CHAPTER 10
WORKING WITH BLOGGERS

In the endearing 1990 film Kindergarten Cop, Arnold Schwarzenegger plays Detective John Kimble, a man working undercover as a kindergarten teacher in order to catch a criminal. At first, Kimble grossly underestimates the nature of his job and the challenges presented by his new audience. “They’re six-year-olds,” he tells his partner. “How much trouble can they be?” But after a disastrous first day of class in which the kindergarteners’ out-of-control behavior runs him ragged, he changes his tune. “They’re horrible,” Kimble mumbles after collapsing in exhaustion on the bed in his hotel room. “They’re like little terrorists!”

There’s a parallel between Schwarzenegger’s character and most big organizations when it comes to dealing with the social Web. At first, many organizations may treat bloggers or other online influencers no differently from traditional media. After getting beaten up online for “spam-pitching” a blogger with a standard “Dear Journalist” press release or some other violation of the unwritten rules of social media, however, many of these same companies return to their rooms, collapse in a heap on their beds, and mumble, “They’re horrible!” into the bedspread.

Working with bloggers doesn’t have to be scary, and the chaotic energy of the blogosphere doesn’t have to be exhausting. In fact, working with bloggers and online influencers can be more rewarding and enjoyable than working with traditional media. (I’ve certainly never had more fun doing a PR guy’s job than when working with online influencers.) In this chapter, I’ll share a few standard practices that will make things much easier for you, for the bloggers you’re working with, and for everyone watching your interactions—from the blogs’ readers to the FTC.

Online Interactions

The first interaction between an organization and any blogger or social influencer usually happens online. A social media practitioner may notice a blogger’s high Quantcast rating or Klout score and decide that he needs to be in front of the blogger’s audience. Or a blogger might comment on your site or reach out to a community manager via Twitter or Facebook. Sometimes the interaction will generate from a shared connection or the blogger’s initiative, but quite often brand representatives approach a blogger “cold,” with no prior interaction. Whatever its genesis, your working relationship with bloggers and online influencers will get off to a smoother start and have a more promising future if you adhere to some core rules of etiquette.

Remember That You’re Not as Important as You Think You Are

Most bloggers are not as accustomed as journalists to being approached by big brands. This doesn’t mean, however, that bloggers are going to be so overcome or impressed by your company logo or the fact that a Big Corporation or its representative has noticed them that they get the vapors and write whatever message you want. They will not be so flattered by the attention that they overlook ham-handed tactics or approaches. And your new product or announcement will not be the most important e-mail they receive all week.

Bloggers who’ve built enough of an audience that they’re attracting your interest did so without your content. They don’t need you, and your news won’t interest their audience just because you’re BigBrandCo and sell to their demographic. “Dear Blogger” notes and attached press releases are as likely to find the round file as with journalists, if not more so. (In fact, such blanket approaches are even riskier than with journalists, because some bloggers will post about your cookie-cutter, fill-in-the-blank, poorly researched pitch and publicly shame you for it.) Your bosses may believe that your press release about version 2.3 of your SuperWidget might be the most important news item of the week, but most bloggers and their audiences will not agree.

It’s PR 101, but anyone pitching a story to a blogger must find an angle that actually fits the blog, its subject matter, and its audience. And even when you do that, the blogger or his community may still decide that your company news just isn’t that interesting. Don’t get flustered, upset, or indignant. Don’t take an attitude because your stuff didn’t get run, and don’t automatically assume that the blogger likes one of your competitors better. Focus instead on doing a better job of being relevant to him.

Read Their Blogs First

I don’t just mean “see a blog with a high Quantcast rating and give the most recent two or three posts a cursory skimming so that you can refer to them in your pitch.” Bloggers are smart enough to know when you’re not really familiar with their interests, style, or community—in fact, it’s in some ways even more insulting to have a superficial familiarity with a blog than to profess no knowledge of it whatsoever!

If you’re considering reaching out to a blogger—whether to offer her a chance to review your product, ask her opinion about a campaign you’re running, or invite her to an event you’re putting on—you must really read her site first. Watch what she does for a week or longer. Don’t just read her posts, but also observe how she interacts with her community in the comments sections. Pore through her archives to get a sense not only of what she writes about regularly but her style too. Has she done product reviews before? Has she written about being approached by other big organizations? If so, did it go well or badly? Did she say why?

