In late October, I moderated a panel called Tough Talk for Tender Causes for the Vancouver Board of Trade with three other social media experts, and today, I appeared in an article in the Vancouver Courier, all about Twitter!

Coplick claims she hasn’t read a mainstream newspaper in years. Her Twitter friends alert her to news that is important and then she follows up on online websites to find out more. Word of mouth, whether breaking news or about new movies, is what she says is driving the new communications media. Old fashioned media hype, advertising, marketing and promotions will all change when everybody has the opportunity to express an opinion publicly. It’s the ultimate democratic tool, an “online voting system” where honesty and integrity will be far more valuable than traditional corporate PR spin. [source]

My fellow interviewees include Michael Allison from PACE Group Communications, Steve Jagger from Reachd, and John Starkey of FCV Technologies, all of whom were on the panel for me.

Now, while several of the Vancouver Sun reporters and editors have begun to Twitter, the fact that the other papers are starting to pick this up means that, at least locally, Twitter is starting to go a touch more mainstream! (image source  courtesy The Vancouver Courier, Jason Lang)

Vancouver is home to the 2010 Olympics, as much of the world is aware (and those who aren’t aware have more important things on their minds).  The city is enveloped in a flurry of activity, getting everything from buildings, athlete’s villages, and ski jumps ready for the onslaught of tourists, athletes and media that will descend onto our fair city.

Recently, the Vancouver Organizing Committee (aka VANOC - you know, the bigwigs in charge of all of the Olympic everythings in Vancouver) began a four-day “World Press Briefing” for more than 250 visiting journalists and media managers. There was some serious debate about how media coverage of the Olympics is changing dramatically due to new and emerging media.

Three local citizen journalists, under the Raincity Studios umbrella - Dave Olsen, Kris Krug & Robert Scales - have written an open letter to VANOC requesting entry into the closed-door press briefing.

DaveO, ever the eloquent one, says, “In brief, we’d like to have a conversation about how to allow fans and amateur media makers to document their Olympic experience…”.

“We are aware of your obligations to media rights holders and are seeking to provide an entirely different sort of coverage than the accredited media provide,” he wrote. “We are not looking to cover events per se but are instead interested in covering the cultural stories, athletes’ families’ stories, and stories from fans who saved and travelled from around the world for this experience. In other words, we plan to encourage and aggregate fan coverage of the individual’s on the street experience of the Games.”

Between the three of them, Scales, Krug and Olsen have covered Beijing 2008, Torino 2006, SLC 2002, and Nagano 1998, all unaccredited and on various forms of media.

DaveO goes on to explain that, in order to facilitate more citizen journalism, Raincity Studios will be “… hosting an independent, international media centre at our Gastown loft office. As part of this, we’ll organize events like photo walks and aggregate fan-made content for the enjoyment of a worldwide audience.”

This is going to happen with or without the mighty blessing of VANOC, but as DaveO pointed out,  “We’d [all] like to work with you to do this for mutual benefit.”

To date, all that I know is that the spokeswoman for VANOC told Jeff Lee, the Vancouver Sun Olympic Reporter that “The IOC is the ultimate arbiter on the representation on the press commission, and each country’s National Olympic Committee determines which media get accredited for the Games.”

She goes on to say that, “As the organizing committee, we can and will encourage both entities to recognize and facilitate the immense growth of online media, however ultimately decisions for press commission membership and Games accreditation lie with them. We have not yet responded to the open letter from the social media group but will do so in the coming days.”

So, Dave, Kris, Robert, where do we stand on this? Has VANOC gotten back to you? Have we come to any sort of conclusion here?

On Saturday, I posted a “How NOT to pitch” guide for PR people pitching bloggers. Today, I’ll tell you how we WANT to be pitched.

I’ve just recently sent queries out onto two networks PR people use to get leads: PR Newswire’s ProfNet and Help a Reporter Out (HARO) on a couple of different topics. Some of the responses I got were fantastic, and others fell way short of the mark.

