The Indiepub Blog

Pitching Stories to Fellow Bloggers: Grassroots Publicity Tool

July 6, 2006 1:40 AM Posted by mac

I'm a dumbass.

As an editor/producer, I've received thousands of press releases and story pitches from all kinds of people. I've witnessed the worst publicity pleas the world can offer ... but I've also seen the best.

And yet, it wasn't until recently that the lightbulb went on: Why can't I take what I've learned and apply it to my own content? Why can't I become my own "pitch" man?

I'm still in the early stages of developing a list of industry contacts and fellow bloggers, but having been on the receiving end of so many pitches and story ideas, I've got a fair idea of how to approach fellow content creators for coverage.

Here are a few tips:

• Send one email at a time -- Don't write one message and send it to every contact in your address book. This is spam and if you do this kind of thing you are a spammer. Your mother raised you better than that.

  What you need to do is write individual emails to individual people asking for individual coverage. If you have a specific story that you think might be useful to a particular blog, fire up your email client and write a cordial and personal message to the blog's webmaster/editor. Be nice. Be genuine. Don't be an asshole.

  It's not that hard.

• Be selective -- If a blogger is nice enough to give you coverage, do not, under any circumstances, interpret this as a mandate to send every friggin' story you write to that blogger. You need to pick your spots. If you don't, that friendly blogger who so graciously helped you out will start ignoring your emails.

• Write a thank-you note -- If Emily Post was a blogger, she'd whup your ass for not writing thank-you notes after receiving coverage from another site. When someone gives you a gift, it is your solemn duty to take at least 10 seconds to write a note of thanks. Remember that the next time a blogger publicizes your stuff.

• Make sure you have an RSS feed -- If you pitch a story to a blogger and they go for it, chances are they'll scan your site for an RSS feed. Make sure you have one. If all goes well, you won't need to pitch future stories because your feed will automatically do the pitching for you.

Have you used story pitching for publicity purposes? Which publicity tools work best for you? Please share your thoughts and wisdom below!

Tools in the Grassroots Publicity Tools Series:

• Google News
• Technorati
• My Yahoo
• del.icio.us
• Digg
• Netscape
• Squidoo
• Feedburner
• Pitching stories

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