This seemingly simple, do-your-homework step is unfortunately not taken by an alarming number of PR and marketing professionals who try to reach out to bloggers. Doing your homework takes a lot of time. Familiarizing oneself with a blogger’s content or his community’s interest can feel to some like straying from the brand message. And with as many blogs and sites emerging as there are, many marketers and PR people only peripherally familiar with social media can feel pressured to reach as many as possible as quickly as possible. All those “eyeballs” in communities online and so little time, right? But don’t fall victim to the temptation to take shortcuts or send out blanket pitches full of key messages. The blogosphere is full of “PR People Suck” posts written in frustration after the blogger has received a particularly bad or poorly researched pitch—and you’re not trying to make enemies; you’re trying to earn the trust of the blogger and his audience. So take the time, as work-intensive as it may seem. Doing so will make you stand out. The savvier bloggers will appreciate that you did your background research and took the time to approach them properly, while those unused to being approached by a big brand are more likely to feel flattered that you took the time to actually read their stuff.

You might recall that I said earlier that bloggers are unlikely to be impressed that a brand has noticed them. There’s a difference between being noticed and being researched. Anyone can check a Quantcast, Compete, or Klout score, or an Alexa rating (tools for measuring a site’s or individual’s readership, reach, and influence); not everyone bothers to actually become genuinely familiar with a writer’s preferences, style, content, and community. The former can take as little as two minutes, but the latter requires genuine effort—and that is what generates a positive reaction from your “target.”

This advance reading does not only make for a better-informed, more knowledgeable pitch. It also prepares you better for the result of your interaction. Is this writer sarcastic, with a style that places at least as much value on entertaining as informing? Better warn the bosses that there might be some snark in the post that you get. Does the blog seem antiauthoritarian or anticorporate? If so, the blogger may make some disparaging comments or backhanded compliments even if he likes your product (not necessarily a bad thing, so long as your company’s leadership can handle a spoonful of slap with their pats on the back). Is the blogger witty, but profane? Does he make frequent off-color jokes or sexual references that would make your leadership blush—or worse, make them cringe if they were to see such language in the same post as your product or brand? If so, you might want to avoid reaching out to that blogger entirely. It’s not worth the potential trouble or risk, and asking a blogger to not be himself is neither realistic nor fair.

Knowing your target is a basic PR rule even when approaching traditional journalists. But somehow, this step is often overlooked when companies are preparing to approach an online influencer. Don’t let it be; always do your homework. Make sure whoever is researching your targets understands the parameters you’re looking for. Be able to “rank order” which bloggers you’re reaching out to for a given initiative, and be prepared to explain to communications or marketing leadership why they’re in the order they’re in. And keep track of what you’ve already learned. Maintain some sort of a central database that allows your full team to know what bloggers write about which subjects, whether you’ve ever pitched them or invited them to an event before, and how they reacted. That way, your full team is better equipped to build relationships with social influencers and their audiences. In some cases, if a blog is smaller or run by one individual, you might assign one person on your team to manage that relationship exclusively; more often—with bigger blogs having multiple authors, with blogs that focus on your specific industry, or with significant influencers who are likely to be interested in multiple facets of your company—you’ll have multiple employees occasionally contacting bloggers and maintaining relationships with them. That just makes it all the more important to keep track of how recently someone with your company approached an individual blogger—you don’t want to bombard anyone with numerous calls and e-mails from several contacts at your company all at once.

This isn’t much different from what PR teams do with traditional media. You’re not reinventing the wheel; you’re just doing basic PR.

When Possible, Try Not to Make Your First Interaction All About You

I’ll be the first to acknowledge that it isn’t always possible to lay the groundwork. If you’ve been given 24 hours by leadership to put together a list of potential targets for a social media outreach program, you may not have the luxury of populating the list with only those you’ve previously engaged. But when you can, it’s always better etiquette to reach out to a potential new target blogger before you need her.

Think about it: how do you prefer to be approached when someone wants to sell you something? When you walk into a store at the mall, you prefer to be at least greeted first, don’t you? (Companies like Wal-Mart have turned “greeting” into a job description, not just an action one takes.) Even if it’s a short, cursory conversation—“Hi, how are you today?” or “Welcome to Acme!”—we always react a little more pleasantly if we’ve been greeted or had our humanity acknowledged, rather than just being treated like a walking wallet. And when associates do approach you in a store, don’t you prefer it if they start their approach with something like “Is there anything I can help you find?” rather than “Just wanted to let you know that we have sweaters 20 percent off today, and socks are buy two, get the third free”? You want to at least have the illusion that store personnel want to help you find what you are looking for, rather than just wanting to sell you whatever it is they’re incented to sell that day.

It’s much the same in the social Web. Most bloggers know that if the representative of a brand comments on one of their posts or responds to them on Twitter, a pitch is probably not far behind. It’s not only nice to go through the courtesy anyway but also strategically savvy—because people want to have their humanity acknowledged, to have attention paid to their blogs, and to be recognized as more than just a “lead,” before the “sell” begins. So do what you can to start a relationship with your targets before your actual pitch or outreach begins. Leave a comment on a post or two on their site. Respond to something they say on Twitter. Do something that indicates that you’ve taken a little bit of time to acknowledge them as a writer and as a person rather than just as a blogger whose audience you covet.

