The Realist Idealist

I’ve heard a lot of talk around the nonprofit sector in the last 6-9 months about “blogger strategy” and “leveraging the blogosphere.” That is to say, a lot of people are talking about how to get bloggers to write (positively) about them and/or their organizations.

The same has been true at my own organization as I’ve either heard or had conversations with folks on our staff about how they’d love to connect with “the blogs” and how we can get them to write more often about our work - whether it be for community outreach, grad fairs, nonprofit careers, international volunteerism, or any of our other programs.

Granted our motives are pure and our subject is generally a very positive one, but it’s just not so easy as wanting to ‘develop a strategy’ for ours or any organization.

Lord knows I’m not the world’s foremost expert, but as I’ve gotten to know the political, tech, and social enterprise blogospheres in DC and San Francisco better and better over the last couple years, I’ve noticed one major thing: bloggers write about the people they know and the issues they’re comfortable with. OFF-line.

Robert Scoble recently wrote a piece in Fast Company about Timothy Ferriss (author of the 4 Hour Work Week) that I think points to the best type of strategy when it comes to connecting with bloggers.

http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/124/meet-the-press.html

I highly recommend it for anyone thinking about reaching out or connecting with bloggers.

The irony is that as much as blogging and social media strategy is a 2.0 idea, the outreach and connections Scoble suggests making are totally 1.0. They’re old school. And though I may be biased because it’s more or less my job to do some of these types of things, I’ll add my two cents and say simply: 1.0 still works.

The nonprofit tech-o-sphere for instance is as full of offline connections as it is online. The political blogosphere is even more tight knit.  Most of the prominent (prominent at least in our own little world) bloggers, thinkers, and personalities connect at conferences, go to the same parties, are part of the same meetings meetings, hang out as friends over lunch, read each other on Twitter, on know way too much about each other on Facebook (and dozens of other places).

My recommendation to anyone developing “blogger strategy” is this: become part of the community first. Without intent for gain. Get to know anyone that might write about you for a couple months beforehand. Buy them a coffee or a beer just because they’re interesting.  Get to know why they do what they do (and do so genuinely), and after you’ve established a rapport (again genuinely), THEN send them items of interest that might be worth their writing about. And when you do, don’t expect that they’ll write. Only send your info if it’s truly compelling and aligns with the blogger’s topics of interest.

And remember: almost no very good relationship or partnership develops instantly. And very very few develop from a cold email or phone call.

Other readers of this blog know way more about this topic than me, so please weigh in!