1. The Reality Check Guide To Blogger Outreach
Heidi Sullivan @hksully
Vice President, Global Media Research
Cision

2. Why Bloggers?

3. The Conversation Shift
The Public
The Media
Traditional
Media Model
PR/Marketing
Us
Social Media Model
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4. If the news is that
important, it will find me.
college student quoted in
New York Times, March 2008
Bloggers and voices on social sites vie for
influence directly with traditional media.
Facebook now drives more traffic to
PerezHilton and the Huffington Post than
Google does. WebProNews, May 2009
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5. Case Study
&
 Goal – increase beta users by 100K
 Method – Targeted Blogger Outreach
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6. Case Study
&
I saw your post a couple weeks ago, “Think Before You
Voicemail,” so I know how you feel about voicemail, and I agree
with you on all points. I try to avoid leaving people voicemails, at
work and in my personal life, and would much rather send and
receive emails or texts. But, as you mentioned, sometimes you
need to use voicemail – to convey tone or emotion, or because
you’re on the road and need to relay more information than you
can type while driving or otherwise multi-tasking…
- Pitch to
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7. Case Study
&
I work for a PR agency and have a client that just launched a new service
today. I thought of you because this service has the potential to make the
celeb dating scene a lot more interesting, if that’s even possible! It even
has a cool name – slydial!
If LC could leave Heidi a voicemail without the possibility of Heidi picking
up the phone, what do you think she would say? What about Mario
Lopez? He got caught cheating on his long-time girlfriend….
- Pitch to
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8. Case Study
&
 Resulted in 381 Blog Posts in 1 Month (including
TechCrunch and Perez Hilton)
ROI: “By hitting online consumers from all angles, the
program helped boost slydial’s 5,000 private alpha
users to more than 200,000 beta users in less than
two weeks.”
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9. The Niche Nature of
Blogging
Section Divider

10. I’ve got blogs whose target
audience is 100 people – the
right 100 people.
Chris Anderson
Author of The Long Tail
and Free

11. Using social data for long-range predictive analytics
 Acceleration of conversations on blogs often precedes both the
manifestation of a trend and its news coverage
 By identifying new opportunities for investors, bloggers helped bring
green tech investing out of its 2009 slump
“Green technology” investment, blog discussion and news coverage
Sources: Cision Media Research, Treehugger.com & Cleantech Group
8,540 Solar-powered coffee maker
mainstream 166 VC
news investments
mentions
61,300 blog
mentions
Q3 2008 Q3 2009 Q3 2010
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12.  Many blogs are focused on niche topics
which news outlets tend to cover more
sporadically and reactively
 Blogs are where industry tastemakers lay
out their thoughts and predictions, which
get re-circulated on Twitter and Facebook
 Influential blogs are updated constantly
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12 Photo courtesy Alan Levine via Flickr

13. The devil is in the details
About one quarter of bloggers tracked in Cision’s media database
cover one of 26 “first tier” general topics. The rest cover more
specific topics.
General
23%
Specific
77%
Source: Cision Media Research
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14. Section Divider
The Who, Why & How

15. Blogger Outreach
The Four “R”s: “Tailor to how we
cover beauty.
Research Demonstrate that you
get our approach.”
Relationships – Lesa Hannah,
Beauty Director for FASHION
Relevance
Respect
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16. Research
 Look at writing
style, voice and tone
 Research past coverage
(bylines, reports, posts)
 Know what they DON’T
cover
 Be aware what they’re
looking for
 Update your lists
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17. Relationships
 Compliments never hurt!
 Follow them on
Twitter/social networks
 Comment on blog posts
 Connect IRL
 It takes time, nurture
and maintain them
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18. Relevance
 Better to send out
fewer, personalized
messages
 Never send a pitch
without some introduction
 Make it clear, keep it brief
 Only send material you
know they’ll read
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19. Respect
 Know their preferred method of contact
 Don’t leave long voicemails or follow up via phone
 If you haven’t heard back, don’t panic
 Know when to step back and when to push
 When in doubt, include an opt-out
 Keep your word!
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20. Do Bloggers Really
Section Divider
Influence
Opinions?

21. of any population
1% will be active content
creators
9% will be participants
will simply "consume"
90% that content online
Data from:
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22. Anyone Can Be an Influencer
It used to be that in order to have a powerful voice in the
Momosphere, you had to do what I did: write four
books, appear on dozens of national morning shows, speak at
parenting groups and more…
Now thanks to social media, moms have been able to - from
the basement in their house in Iowa, to the deck in their
backyard in San Diego - build an audience not by going to
traditional media or writing a book, but gather audience based
on the power of their voice, the clarity of what their expressing
and the resonance it has with their audience.
Stacey DeBroff
@momcentral

23. Do bloggers truly influence the masses?
Duncan Watts: Trends are
Gladwell’s Law of the Few Unpredictable
“The success of any kind of “A rare bunch of cool people
social epidemic is heavily just don’t have that power. And
dependent on the involvement when you test the way
of people with a particular and marketers say the world
rare set of social gifts.” works, it falls apart.”
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24. Who is right: Watts or Gladwell?
 Both. Trends still begin with a small few and are spread by
those with connections.
 Bloggers can change over time – and anyone can become
an influencer.
 However, a general rule of thumb is that bloggers and
influencers tend to talk to each other.
 Immersing yourself in that community will help you spot
trends as they emerge.
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25. Remember the 10%
 Regardless of whether or not bloggers truly
influence, only 1 out of 10 people is truly sharing and
creating content online.
Spreading the word makes them influential.
• Know your community.
• Read, read, read!
• Identify what’s new.
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26. Connect with me!
Heidi Sullivan
Vice President, Global Media Research
Email: heidi.sullivan@cision.com
Homepage: us.cision.com
Blog: blog.cision.com
Facebook: facebook.com/hksully
Twitter: @hksully
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/heidisullivan
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