Talk About Things Outside of Your Product or Brand

If the only thing a blogger or her community hears you talk about is your product or how great your brand is, no one will pay much attention to you for very long. If you never comment on anything else she writes, she and her community will get bored with you pretty quickly; you’ll be that guy at the dinner party who treats every conversation as a chance to sell to someone. You don’t want to come off as the stereotypical used-car salesman. So comment every now and then about things that have nothing to do with why you originally reached out to her. You don’t always have to make it a generic “me too” comment—“Great post!” or “You’re so right!”—for effect, either. If you have, over time, built up a solid relationship with a blogger or her community, you can talk about everything from sports to pop culture like music and television shows all the way to serious life events—parenting issues, illnesses in the family, or a milestone in your child’s life. (Some of the most touching and heartfelt conversations I’ve ever had online came in discussions with bloggers over the deaths of their pets. If you’ve ever loved a dog or cat or any animal, you know how sad it is when your pet dies; I’ve shared memories of my own dog and gotten into really emotional and supportive exchanges on the subject with people I’ve never met in person. It wouldn’t seem to have anything to do with selling cars, but you’d be surprised at how many times people with whom I’ve had unrelated conversations ended up coming back to me later on to ask about GM vehicles.)

Often, these conversations between you and the blogger take place in the comments section of the blog. Sometimes, if you’re having a particularly personal or lengthy conversation, you might want to take it off-line and converse via private e-mail. It all depends on how comfortable you are with the blogger—use your judgment when it comes to oversharing—but these non-work conversations can deepen your relationship far more than any product-related interaction you’ll ever have.

It’s OK, by the way, to occasionally respectfully disagree with a blogger about something he’s posted. No one expects you to be an automaton or so eager to please that you never voice a differing opinion. Again, it all comes down to the relationship you have with the blogger or his community, but just as real-life relationships only work when both parties act themselves and put on no artifice, so it is with online relationships. As PR and marketing people, we sometimes make the mistake of thinking we need to stay “on message” online. But occasionally going off message makes your audience more likely to pay attention to your message when you express it.

Off-Line Interactions

Even if a blogger or online influencer has posted about your product or one of your ad campaigns, at some point, you want her meeting your people in person. Just as important, you want some of your non-social media savvy people meeting bloggers as well. (It should help them understand that bloggers aren’t the Internet geeks they’re stereotyped to be but are credible sources with influence in corners you don’t normally reach. It’s also always a good idea for any company’s people—whether communications, marketing, product development, customer service, or even executive leadership—to hear perspectives from “real people” outside of the usual circles in their industry.)

It’s worth noting that there’s some stratification in the kinds of bloggers you’ll deal with. The bloggers who write about your industry may well be professionals, paid for their work, and as knowledgeable about your industry as their counterparts who write for newspapers or magazines. Within the auto industry, for example, not only did several powerhouse online outlets emerge, but they even started hiring journalists away from the traditional media. For the most part, writers who happen to work for the major online outlets within your industry often don’t, at this point, meet much resistance from their traditional counterparts. And even the ones who are unpaid or independent usually display enough knowledge and savvy that any resistance they initially meet from either the traditional media or traditionalists within your PR team will probably quickly melt away. And once you’ve gotten the traditional guys comfortable with their new colleagues, including social influencers from your industry in media events is relatively simple. (Automotive bloggers, for example, aren’t treated like “social media” anymore at General Motors; they’re considered to be automotive media, and the PR team takes them just as seriously as they do the print and broadcast journalists.)

You’ll likely encounter a second category of bloggers a little more frequently if you’re a consumer brand versus a B2B company: people from outside your industry whose main focus is less about your industry and more about day-to-day life topics such as parenting, the environment, entertainment and pop culture, or social media marketing.

Inviting these social media influencers—especially if you’ve flown them in or paid for their travel—to a traditional media event can have more significant challenges, however, not the least of which can be resentment from traditional journalists over having to share some of their access to an organization’s products and leaders. (For at least the first year and a half running blogger programs at General Motors, we would routinely hear gruff complaints along the lines of wondering how many “real” journalists didn’t get to join the event in order to make room for the “amateurs.”) Additionally, more of these bloggers are unlikely to have been treated like media by a brand before—they may have been approached or even given products to review, but unlike industry writers who happen to have a blog, many of these bloggers truly are “amateur” in the sense that they’re not nearly as familiar with the relationship between brands and journalists, what is expected of them, or how media programs usually work.

