"Blogger "pitching" is not going anywhere": discuss

"Techno Marketer", Matt Dickman, pointed out last week:

"Blogger "pitching" is not going anywhere. Bloggers are gaining influence and share of voice in media. The key for PR efforts is to choose bloggers that truly fit your product/service niche and build those relationships over time."

This point is akin to a recent report I saw (but can't recall the name) suggesting that in the future PROs/marketers will need to build sustainable teams around online communities to ensure truly effective engagement.

Matt's view makes perfect sense to me, but it flags an insteresting position for PR agencies. A few years ago it was generally presumed that as PR/marketing spend increased and consolidated, agencies would become more heavily involved in short-term/project work while in-house teams would take on the builk of longer-term PR work.

If this is to be the case, then where does Matt's predicted shift leave those of us agency-side?

Technorati tags: Matt Dickman, PR, blogger+relations, blogging

Comments

[Craig McGill]

One area will be for those who are seen as digital savvy and it will be in the area of firefighting.

As something negative appears online the agency staff will be tasked with staying up all hours around the clock to shoot down every online allegation that appears while the in-house staff will be tasked with literally just checking in every x-amount-of-hours and advising on the messages that the agency staff put out there.

[Simon Collister]

Hi Craig. I've been in a similar situation myself so don't doubt where you're coming from, but... "shooting down online allegations"? I would suggest 'engaging with the community' is a truer way of putting it.

[Brendan Cooper]

I'm not so sure there is a 'shift' here. Blogger relations are exactly as the term implies - relations. There's a tendency for people to think that digital is some sort of immediate, all-encompassing panacea. In fact, it's exactly the same as everything else we've ever done, just in a different medium. So, if we're in the business of building relations then, yes, it takes time. It's up to clients whether they want agencies to do this - which we already do for other media - or whether they want to contact 'their' bloggers more directly.

[Simon Collister]

It depends on where you're coming from I think, Brendan. There's no shift if you want to carry on doing traditional public relations - only using the internet as another channel.

But personally, I believe that this is a short-term approach and only scratches the surface of the changes the internet and social technologies are having on society, business, etc.

Blogger relations can be done either in-house or agency, but you only have to take a look at reports such as last year's 'The Future of Public Relations' or Forresters' more recent report, 'The Connected Agency' (http://www.forrester.com/Research/Document/Excerpt/0,7211,43875,00.html)
to get an idea of where things could be heading.

[Matt Dickman]

Simon -- I love the conversation you're having around this issue. I am in agreement with you (maybe because I don't have a PR background) that doing relations-as-usual is a losing proposition in the long-term. I think the medium offers a wider array of options to connect in more meaningful and personal ways.

Your point about long-term relationships being handled in-house is an interesting one. The agency of the future may bring an integrated network of deep relationships to the table as an asset that moves with them.

[Simon Collister]

Thanks for stopping by, Matt. Like your idea of agencies bringing a network of relationships to the table. That's a proposition I hadn't thought about. So it's not all doom and gloom for agencies!