Approaching bloggers with your PR message is maybe something you haven't tried before. So if you plan to give it a whirl in 08, you might like to take some advice from the big guns that have gone before you. You may have already come across this code of ethics for approaching bloggers devised by Ogilvy PR. But just in case you hadn't, we thought we'd share.
Ogilvy PR’s Blogger Outreach Code of Ethics
OUR APPROACH
We reach out to bloggers because we respect your influence and feel that we might have something that is “remarkable” which could be of interest to you and/or your audience.
We will only propose blogger outreach as a tactic if it complements our overall strategy. We will not recommend it as a panacea for every social media campaign.
OUTREACH
Before we email you, we will check out your blog’s About, Contact and Advertising page in an effort to see if you have blatantly said you would not like to be contacted by PR/Marketing companies. If so, we’ll leave you alone.
We will always be transparent and clearly disclose who we are and whom we work for in our outreach email.
If you tell us there is a specific way you want to be reached, we’ll adhere to those guidelines.
We won’t pretend to have read your blog if we haven’t, and we’ll make a best effort to spend time reading the blogs we plan on contacting.
In our email we will convey why we think you, in particular, might be interested in our client’s product, issue, event or message.
As available, we will provide you with links to third party information/ blog coverage of the campaign we are pitching to you.
Our initial outreach email will always include a link to Ogilvy PR’s Blog Outreach Code of Ethics.
BUILDING A RELATIONSHIP
Whenever possible, we will articulate how blogger outreach, and your blog in particular, fits in with our overall campaign strategy.
We will seek to present you with a range of opportunities to work together around a campaign, so that you can create the best experience possible for your audience. We acknowledge that, when it comes to knowing your audience, you are the expert.
We’ll let you know who we are by providing you with a link to some background or bio information on the individual contacting you.
We won’t leave you hanging. If your contact at Ogilvy PR is going out of town or will be unreachable, we will provide you with an alternate point of contact.
We encourage you to disclose our relationship with you to your readers, and will never ask you to do otherwise.
You are entitled to blog on information or products we give you in any way you see fit. (Yes, you can even say you hate it.)
We understand that when you agree to blog about a campaign it’s not going to happen overnight. We’ll work with you to develop a reasonable time line for posting that fits with your schedule - and we won’t pester you to put up your post.
If you don’t want to hear from us again, we will place you on our Do Not Contact list – which we will share with the rest of Ogilvy PR.
If you are initially interested in the campaign, but don’t respond to one of our emails, we will follow up with you no more than once. If you don’t respond to us at all, we’ll leave you alone.
COMPENSATION & PRODUCT ACCESS
If we reach out to you with news about a product, campaign or issue, we will not provide monetary compensation, because we believe it is unethical to “buy” favorable reviews and not want to appear as if we are.
If you have advertising opportunities on your blog, we will counsel our clients to consider purchasing advertising as a way to reach your readers. We will make it clear, however, that paying for advertising does not mean that you will post about the campaign or that, if you do, you will do so in a way that is favorable to them.
If we ask you to review a product and, therefore, provide you with the product to enable you to “experience” it, we will ask that you be transparent and reveal that you have been given the product temporarily, or permanently.
If we engage you as an advisor on a specific project, we will consider providing you with compensation (agreed upon at the start of the project). This compensation will solely be for your time as an advisor and will not include an expectation that you will write about the project – favorably or unfavorably.
Originally published on the Ogilvy PR blog on 6 September 07, revised and updated on 1 October 07.
Tracking the media, monitoring the message
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