For that reason, it’s sometimes harder to just seamlessly blend these bloggers into your media program. For example, when I was at GM, we might have reached out to a travel blogger because we knew the target demographic for a new Buick model tends to enjoy travel. The odds of this travel blogger knowing the same terminology and technical details as automotive writers—or even being interested in the same facets of a car—weren’t as high. Bringing this writer along for an automotive media program would probably have added an element of self-consciousness for him and extra attention for GM; it’s not a fair position to put the person in. So the first rule of working with bloggers in person is to identify your opportunities wisely. Sometimes this will mean holding separate events for bloggers and social media hosted by your organization. Equally often, you should consider running programs at events bloggers are already going to.

Programs for Social Media–Themed Conferences and Events

It can sometimes be hard to break out of the routine that we in the communications business can fall into in our industries. We know when the big trade shows and industry events are every year, and we plan media programs for them. We know when we have new products launching, and we develop media and communications plans around those launches. It’s comparatively easy to put together a program for an event we do every year, know inside and out, and have some semblance of control over.

But how often do we step out of our world and go out where people outside of our industry’s cocoon, which would include most of the customers whose favor we’re aiming to win, are hanging out? Social media’s rise has brought about a spate of new conferences—events whose magnitude is enhanced by the fact that so many of their attendees share their experiences and knowledge online. South by Southwest, BlogWorld Expo, BlogHer, SOBCon, Type-A Mom, BlogWell, and Social Fresh are some of the biggest, but there are hundreds of social media–themed conferences now occurring that draw online audiences and influencers to gather in person. Plenty of brands from across the consumer product spectrum have begun to take notice of many of these conferences, developing programs for attendees of these events and others and, in many cases, sponsoring the conferences themselves.

When you’re considering events that target social media audiences, building a consumer-driven experience is critical to a brand’s success. Merely attempting to latch on to a popular social media event and hoping either to seem “trendy” by association or to generate leads or interaction with your brand as the price of entry for being there is not going to do any good for your brand. Most attendees of the big social media events are savvy enough to recognize when marketing or branding is being shoved down their throats with no real benefit to them—and somebody will probably call you out on it. Think about it: you’re interacting with people at events they’ve chosen to attend. They’re not there to see you or have a brand experience; they’re there to have the experience the conference promises. If your brand’s presence at the event is little more than a commercial shouting your marketing messages and promoting your logo, the audience members have no motivation to pay it any more attention than they would a TV commercial that happened to be running in the same room. But by helping enhance the experience they are there to have (as opposed to artificially building an experience that forces them to interact with a company), a brand is far more likely to make a positive impression on attendees—and to have its marketing messages eventually received rather than simply ignored or tuned out.

You’re also far better off if your program helps you be part of their experience than if you try to build a coinciding, ancillary, or add-on experience that takes people away from why they are really there. In other words, you win bigger when your program helps the audience do what they’re already there to do. Your goal should be to enhance the experience they’re there to have, rather than to force them into having a secondary experience with you, your product, or your brand.

I’m not a fan of trade-show-floor presences at big social media events such as SXSW, BlogHer, and BlogWorld Expo. At the biggest events, a brand can easily disappear or be lost in the crush of sponsors who’ve overpaid for floor space. Constructive, interesting interactions on a trade-show floor are rare, and your organization’s booth can often end up as little more than a source of swag. It’s true that the visibility does help make sure that people realize that you have a social media program, and you can have some good conversations with people if they’re intent on coming to see you. But for the most part, a trade-show-floor presence is really just payoff for your sponsorship, and it doesn’t make you a much deeper part of the experience than if you’d just bought ad space in the program. Your relationship with the overwhelming number of people you meet at that event will begin the day the doors open and end the day everyone heads to the airport to go home. That might be effective event marketing, but it’s not good in terms of social media. Remember that one of the greatest values social media provides for businesses is the ability to build ongoing and personal relationships with people. Rather than getting in front of lots of “eyeballs” and achieving as much mass awareness as possible, you’re looking to build beginnings. You don’t want eyeballs; you want hearts and minds. You want relationships.

If you have a limited budget, it’s far more effective to spend your money on smaller but deeper relationship-building activity. Instead of building a trade-show presence that 500 people will see but will result in only a handful of good conversations or follow-ups, you’re best advised to build a program that allows 25 or 35 people the chance to really get to know your product, your brand, your people, and your passion. Let those 25 or so go out and be your evangelists at the event and beyond. They’ll be more effective for you than you would be for yourself anyway! Remember that the name of the game in social media is interaction and engagement, not visibility and eyeballs; you’re looking to build relationships, not just be seen.

On Site: Now What?

Whether the event you’re working is a social media event like South by Southwest, an industry event or a product launch event for your brand, or a consumer event that you’ve never been to before, there are a handful of rules that stay the same. Every program, every brand, and every blogger is different, but for the most part, these guidelines will make any program more successful in the long run.

