PR Mondays: What Do YOU Bring To The Table

Last week I reached out to some of my amazing blogger friends that I feel have ‘made it’ in a way that I would be proud to tell you about. My friends ROCKED with their advice and I will be sharing that here over the next few weeks. But one of my friends wrote back a mini post with what she is passionate about. It was written roughly, as an email between friends usually is, but I wanted to share it because I think the questions she poses are so valuable. This is one blogger who I personally really look up to so I hope that you all can glean some wonderful advice from her.

So much talk is going on about monetization. The conversation is good, because strong and honest dialogue between bloggers and brands is key to building successful relationships. However, without assessing what you, as a blogger—regardless of how long you’ve been blogging—can offer the brand and the ways in which you can track your success measures, how can you really demand compensation for your time?

I think it’s important to ask yourself: What are you offering? What is your unique difference? Do you have reach and influence? If so, what is it? Are you passionate about the product or have a unique way in which your service (blog/business) and a brand’s product/service couples to combine potentially amazing results? If so, how? Are you a social media extrovert who can get the word out even though Alexa and Technorati aren’t ranking you high? If so, in what ways? Do you have an offline presence that can be combined with your online influence to produce even more amazing results than from purely online outreach?

If we, as bloggers, are going to say: “Show me the money,” I think we need to be prepared to answer those questions and help brands understand the unique value we bring to the table that will help them get a return on their investment.

Soon we will be talking about how to build a media kit and I think these are perfect questions for you to ask yourself before we get started. Your media kit has to be much more than your ad rates. You need to be able to say “Show me the money and here is WHY”. It is a good time to go back and revisit your stats. Do you have a specific niche developing? A super low bounce rate? What stands out in your stats?

I, also, wanted to let you know that I was asked by a good friend who is a PR rep in the mom blogging world to do a monthly twitter chat. The Blog Frog will be there participating as well.  More info to follow but save April 5th at 9 pm EST for our first #prmonday chat. This is NOT a prize twitter party. It is a conversation about PR that you can openly ask your questions and get some advice.

So, lets get that conversation going…What is it that you bring to the table??? Let’s brainstorm how to answer this together. *I do answer a lot of comments so make sure you hit the subscribe button after leaving a comment or check back*

PR Monday: Blogging To A Niche Audience

I have been busy interviewing lots of amazing bloggers who monetize and work with PR well over the last week (in between being sick, house hunting with my mom and attending services). So, I am THRILLED to have Rachel back with us this week talking about her AHA! Moment in how to stand out from the crowd.

There are hundreds and hundreds of mommy blogs out there, blogs filled with griping, blogs filled with humorous stories, blogs filled with delicious looking food and recipes.  There are so many blogs out there.  How can we make our blog stand out?
This is the question I asked myself for a number of weeks.  I worked on my layout, on my fan pages, on interaction… and then I realized I missed the point!  What will make my blog stand-out from the masses is finding a niche and building in it.

To do this I first have to ask myself, what am I interested in?  What would be the easiest thing for me to write about.  I obviously picked my kids, that is why I am a stay-at-home-mom, right?  Now in the realm of kids – that’s a really big market of moms who are also interested in “kids”.  How can I narrow down the field of my “niche”, all mommy bloggers have kids!  Can I limit it by age range?  How about by a special circumstance (like raising a child with food allergies or step-children, etc)?  Can I narrow my focus in my presentation style (ex: mommy-goof ups, or expert tips, or photo documentation)?  Once you have an idea of your niche or what the purpose of your blog is going to be you should come up with several search-able phrases that fit your niche.  I like to think of myself as a blogger to moms of preschoolers.  The search-able phrases that I came up with are: “Fun learning activities” or “learning activities for preschoolers” or “preschool arts and crafts”.  Now is the fun part.   We get to figure out if people even care about that niche.  It is one thing to create a niche about “learning activities for preschoolers” but if no one wants to read it, I might as well just keep a private notebook at home, rather than maintain a public blog!