An example of one of the way short of the mark ones for BuzzNetworker:

I’d recommend speaking to any of our expert panelists who were part of [a] discussion on “…. Social Media.” You can reach their media pages and listen to or read a transcript of this discussion at [website].

This doesn’t help me. It doesn’t help me because you’re just making more work for me. You didn’t tell me what they talked about, what the session was about, and for that matter, you didn’t tell me what your success or failure story was. Basically, you didn’t tell me how you could help me or answer my query across the board. So, um thanks, but I’m trashing this one.

I know this isn’t just my problem. Other bloggers have had similar problems. Mainstream reporters deal with this all the time.

At least this time around, the good pitches outweighed the bad. So what does a good pitch look like?

Despite the level of marketing-speak in this pitch, which I’m categorically against these days

This is Jackie [redacted] at [redacted] a next-generation marketing services ecosystem.

I saw that you’re looking to speak with authors of recent books on social media. You should talk with [our] chairman and author of business best-seller, [book I'll be reviewing and will post about later].

Let me know if you’d like to interview him. Would you like a copy of the book? If yes, where should we send it?

I will be getting back in touch with Jackie, and likely this afternoon, because she told me what the book was, who to talk to, and where she could send a copy of it to. She basically did everything right. The pitch was succinct, to the point, gave me all the information I needed to know and offered to send me a copy so that I could read it myself.

Now that you’ve seen both ways this can go - both bad and good, in short and sweet queries - here’s a few tips to ensure that your blogger pitch goes well, and ideally, results in coverage!

• In your subject line, tell me what you’re replying to. Remember that many bloggers have more than one outlet we write for and we need to know right away what you’re pitching us.
• Answer my question, don’t give me a throw away comment. Think about what you want me to know about, and frame your response properly.
• Also, when you’re thinking about your response, take the time to think about what someone who knows nothing about your product or client would want to know. Answer all the 5w’s and make sure it makes sense. Read it with fresh eyes. Don’t make extra work for me.
• Don’t pitch me off topic. If I ask for information about Vodka, don’t pitch me Pomegranate Gin. All that will do is frustrate me. If you know it doesn’t fit, don’t pitch it until it DOES fit.
• Wait for me to follow up with you. One follow up email is cool. Four is not.
• Be succinct and clear about what you’re pitching. Get to the point.

These are things that can be applied across the board to many bloggers, but like mainstream news, not all bloggers are the same. Many write more personal blogs from a news perspective, and don’t want to be pitched like a traditional news outlet. You still have to do your due diligence and make sure that you have some background knowledge about the blogger first. Do your research! figure out what we write about, and the way we write about it and then approach us.

Another really great post about blogger outreach is by Jason Falls on Social Media Explorer.

(Image source: Newscom.com)

Social networking sites share a lot of the same features, from time to time I am going to look at these features and help explain how to maximize their use for your benefit.

Today I want to look at groups.

(How else do you represent groups with a picture?)

Groups are glorified forums where users can communicate via message board, bulletins, and are usually moderated by another site user. They are usually split up via different subject areas and there are often multiple groups about the same subjects. The benefits of groups are two fold:

1) It provides you with a listing of people that are interested in your subject.

You can go through and harvest the people in the group as contacts. This is an easy way in ensure a high conversion rate and gain a lot of connections within the site.

2) It provides you a place to build a reputation and gain loyal customers.

In most groups there are usually multiple discussions going on. For a few minutes a day you should take the time out to go in and participate in the discussion. It gives you a chance to intergrate yourself into the community and also it can establish you as an expert. For example let’s say you are trying to sell paint ball equipment, if you spend time in a paint balling group you can establish yourself as an expert. When people want to purchase equipment why wouldn’t they want to get it from someone that knows their product?

Spending a couple of minutes a day in the forums is a sure way to help establish yourself within the community and it won’t brand you as someone that is there just to acquire numbers. People will interact with you more and be much more receptive to things you have to promote.

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