1. Ask Yourself What’s in It for the Bloggers and/or Their Readers

Your organization has an event going on—maybe you’re launching a new product, maybe your industry’s holding its biggest event of the year, and you’re bringing online influencers as your guests, or maybe you’re doing a targeted outreach program for online outlets with audiences that fit your key demographic. Whatever the event or reason you’re inviting people to have an experience with you, you have something you’re hoping to achieve: visibility, positive reviews, buzz for new products, maybe even sales. You may want people to understand that your brand takes social media seriously, or your goal may be to begin or deepen a relationship with a blogger and her community.

Please excuse me for being so blunt, but so what?

Your needs, your wishes, your news are important to you, obviously. But these things aren’t really all that important to a blogger or the blogger’s audience unless you think about the interaction from his point of view and give him a reason to have it matter to him. Frankly, I’ve observed too many brands approach bloggers as if they believe that “because we’re BigBrandCo, they’ll care.”

Take your brand hat off and put your consumer hat on when planning an in-person activity, and think first of what the blogger and her audience will get out of the experience. In many cases, a blogger who doesn’t make a living with her blog will have to take time off of work or arrange for child care in order to attend your event. What have you got planned that will make doing so worthwhile for her? If the situation were reversed and you were that blogger, would the event be worth using up precious vacation days or scrambling to arrange for someone to take care of your kids while you’re away? You need to combine your news or product with an experience that the blogger will find so intriguing or interesting that she chooses to spend time with you in spite of the challenges doing so might present.

Most good bloggers will also think of their readers as well—and so should you. Remember, in order to truly influence a blogger’s audience, the blogger’s experience must seem at least partially transferable. You can’t just offer up a once-in-a-lifetime kind of opportunity that a blogger’s audience can’t see themselves having and expect the audience to jump on board as your fans. In fact, an overly elaborate experience can have the opposite effect: the blogger’s experience won’t be as relatable, the audience will see your effort more as a PR move than they might otherwise have seen it, and some might even call the blogger out for taking free-bies or junkets from a big brand.

(Look at the reaction to Peter Shankman’s experience with Morton’s Steakhouse in August 2011, for example. Shankman jokingly tweeted from an airplane that he was hungry and that he wished Morton’s—where he is a frequent diner—would meet him at the airport with a steak when he landed. Someone at Morton’s alertly noticed the tweet, and when Shankman got off his plane, a uniformed Morton’s waiter was there to greet him with a steak dinner. He of course blogged and tweeted about the incident—wouldn’t you?—and both he and Morton’s got a ton of publicity from it.¹ But while many people were impressed with Morton’s responsiveness, an equal number in the social Web pointed out that the incident was not reflective of actual customer service but more of a PR stunt—a good one, but a PR stunt nonetheless. Some wondered on their blogs or in tweets whether a customer who didn’t have more than 100,000 followers would have gotten the same treatment.² So what initially seemed to be a no-brainer social media win received as much cynical skepticism as it did plaudits.)

So when building your programs or initiatives, make sure that even though you’re offering an opportunity to an individual blogger, the experience you provide is one that most or all of his readers can relate to. At GM, for example, when we developed a drive program for new vehicles we were launching, it wasn’t enough to get a blogger a driving experience in the car. Even if the blogger loved the car and wrote positively about it, we hadn’t really brought the readers along for much of an experience. They were just reading a car review written by someone they trust a little more than an auto journalist, and it was a bit out of context compared with what readers usually saw on the site. But when we built an entire experience into the program—in which the car was only part of the activity—we suddenly turned a car review into a sharable story about a road trip, a food crawl, or a family vacation, for example. Readers enjoyed following along with these adventures and often were able to see themselves in the story. With such an approach, the car becomes an organic part of the story rather than artificially popping up and seeming out of place—and is desired along with the rest of the experience.

We took food bloggers on road trips to the restaurants of television chefs and on “food runs” to discover restaurants or the best pies, hot dogs, cupcakes, or pizza; provided bloggers with not only vehicles to take road trips to social media conferences but also fun and creative contests for them to take part in along the way; provided wine enthusiasts vehicles for winery tours; and took college students cramming for finals on late-night pizza runs.

Some programs were more successful than others (though all the examples I just gave were at least moderately successful). But for the most part, this approach worked. After these events, we collected pages of data and feedback from our guests suggesting that the program helped open minds toward the product and the brand. Many bloggers wrote posts that didn’t just discuss GM vehicles but also cited GM’s people and the kind of company we seemed to be, a critical goal particularly during our recovery from the Chapter 11 crisis of 2009. And between my team and me, we could point to dozens of bloggers who in fact had bought one of our vehicles after having first been exposed to them during one of these programs.

If you lead by considering what’s in it for them, you’ll eventually reap the benefits and get what’s in it for you. You’ll be able to measure it in not only the volume of posts that result and the tone of what’s written but also the reaction of the bloggers’ communities, their openness to working with you again, and how often their posts are linked to or reposted by others in their communities. It’s harder to put a direct measure on goodwill, but you can more effectively see it play out in social media than in most traditional media, and there’s a big difference between even a favorable product review in the traditional media and a passionate embrace of your brand by a blogger to his community.