To find out if your niche has any value, check out the Keyword tool from Google Adwords.  It is free!  Type in your key phrases and add the cost per click (CPC) function.  Then look, are people searching for that phrase?  My keyword phrase “learning activities for preschoolers” is rarely ever searched and when it is the CPC is low, meaning it is not a valuable term for me to be investing my time and energies on – I probably won’t be able to find advertisers willing to sponsor my posts.  I can change it to “kids learning activities” or to “preschool learning games” and suddenly people are actually looking for the information.  For me, I blog so people can read it!  By tuning my blog towards a niche market I am able to get traffic that is looking for what I have to offer and will hopefully come back as I fulfilled their informational need.

The final step, once you have figured out what niche would interest you and what phrases you would target, is to come up with 50 potential posts.  Just brainstorm and fill up a notebook sheet.  Are you having problems coming up with 50 ideas?  Well, maybe you should change your niche to something more interesting to you.  Happy blogging!

Rachel is mommy to three preschoolers and blogs about their learning adventures, fun kids activities and tips that help her keep her sanity at Quirky Momma.  Have any blogging questions?  Feel free to contact her via twitter @quirkymommasite

Future of Mom Blogging & PR

Wrapping up February’s Straight Talk From PR series, I think it is important to hear how they see our future relationships evolving. One has to wonder with the statistic that Holly shared that 120,000 new blogs are created EVERY DAY, when does market saturation begin? Has it already? I think in a lot of ways, yes, it has. The old model of product review/giveaway is tired in my opinion. I think moving forward brands and bloggers are going to have to come up with more innovative ways to leverage our influence. But, alas, February is not about what I think, it is what actual PR reps think and so I will conclude this month with a few more great answers.

What do you want mom bloggers to most understand about your position?

I serve almost as a middle man between bloggers and my clients. It’s my job to bring both parties together so they can do mutually beneficial work and build relationships. Plus, I’m a nice, normal person, so you should get to know me and not think of me just as a “pr flack.” =)

Do you like being pitched (moms seeking you out) ?

I definitely like when mom bloggers proactively contact me to express interest in working with my clients or to even get to know me better.

I love it!

What do you foresee in the future in terms of mom bloggers and PR?

I think 2010 is going to be a deciding year for mom bloggers and PR. The relationship has evolved over the last few years and will continue to do so. With the FTC involvement and the upswing of “sponsored” posts, I think companies are really going to start analyzing how effective mom blogs are in relation to their bottom line.

As for the PR relationship, there will continue to be less “traditional” media outlets, and it will be interesting to see how much the lines between a “blogger” and a “reporter” begin to blur.

I think working with mom bloggers will remain very important to brands trying to reach moms. I hope that we can find more ways to work together that is mutually beneficial for both our clients and the bloggers whether that is with more paid spokesperson gigs or bringing bloggers in for counsel. It’s still a bit murky with the FTC guidelines, but I think the relationship between bloggers and PR people will continue to evolve.

What do you think? How do you see the relationship between mom bloggers and brands evolving?

Biggest Mistakes Mom Bloggers Make

Hi All! Continuing on from last weeks Straight Talk From PR we are going to talk  today about common mistakes and missteps that mom bloggers make in working with PR. Hopefully by hearing from them directly we can all avoid some of these and keep building professional, lasting relationships!

What is the biggest mistake mom bloggers make in working with you?

“I would say it’s being difficult to work with. Not answering emails, not meeting deadlines, or just not being nice. As a PR person, I often hear horror stories from my blogger friends about PR folks who are rude and unprofessional. It works both ways though. If I have a bad experience working with you, it’s likely I won’t include you in future outreach even if your numbers are high.”

“What a great question! Usually we only hear about the mistakes PR people make in communicating with bloggers.

