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VOCUS Demonstrates How to Screw Up Blogger Relations

This is the email that I, and scores of other bloggers, received this afternoon from Tami Queen at VOCUS, a company that claims to make PR management faster and easier. Notice that they didn't say better.

Subject: Five Golden Rules for Blogger Relations

Countless accounts of “PR Flaks” who have spammed bloggers, mis-targeted pitches or just plain gotten blogger relations wrong fill the Internet. Don’t risk finding your next pitch blasted on your favorite blog! "

As a Public Relations professional, it is your job to find every opportunity to get your organization covered and be an expert on the inner-workings of the media. However, the explosion of the blogosphere has left many confused and wondering: How do bloggers operate? What type of approach will get my news covered? How can I integrate blogs into my overall PR strategy?

The new media landscape calls for additional tactics and approaches to the PR practitioner’s toolbox. Download the FREE Vocus white paper “Five Golden Rules for Blogger Relations" to get insights on how today’s PR professionals can successfully incorporate blogger relations into their PR strategy and build effective relationships straight from four of the top blogging experts in the industry!

What's sad about this pitch is that the White Paper includes interviews with my friend Shel Holtz and my Twitter buddy, Susan Getgood, both of whom are surely appalled that their names are in an email message that spammed bloggers.

VOCUS WTF were you thinking when you hit "Send"?

Here are my rules for publicists who want to pitch me, and believe it or not, pitches are welcome.

Here's a grumpy post on how not to pitch me.

Reactions from other bloggers who were spammed with the Vocus message here and here

UPDATE: Shel Holtz and Susan Getgood are both astounded at the way VOCUS chose to pitch bloggers.

Holtz said in email today:

Out of control, indeed. ... I assumed (and we know what happens when one assumes, right?) that good PR would be practiced in its distribution. Clearly, I was mistaken.

... from now on, I’m going to ask how these things are going to be promoted. Live and learn.

Susan Getgood, who posted about this today on her blog, said in email yesterday:

I am pretty livid about it ...Actually, I would have preferred that Vocus follow the advice of the experts they interviewed for the paper rather than abuse our reputations in this manner, but I guess we can't have everything :-(

Short story: Vocus screwed up here, they know it, but they have good intentions. Sure, it suits their commercial purpose of distinguishing their solution from others, but if they are willing to help educate people on how to do it right, I’ll give them the chance. They talk a good game. Now I wanna see them walk it.

Additional posts on the topic by other bloggers who got the mailing:
- Toby Bloomberg: Diva Marketing
- Yvonne Dita, Lip-Sticking
- Jeneane Sussum - Allied

Categories: Public Relations, Worst Practices

BL Ochman | May 22 07 11:25 | TrackBack (0)

Comments

Sending mass e-mails about a white paper is easy. Developing relationships with bloggers is hard. Especially when you're a PR agency with blown credibility.

Posted by: Martha Retallick at May 23, 2007 11:08 AM

Just to clarify, the first quote was from an email yesterday afternoon shortly after I learned about the email blast, and the second from this morning when I told a few folks, BL included, that I had posted about the situation.

Everything else I have to say, at least for now, is in my post.

Posted by: Susan Getgood at May 23, 2007 11:35 AM

Dear BL,

I'm with the marketing team here at Vocus. I'd like to start out by expressing our apologies for sending what appeared to be an unsolicited e-mail. This was never our intention. As some other bloggers have pointed out, we sent notification of our white paper to both Vocus and PRWeb customers. If you are interested in our official response we have posted it to http://etherbreather.com/?p=91

Thank you,
Jiyan

Posted by: Jiyan at May 23, 2007 1:50 PM

I was going to write about this, but now it seems like it would just be piling on.

Posted by: Alice Marshall at May 23, 2007 3:43 PM

Lucky me -- I didn't get this email.
After months of asking to be taken off the Vocus spam list, it looks like they've finally complied.

Posted by: David Reich at May 23, 2007 11:38 PM

We are currently looking at Vocus and others. Vocus claims this had nothing to do with their software and it was an unfortunate marketing campaign sent out by their marketing dept that in turn sent a whitepaper about Bloggers & PR to a big list of bloggers who hate to be spammed.

Please let me know what other automated PR/Analysts software I should be looking at in comparison. Their all in one solution and large database is what attracted me.

Thanks.

Posted by: Paula Volio at April 23, 2008 1:54 PM

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About BL Ochman

Blogger, social media strategy consultant to Fortune 500 companies, and sought-after corporate speaker B.L. Ochman heads the creative team of whatsnextonline.com. She also publishes the Ethics Crisis blog for SRF Global Translations

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