2. Assume Nothing, and Be Direct and Clear About Your Expectations

One of the more famous dustups between brand and bloggers occurred at the BlogHer conference in 2009 in Chicago. Nikon threw an event at a bar several blocks from the McCormick Place Convention Center where the event was held, hoping to attract many of BlogHer’s influential attendees from across the blogging spectrum, including those who write frequently about parenting issues (often somewhat unfortunately referred to as “mommy bloggers”). But when some of the bloggers who not only were moms but also had their babies with them tried to enter the bar, they were turned away by Nikon. The event was for adults only. At first in joking frustration and then in mounting anger, some of them began using the hashtag #nikonhatesbabies as they tweeted about the situation—and that started a frenzy. Within short order, Nikon found itself on the receiving end of an indignation storm on Twitter as the hashtag and story began to take on a life of its own. With the size and prominence of BlogHer (one of the biggest social media conferences of the year), Nikon soon became a trending topic on Twitter—but not in the good way.

There were two schools of thought around this incident. The first was that Nikon should have realized that at a conference targeted to women bloggers, many of whom happen to be moms who write about their experience with motherhood, the odds were high that there would be at least some guests who would have babies or small children with them. New mothers who were still nursing in particular comprised a significant enough portion of this event’s audience that the company should have known there were likely to be babies involved and thus planned accordingly.³ The other school of thought was that new motherhood or attendance at a conference shouldn’t have clouded anyone’s judgment enough to conclude that bringing a baby to a bar was appropriate, that Nikon had acted responsibly by turning these guests away, and that it was those who were angry about the situation whose planning or judgment was questionable.⁴

There was no clear-cut right or wrong, no hero or villain in this story. Nikon certainly didn’t set out to infuriate some moms, and it’s quite likely that no one went to that event gunning for Nikon. The breakdown occurred because there wasn’t adequate communication between the brand and its desired guests as to Nikon’s expectations or rules for the evening. The company appeared to assume that guests would know enough not to bring their babies (or not to attend if they had no babysitter for the evening). The entire incident highlights the importance of setting clear expectations for any blogger event or interaction and conveying them to your intended audience.

The rules of brand-blogger engagement you’ve set for your company within your social media policy might be crystal clear to you and your team. But you’re a PR or marketing professional, and you do this for a living; many of the people you’re dealing with in the social world do not. If you want to keep yourself out of trouble, assume nothing. Spell out everything that is going to happen during the course of the day or the length of your program. Be specific about activity or interview times and protocols you want or need followed.

We’ve already discussed the FTC guidelines that govern interactions between big brands and bloggers or online influencers. It’s your responsibility to not only be aware of them but also make your guests aware of them, and of your expectations for what they should disclose. (Don’t forget that you also have the responsibility after the event to follow up and to remind a blogger to disclose, if she did not do so in her post, facts about her interaction with you.) Before you’ve even brought a blogger or online influencer into your program (i.e., when you’re still in the invitation phase), it’s critical to make sure that you’ve clearly outlined what you’ll need her to disclose. Be as specific as possible, even giving her suggested language if you like. “A post about this event should somewhere contains the phrase ‘Disclosure: I was invited to this event by BigBrandCo, which paid for my travel and provided dinner’” might be an example. Whenever there’s anything of value that you provide—airfare, hotel or lodging, food or drink, or samples of or access to your product—make sure to tell your blogger guests to divulge that you provided it. It’s only fair that they know the expectations and rules ahead of time.

If you are bringing people in with the understanding that they will write a post about the experience, tell them so. (The best blog posts occur when people want to write about their experience with you, not when they have to—but if this is the expectation you have, you need to be clear about it.) Additionally, you need to be clear about what your guests can expect from you: how much access they’ll have to your executives or experts, what product (if any) they will receive or have access to, what they’re “allowed” to talk about versus what you’re offering with an expectation of nondisclosure. The bottom line is, if there’s anything (beyond a negative review, which is fair game) that would upset you or your organization, it’s only fair of you to tell people about it up front.

Are you doing an event for parenting bloggers or taking part in a conference attended by lots of parents? Plan ahead for some of these guests to bring their small children with them—or, be clear in advance that portions of your event will be closed to children (for example, if there’s alcohol involved). Few oversights can get the blogosphere’s dander up like a program for parenting bloggers that turns away someone who brought his small child with him. You might think it’s self-evident that a parent wouldn’t bring a kid to a networking event or mixer at a bar, but many times the need for child care would have prevented the parent from coming to the event at all. As we saw in the #nikonhates-babies incident, “self-evident” can have very different meanings depending on which side of the interaction you’re on.