One of the biggest mistakes is lack of communication. I understand bloggers are really busy (I am really busy too!) and that e-mails can get lost. However, when a blogger requests a product to review, then I send the blogger product, and then I never hear from them again – that is a big no-no. If you don’t like the product, let me know. If you can’t review the product due to time constraints, etc., let me know. All I’m really looking for is communication and feedback.

Also I think that bloggers should remember to always act professionally. If you have a conflict or issue with a particular PR person, you should take it up with them on an individual basis”

What turns you off of a mom blog?

It can be a turn off when I get emails from bloggers just to ask for free product or sponsorship without expressing interest in my clients, campaigns or even just me personally. It’s the same feeling I’m sure many bloggers get when PR people blast pitch them without any personalization or knowledge of their content/audience. Plus it’s hard for us because most times we don’t have samples laying around we can give out.

It’s much better for the bloggers and for me to email me or tweet me to start a relationship. Even just asking what I’m working on and what’s in the pipeline. Then when I’m working on an outreach plan for a specific program I can say “I should include XX in that school supplies campaign, because she mentioned her kids are getting ready for back to school.”

The only thing that turns me off is a cluttered blog. As an avid blog reader, I dislike going to a blog and not being able to find the actual content amongst all the blog flair. Whether it’s flashy buttons or advertisements, sometimes I find it hard to focus on the actual content of a blog amongst all the flair.

I work on a lot of family friendly campaigns so I tend to pass over bloggers that use foul language excessively or discuss r-rated or politically incorrect topics. It is not that I personally am offended by it but I could never sell that blogger to my clients.

So, there ya have it folks. Some landmines you can now thankfully avoid thanks to our fabulous PR friends.

I am curious, though. What about you? What turns you off of a blog??

PR Monday: Straight Talk From PR

Hey everyone! In Feb I am going to use this space to highlight straight talk from PR reps. I sent out a survey to some of the reps that I really respect and enjoy working with. In the interest of getting the most candid answers from them I am going to post their comments as anonymous. Lets face it, I can blab all day long about what I think but wouldn’t you rather know what they have to say?

So, here are a few questions and answers for them.

How does a mom blogger gain your attention? What puts them on your radar?

“If a mom blogger reaches out to me directly, I always make sure to check out her blog. I also discover a lot of great bloggers via Twitter. Whether it’s a new blog post on recipes or an industry-related article, I’m always reading everything I can (or that time allows!)”

“Honestly, someone who I know and interact with via Twitter, my blog or who emails me to keep a relationship going. If I know you, know you write great content and are fun to work with, I’ll likely include you in all the outreach I do for my clients and also recommend you to my colleagues.

Beyond that, bloggers who are regularly included in other high-profile campaigns (Walmart Eleven Moms, Lifetime Moms ect) it will catch my attention. It also helps us sell you in to our clients as bloggers we should reach out to.”

Check out this post if you are looking for the names of PR Reps that would like to work with mom bloggers.

How important are statistics in your campaigns? Can you give me the min. stats you are looking for?

“The quality of your content and how connected you are with other bloggers is most important. However, I do look at unique visitors per month to gauge whether to include bloggers into bigger campaigns like trips and larger giveaways.”

“Unfortunately, statistics do matter for the most part. In an ideal world, I would love to work with every single blogger. The reality is companies need results in the form of measurement. However, statistics are not the end all be all of working with a blogger. If a blogger has a niche audience (ex. coupons/frugal or cooking) and I’m working with a client that is relevant to that specific audience, then there’s more value in who’s reading the blog than how many people are reading the blog.
Keep in mind that just because I might not be able to work with you right now, doesn’t mean we can’t work together in the future. I love hearing from brand new bloggers; we all have to start somewhere!”

Looking to learn more about stats? Check out this post on Understanding Your Blog Statistics.

How important is a mom bloggers social media reach to you? What social media outlets are most important to you?

“Social media reach is pretty important. In addition to looking at blog outreach, we also look at how influential that reach is. Is the blogger on Twitter? Does the blogger enjoy going to events? Is the blogger active in the mom blogging community? Is the blogger active in his/her own community? Does the blogger contribute to other blogs/web sites?”

