knowledgeable peers. Your goal is to build credibility (HUGELY important) and recognition with these bloggers, because when you do approach them with your idea you want them to recognize you as someone they might want to listen to.
- Test the waters. Don’t send them a press release or a 30 page dissertation. Instead, send a BRIEF email (“Here’s a great idea…”) that would be a good fit for their blog. Length? 50 words is fine, do NOT go over 100 words.
- If they respond, give them more details in the form of bullet points and links. Tell why it’s a timely idea or why it’s a great fit for their readers. You might even write a tweet about it for them.
- Should you write the post for them? If they ask, then yes, by all means. Otherwise, no. By giving them the bullet points and resources, they can write it very quickly themselves, and usually this is what they will prefer to do.
- Give it the juice. Once they blog about your idea, it’s time for you to go to work. Tweet about their post, share it on Facebook, bookmark it, link to it from your own blog, etc. Two things happen when you do this – you amplify the publicity this is giving you, and you get to show your appreciation to the blogger by sending him/her more traffic. And that will go a long way towards ensuring the blogger is open and receptive to any post ideas you have in the future.
I hope you find these tips useful and do let me know how you get on.