Scoble's Advice on Engaging with Bloggers

I recently had a call with a client in which our team recommended strongly that they create a corporate blog to help explain the fundamental shift that is occuring in their marketplace and how it affects the IT managers they are targeting. We also talked with them about the need to engage with the core bloggers who really "get" what they are doing with their technology.  It was confirming after that meeting to read Robert Scoble's advice to his Fast Company readers, "How to Get Good PR for Yourself in the Blogosphere."  For many of our business-to-business clients, developing a blogging strategy is still relatively new and Scoble does a great job of laying out exactly how to go about it -- as well as the old school approaches that just will not work with bloggers.

It really boils down to getting to know your audience -- really know them by meeting them, reading their blogs and commenting on their blogs.  And get to know their world by blogging yourself and thereby linking to their blogs and becoming part of the conversation. 

He cites a blogger friend of mine, Buzz Bruggeman, as being a CEO of a startup software company who is part of the blogging community and has reaped great coverage of his product and company.  I've known Buzz from the DEMO conference advisory board and he's a great example of a small company CEO who really leverages social media.  The difference from other CEOs who might be prompted to write a blog is that Buzz really is a blogger.  He thinks and writes that way.  He naturally does what Scoble is recommending regarding meeting with bloggers and going to blogger events.  Most of the CEOs and senior execs we work with will never reach this level.  But they can learn from this article and from good counsel from their communications professionals how to engage the right way with bloggers.  And, as Scoble points out, it isn't by using outdated "PR by the pound" approaches like untargeted press releases.

Check it out and I'll be curious to hear about your own experiences, especially if you are selling a business-to-business product or service.