“It’s important for bloggers to be very well-connected to other bloggers and moms via Twitter, Facebook, YouTube ect. We typically will vet every blogger to see what their presence is like in those outlets. Plus if we know that your friends/followers are highly engaged with your content and will respond with comments, votes, entries ect. we’re more likely to reach out to you.”

As you can see from the above comments your social media (especially twitter) presence is very important to PR. If you are new to twitter, here is a post I wrote on Getting Started on Twitter.

If you are a PR rep and would like to participate in answering, email me and I will send you over the survey. Here is your chance to tell us mom bloggers what we need to know about you.

PR Mondays: Blog Frog

Can you believe that it has been a whole month of PR Mondays already? In January we concentrated on getting your ways to get exposure to your blog and we have one more awesome article for you on that from Holly. I have been busy interviewing PR reps for major companies and for the rest of Feb I will share their thoughts directly with you. If you missed any of the Jan posts make sure to go back and get your blog ready!

By Holly Hamann, 1.30.2010

holly@theblogfrog.com

What is BlogFrog and how did it all start?

Every wonder how BlogFrog got its start?  I’m delighted to be guest blogging for Barb and I thought I’d share a little bit of background on what BlogFrog is and how it all got started.

BlogFrog is the brainchild of Rustin Banks, who developed the beta product in 2008 during nights and weekends while still a full-time engineer at a local Aerospace company.  Banks said he got the idea from his wife, a casual blogger who used her blog to keep their friends and family updated.  There was no simple way for blog authors to have real discussions with readers and interact on their blogs. “A blog might have thousands of like-minded readers but what if I want to ask another reader a question or share my own blog content?” he used to ask his wife, Tara.

Rusty recruited me to help build the company and launch the service to the blogosphere. In early 2009, we both quit our jobs to run BlogFrog full-time.  Within months, BlogFrog’s social widgets had struck a chord with mom bloggers, who have become the company’s largest market.

People often ask us why women and mom bloggers have become such big fans. Our social features really resonate with them because women are inherently community and service oriented.  Women and moms tend to be more social online than men and also tend to form stronger online relationships.

There are 120,000 new blogs created every day and the total number of people engaging with blogs is expected to reach 150 million by 2012 (source: Technorati).  Every person has a unique story to tell and people are gravitating to blogs as a way to share what they know.  The social web is evolving from large, single-destination social sites to an integrated network of millions of smaller, niche blogs, all connected by a common platform.  Our vision is to be the common social platform that connects all blogs.

By cross-pollinating content within a single network of blogs via the social widgets, BlogFrog helps bloggers increase exposure and traffic for their blogs.

So how exactly does it work?

BlogFrog serves both bloggers and blog readers.  Blog authors can add widgets to their blogs that let them see who visits their blogs (the Recent Visitors widget) and they can let their readers interact with each other by adding a community (Community widget).  The Community widget lets readers ask each others questions, see each others’ blog posts, and each other’s content from social networks like Twitter.  You can see what these widgets look like here:

BlogFrog has quickly grown to over 25,000 members, making it the largest, integrated network of mom blogs on the internet. The network grows because whenever a member visits another BlogFrog blog or community, their profile picture and blog URL shows up for all visitors to see. So the more BlogFrog sites and communities a member visits, the more exposure their own blog gets.  You could also call this “viral growth”. BlogFrog has taken off as the best way to create a way for blog readers to interact.

You can learn more by visiting BlogFrog!

Welcome To Twitter Junior High

Twitter is starting to remind me of Junior High School. In the last few months I have seen the craziest things occur on twitter and just shook my head and walked away thinking “i need to post about this one day”. Apparently the universe decided today was that day.

Yesterday I worked all day on a campaign that was near and dear to my heart. I worked well beyond what I was paid to do because I was passionate about the cause.

