Explain why pitching a story to a blogger is often different than pitching to traditional media outlets

What will be an ideal response?

Pitching a story to a blogger can be somewhat different than pitching ideas and news to other categories of connectors. Marketers' relationships with bloggers is still considered by some experts to be uncharted territory and complex to negotiate. One expert, Matt Clark of Lotus-PR, suggests that there are key principles marketers must follow when dealing with bloggers.

Clark emphasizes that marketers need to perform thorough research on blog outlets and have solid reasons for selecting certain blogs for one's connector list. Second, he urges marketers to engage actively with bloggers by posting comments to their blogs and cultivating a conversation with them before including them in any connector list. Third, Clark warns, marketers should verify that a blogger will accept a pitch; many apparently do not. Fourth, marketers should also check whether a blogger will be receptive to e-mail correspondence. Some bloggers prefer to be contacted directly through contact forms available on their online sites. Clark exhorts marketers not to send basic pitch templates to bloggers. Bloggers expect personalized pitches, if at all. Finally, Clark encourages marketers to look beyond a results-oriented approach to pitching bloggers, in other words just counting story hits. Instead, he suggests, establish working relationships with bloggers. Therefore, bloggers not interested in covering an organization's news should be removed from the firm's connector list.