Is there a dress code? Are your programs or events going to be formal? Or is everyone wearing jeans? Let your guests know ahead of time exactly what they should expect and what they ought to consider bringing along for the trip. I learned this one the hard way. At GM, we once invited 100 members of online communities to tour the facility where the preproduction Chevrolet Volt test vehicles were being assembled. Anyone walking the factory floor must wear pants and closed-toe shoes for safety reasons. But the event was in August. Many of those we invited dressed for comfort, in shorts, skirts, and sandals. Because we hadn’t been clear enough about dress code expectations, several of our guests had to stand outside the shop-floor door while the rest of the guests took the tour. Needless to say, they weren’t happy—nor should they have been. It was a bad oversight on our part. We got too caught up in our own world and forgot that what was second nature to us would not be so evident to someone who doesn’t know our industry.

Making no assumptions and being as clear as possible about what bloggers should expect, what you expect from them, and the ground rules that are part of coming along on the program will reduce confusion, prevent misunderstandings, and save everyone a lot of headaches.

3. Make a Decision on Where to Draw the Line Between Paid and Earned Coverage—and Then Stick with It

Social media doesn’t just represent a shift in who is considered “media” but also marks a potentially uncomfortable shift in the media model. One of the things that can make brands or big organizations uneasy with social media is the blurring of traditional lines—not just the ones between “consumer” and “media” but those between editorial and advertising within the online media business model as well. As the number and influence of blogs increase, many bloggers now make money on their sites; this isn’t bad (of course!) in and of itself, but it can raise some situations that make brands very nervous.

In every other form of journalistic or informational media that’s developed over time—newspapers, magazines, radio, broadcast television—one of the most sacrosanct rules has always been the separation between editorial and advertising. More closely guarded by most media than the line between church and state, having this differentiation between what its writers report and the advertising that pays them to report it is critical to the American notion of an independent press. One of the quickest ways to offend a journalist or major publication is to suggest that its coverage is in any way influenced by its advertisers.

Within the social media world, there’s not always that clear delineation. Sometimes the blogger is a one-person shop and just doesn’t have the resources to have a separate person or department handling advertising. Often, the blogger will not have journalistic training or won’t realize that the line has ever existed. In a few cases, the blogger may argue that the concept is a bit outdated or sees nothing wrong with the idea of “advertorial” content (perhaps citing advertorial inserts in some magazines as precedent within traditional media).

Whatever the reason, a good number of bloggers will want to be compensated for their interaction with you. Some will even propose the kind of content they’ll produce in exchange for specific payments. After all, some argue, this is how bloggers make their money; you wouldn’t expect them to work for free, would you? (This is usually followed by stares of abject horror from the PR or social media person in whose worldview this represents an ethical breach of the highest order.)

Any brand representative has to adjust to the fact that the church-state line between advertising and editorial is often murky or even absent in the social media world—and that a blogger looking to be paid isn’t necessarily wholly unethical. She’s just coming into the situation with a different worldview. Organizations must come to terms with how they want to handle paid content. Either they embrace it with full disclosures or avoid that direction entirely. You can’t really go halfway on this one.

Personally, I’ve never been comfortable with financially compensating bloggers in exchange for posts or coverage. Even with the disclosures, it’s never felt right, and none of the programs I’ve run have done it. (This has earned some frustration from some corners of the communities that provide paid content.) But no matter what choice your organization makes regarding paid content, you have to stick with it and apply it consistently. You’ll also want to make your policy clear from the beginning of conversations you have with online influencers. Set the expectations fairly up front—and be clear about what disclosures you require from influencers who do work with you.

4. Find the Right Representatives for Your Brand

The guests at your events are going to be spending anywhere from a few hours to a day or two with you and your brand. Don’t make the mistake of plugging the most knowledgeable subject-matter expert you have into the program and expecting everything to go well. Success with social media isn’t as simple as knowing the material.

Remember that to many (though certainly not all) of your guests, the experience is as important as the information you’re offering. And there are certain personality types among executives that just won’t give a positive impression of your brand or your company. Some executives or project managers might be dull, stiff, or obviously uncomfortable at having to interact with “the masses.” Some will be on the arrogant side. Some have never mastered the art of not sounding like a marketer and will squawk like a walking commercial. Some are not used to being questioned or disagreed with (at least to their face). Some are just shy and introverted and won’t like the “onstage” nature of interaction with media of any type. Whatever the reason, not every executive or product manager is going to be cut out for being part of a social media program—so when you’re planning out dinners or activities or some sort of interaction, look for brand representatives with at least a few of the desirable characteristics:

• Extroverts make a much better impression even if they are not the most qualified spokespeople for the product or service you’re promoting. That doesn’t mean you should just find the most gregarious personality inside the company—the person does have to have some knowledge of the promotion at hand—but always lean toward your most outgoing possible representative.