This morning I wake up from an email from a friend of mine telling me that people contacted her about issues with this campaign. She was in no way involved in the campaign so why the hell she was brought into this I have no idea but apparently people are now deeming her the Principal at Twitter Junior High.

So, as I explained to the Principal I will now explain to you. YES, last night I gave a prize away to twitter account owned by my co-host. I HAD NO IDEA SHE OWNED THAT ACCOUNT! Yes, she replied with a thank you because SHE WASN’T SURE WHAT TO DO IN THE HEAT OF THE PARTY. She called me right after the party with “Houston, we have a problem”. We decided we would reaward it today.End of story we thought.

But apparently a bunch of people ran to the Principal to tell on us.

Seriously??? Seriously???

No dm to me? No email to me? No tweet to me? WHY?

Do people honestly think I would stake a reputation I have had online for almost 10 years to give  her a branded tote and mug? Come on people. If you don’t know the blogger business yet let me clue you in….we have more branded products than we know what to do with it. They arrive everyday in our mailboxes. I am not devaluing the prize but my co-host needs this like she needs a hole in her head!

Lets clear some thing else up while I am at it. Yes, I own multiple twitter handles. All of my sites have their own handle. They are clearly branded as sites and can be checked against my portfolio. So does my co-host. I just didn’t know she had the one I awarded the prize to. She uses that one to give away awards she finds. Sort of nice of her, don’t ya think?

Yes, our clients know we have these accounts. It is no big secret. Yes, it inflates tweet counts, DUH! Your point is??? If you are donating to a charity and the client is aware extra accounts are used to spread main messaging, isn’t that a GOOD thing?

In December I held a food drive charity twitter party and was attacked because some people determined the food to not be as nutritious or organic as they would like. Seriously???? You are bagging on a FOOD DRIVE? Let the people receiving it decide if it is OK for them. My kids love that product.

In December, Twitter Junior High also saw the horrible attack on Military_Mom after she tweeted about her sons drowning. There has already been enough said on that tragic subject.

September was the attack on the my blogging friends who were invited to Nestle and then were literally crucified on twitter for it.

Twitters terms of service do not allow anyone under the age of 18 to play in the US so why are so many people acting like they are still in Junior High?

I hated Junior High and I have no intention of letting my part of twitter turn into it.

You have a problem with me? I am not hard to get a hold of. Tell me, not the teacher or the principal or talk behind my back.

Have a problem with someone else? Talk to them! Don’t start a huge campaign on twitter about it.

Can’t we all just get along?

Here is your chance to talk to me. Leave me a comment!

AdDress Your Heart Twitter Party

I wanted to let you all know about a twitter party I am co-hosting with Toni-Lynn tonight.

Given my dads recent passing from congestive heart failure and my brothers heart attack this last March, I can not be more proud to partner once again this year with Campbell on the AdDress Your Heart Twitter Party. They are donating $1 for every tweet today using the #AYH hashtag up to $625,000 to the Go Red For Women campaign.

It is so going to rock and I hope you can come! Tim Gunn is lending his support and answering readers questions on my review blog. There are awesome prizes you can win, including Macy’s giftcards.

Click the button for all the details. Even if you can’t make the party, please make sure to include #AYH in all your tweets today!

Increasing Your Blog Reach With Links

I am grateful to have Rachel from QuirkyMomma.com post today on how links can increase your blogs reach. One of the things that PR people use to evaluate your potential involvement in campaigns is your ‘reach’. They want to know how influencial your voice is beyond the blog. Rachel has a great way of explaining the different types of links and their value to you. Thanks Rachel!

