The Blog Watcher writes...

The blogosphere is where it's at you know. In every issue we recommend a recent PR-themed blog to check out and comment on. This time the different between bloggers and traditional journalists, and what that means for PR people.

From The Bad Pitch Blog: The REAL Difference Between Journalists & Bloggers

“One of the more frequent questions asked of the Bad Pitch blog is ‘what’s the difference between pitching journalists and bloggers?’ We used to assume that the main difference was that pitching bloggers requires hyper-customization. And while they do, it’s deeper than this – there’s a bigger difference.

80/20 Rule
If we did an analysis of [the examples of] ham-fisted pitches sent our way [by our readers], I’ll bet that 80 percent or more of them are originally aimed at bloggers.

This 80/20 rule has always bothered us. Why are pitches more prone to piss off bloggers than journalists? It’s not like misguided PR people send their ‘Sunday best’ pitches to the media and ‘casual Friday’ pitches to the bloggers. That maneuver would require something other than the rampant mass pitching that takes place.

After receiving thousands of pitches over the last three plus years, we can tell you that the bad ones suck consistently across the board.

What’s the Difference?
At the risk of oversimplifying, and pissing off our friends from the fourth estate (again), I’ll start out by saying…

…the difference between journalists and bloggers is paid vs. passion.

Paid vs Passion

Paid: First let me be clear and note that passion is required to turn a job into a career. Journalism is no different. I mean, who hasn’t watched ‘All The President’s Men’ and thought “How amazing would it be to help right wrongs of national magnitude by day and chill with people code-named Deep Throat at night?”

But for the most part, journalists are paid to do their job. And with every job there are things you put up with in exchange for the rest of it – and your paycheck. Bad PR pitches become a cost of doing business.

When we talk live to journalists, instead of via email (gasp!), they usually tell us about their bad pitches. The journalists consider sending them our way, but they “never get around to it”.

The journalists are getting the same bad pitches the bloggers are getting. They’ve just developed a tolerance over the years. That twice-monthly paycheck is a powerful antibiotic to fend off the ill of bad pitches.

Passion: From NASCAR to knitting, if you start a blog for any other reason than passion for that topic, it will be hard going. Passion fuels push-button publishing. Sometimes passion is the only thing fueling the effort.

More often than not, bloggers are not getting paid; they haven’t monetized. And unlike Mommy bloggers, many aren’t having largess foisted upon them by marketers at such levels that a swag recycling station has to be set up at one of their industry conferences (a topic for another post on another blog).

So when you send a ham-fisted pitch to a blogger, you’re tossing cold water on their passion. You’re implying you don’t really care about their favorite topic. I’m more likely to take a bad pitch personally than a grizzled newsroom veteran who can filter through them without even thinking twice.

Pitch Early vs Often

When working with bloggers another issue is timing. Everyone assumes that bloggers move at the speed of social media. The technology certainly permits them to live blog, live tweet and send photos from the field. But even the pitches that make the cut can get pushed to the side when life happens.

Most bloggers do this in their free time. If they have a job and a life, blogging takes third place. It should take third place (the author reminds himself).

It’s frustrating. But there’s a way to mediate this issue. If we recognize that bloggers have less than predictable publishing cycles, and we start pitching them earlier, we’re more likely to see success.

We need to start comparing their publishing cycle more to trade publications than the AP Newswire. Trade journalists work an average of three months in advance and don’t have an international newswire to distribute their stories as needed. Bloggers do have this access to technology, but it doesn’t mean they have to use it.

So the real difference between journalists and bloggers are their motivations. Motivations define their deadlines and their receptiveness to pitches. Keep all of this in mind when preparing your next round of pitches. And get motivated!

The Bad Pitch guys have more to say on this topic – so you should read the full blog here.

Posted Monday October 19 2009