• The best spokespeople for these events are able to talk like a real person. In PR and marketing, we’ve created some monsters. We’ve done so much media training and message development, teaching spokespeople how to “bridge” and the importance of “staying on message” or “staying true to the brand,” that many spokespeople have now gotten too good at it. They speak in sound bites. They use jargon and drop marketingspeak into virtually every conversation. They can be so focused on staying on message that they sometimes forget to read the audience’s reaction to that message. The end result is that they start sounding canned, like marketers trying to sell rather than people trying to converse. This is not how to win friends and influence bloggers. You need to find a spokesperson—no matter her level within your organization—who comes off as down to earth and “real,” who has mastered the art of small talk, and who simply knows how to not sound like a salesperson (even if that’s what she is).

• Your ideal spokesperson should be comfortable around people who don’t know your industry. The only thing worse than someone who sounds like he’s selling all the time is someone who can’t step out of his industry or talk without using loads of technical or industry-laden jargon. Many engineers at GM can explain how a vehicle’s braking system works or how they’ve built greater fuel efficiency into an engine without sounding like an engineer; however, some couldn’t explain this stuff to a nonengineer if their life depended on it. That’s not a character flaw by any stretch—let’s face it, these men and women are smarter than I’m ever going to be—but it does mean that they’re probably not the best choice for me to put in front of a group of parenting, travel, or food bloggers. The ideal spokes-people will be able to explain the most complex thing your company or organization does in terms your mother or father would understand.

• They don’t take themselves too seriously. In other words, they not only will be affable and at ease with your guests but also will laugh frequently with your guests—sometimes even at themselves. Mark Reuss, GM’s vice president for North America, is one of the most laid-back and fun executives I’ve ever met. He usually manages to sneak at least one self-deprecating remark into any conversation with a blogger. That’s not a “gimmick” by Mark; that’s who the man is—and it goes over incredibly well. I’ve never had an executive responded to so positively by both automotive and nonautomotive bloggers alike—and part of the reason is that he can laugh at himself. Executives who will laugh at themselves, go along with a blogger’s unorthodox but fun idea for a post or photo, or spend time beyond the allotted interview sessions just hanging out and talking will make a much stronger impression on your guests.

5. Follow Up

Following up doesn’t just mean sending a cursory thank-you e-mail after your event is over. Your job as the leader of a social media program does not end when your last guest is off to the airport or has gone home for the day.

Failing to follow up or reconnect with bloggers you’ve just hosted is the equivalent of going on a great date, having a lovely dinner, sharing an electric good-night kiss, and then not calling the person again. As Converseon/Graco’s Lindsay Lebresco puts it, “Nothing says ‘I just used you’ like a fancy party followed by silence.”⁵ You might have made the best impression possible during your event, but if you forget that the job isn’t done when the event ends, you’ll undo any good you’ve just achieved. If you’re not prepared for and dedicated to following up with your guests, you’re better off not hosting anyone.

So what kind of follow-up should you do? At the very least, you need to read and comment on the blog posts that your guests write after having attended your event—if for no other reason than to verify that FTC-mandated disclosures are done. More important, however, you can learn not only whether your guests liked your product but also whether they enjoyed the event. (Truthfully, you have more control over perceptions of the event, so that knowledge is even slightly more valuable to you—in this role anyway—than their impression of the product.) Commenting on those posts and thanking the bloggers once again for joining you is simple courtesy. It’s also the first step in extending the relationships beyond the event itself, which is of course what you’re aiming for. Consider not stopping at one comment if a blogger’s community is discussing the post. Join in the discussion; not only will you look less as if you are checking a box if you’ve commented more than once, but you might find yourself engaging in extended conversations with other members of the community and building relationships there as well.

In the weeks and months following your event, keep checking in and commenting on your guests’ sites. You’ll learn more about the bloggers and their communities every time you do so, and the communities will hopefully see that your interest extended beyond getting one post on their blogs or making one sale. Consider asking the bloggers’ opinion on another program or event or something your business is doing; if you’ve become part of a community, you might even ask the group its collective opinion. (This shouldn’t be something you always do, however, especially if the person you’re working with makes her living through her blog. “I’ll help you if I’m compensated for doing so” is a fair response to this kind of an outreach.) Ask a friend for advice once, and it’s a favor; ask often, and it becomes an abuse of the friendship. Invite the blogger to another event of yours, or better yet, find out if he has something going on in his life or for his online community that you might be able to contribute to. Ask him if there’s anyone in his community he thinks might be interested in coming to an event of yours. Build the relationship beyond the initial event, action, or purpose.

Working with online influencers is not the “Wild West” it’s made out to be. Let commonsense rules of decency, honesty, respect, and being yourself be your guide, and you’ll be just fine.