Linking is often a confusing and frustrating part of blogging, and yet, links can be a very fruitful way to increase your blog’s credibility and traffic as more people are able to find you!  I credit the growth of links as the reason my blog has grown.  A lot of my readers would not have heard of my Preschool Activities Blog if it weren’t for another site advising that they come check me out.  My page rank (where I show up on Google searches) would have remained low (ummm, non-existent) and I wouldn’t be getting any search engine traffic if it weren’t for links, as Google would not have seen me as a valuable site.  There are several different types of links, I thought it would be handy to explain the various types of links, the perks and some of the negatives of getting or making them:

* What are incoming links? These are links that others make to your site.  They are highly ranked from search engines if they come from the first page of a blog, with in-content links rated higher than links coming from the side-bar, but really, we can’t be too picky!  Any incoming link is a good one!  You can find what links you have coming into your site either in your dashboard, if you have that capability, or by creating a Google webmaster account.  With Webmaster you can see exactly what Google thinks about you.

* What are outgoing links? These are links leaving your site.  Examples: links on your blog rolls, links to advertisers, links to authority sites, etc.  You want to be careful to not link to a spammy site (check google’s list) and links to higher ranked pages are better than to lower ranked ones, but Google says on their webmaster course/videos that “link bleeding” is a myth.  You are not penalized for linking too-often as long as those links are relevant (aka have similar keywords that you have in your site).  It can actually help you to link to authority sites.  Many times they are checking their incoming links and can find out about you (maybe even give you a curtesy link back), also, it makes you look like you know what you are talking about.  Like a research paper, Google likes it when we credit our sources.  Examples of “linking up”:  You write an article about a great cookie recipe that you adapted.  The original recipe was on Food Network, but you substituted a few ingredients and changed a few things making the recipe yours.  By linking to the original you are showing that you are “on par” with the Food Network.

* An Explanation of NoFollow/DoFollow links:
NoFollow is the default method of linking used by the majority of blogs.  NoFollow is essentially a code that Blogger, Wordpress and other platforms have added making comments, and sometimes sidebars, not crawl-able to search engines.  These links Google “supposedly” does not travel from.  When the Google bot gets to your site they crawl all your pages, when they come to a NoFollow link they “supposedly” do not follow it to that site in an effort to make their bots more efficient.  NoFollow is good for the blog owner as it means they do not have to moderate links as heavily, however, it is not giving a “vote of confidence” to the sites you’re linking to.  Are NoFollow links worthless?  I don’t think so (but I am not an expert).  I find it hard to believe that Google doesn’t keep track of NoFollow links, they just may not weigh them as heavily as other links.  The easiest way to gain NoFollow links is by leaving comments on other people’s sites or by being in blogrolls (many of these are not crawl-able either).

DoFollow links are the ones where the bots come across the link and then go scout out the site that you are mentioning – these are also called “backlinks” or “incoming” links as the bot comes “back” (or “in”) to you.  Bloggers and webmasters alike obviously want more of these types of links as they increase credibility.  The more sites sending “backlinks” to you, the more you look credible or like an authority according to Google.  The easiest way to gain DoFollow links is by guest posting on another person’s blog.  Most blogs do not have “NoFollow” codes over their content area.  Some blogs (like Barb’s and my kid activity site) are DoFollow in their comment area as well.  The perk of this is that you get to reward the people who comment on your site with link juice, the negative is that you have to moderate comments a bit more and delete ones that are irrelevant or from “spammy” sites.  If you want to know if a site is DoFollow in their links, check out this FireFox Add-on (I love firefox!!!).  If you do have a DoFollow blog, there are a few things you don’t want to link out to (ex: giveaways, paid advertisers, etc.), but that list is for another day and another post!

Leave a comment if you have any questions I’d love to answer them as best as I can. I have not been blogging for long, but I love jumping in head-first and learning everything I can about whatever it is that I am doing.  These were just the meanderings of my blogging journey!  If any of you want me to share some link juice with you, feel free to stop by Quirky Momma.  I love to feature other relevant blogs!

Rachel

Talk Live Video Tips

This Fantastic Friday shout out goes to Danielle at ExtraodinaryMommy.com. I really struggle with vlogging and being on camera yet I know it is the new wave of blogging. Danielle is putting together a series to help all of us learn to be more comfortable with vlogging. Go check her out, she is one of my all time favorite social media gals

Talk Live Episode #1

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