How to get bloggers to write about you?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5622226

by secondmod • 13 years ago

3 7 13 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

Hi,

I told my recently launched side project's early traction story here : https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5600281

To move to next level, I need support from blogger community. People are loving my product but none of the big or even small blogs are writing about it. I have mailed some bloggers about what Pinwoot does and traction info, but I dont get replies. Any tips that you can help me and other fellow first time entrepreneurs, will be really helpful. Looking forward to your comments.

joelgascoigne2• 13 years ago

You have some fantastic traction and revenues already, that's awesome.

My recommendation, which worked very well for us, was to focus less on articles about the startup, and more on articles about the Pinterest, about all the challenges people face using it and growing their following. What types of images should you pin? How frequently should you pin things? So many people have no idea about these things. Then, often your product will naturally fit into some of these articles. You can write these articles on your own blog, or offer them to other blogs.

We did a lot of guest posting to get the first 100,000 users for Buffer.

secondmod2• 13 years ago

Big fan of you and Buffer. Thanks for the tip. I am actually focusing on that now. I don't have much idea about guess blogging, any tips on that like how to pitch a blog for guest blog?

joelgascoigne2• 13 years ago

My co-founder Leo wrote a great guest post (could you have guessed?) on how to get started with guest blogging :-) Here it is - http://askaaronlee.com/bufferapp/

Also he wrote an article for OnStartups about getting press, which might also be useful - http://onstartups.com/tabid/3339/bid/80121/How-To-Get-Media-...

Hope that helps :-) Good luck.

orangethirty• 13 years ago

Pay them.

cdvonstinkpot• 13 years ago

I once knew a woman who worked in marketing who said she could get a local newspaper to write a feature about my startup, but I wasn't ready yet right then. Then it folded- but you might want to look into local agencies who could help you with publicity. Ad agencies or PR firms.

dirktheman• 13 years ago

I read a piece on this recently: http://jasonlbaptiste.com/featured-articles/how-i-pitched-te...

The main gist is that to get journalists/bloggers to write about you, you have tell them a story that they can rewrite and run. I spent years as a PR professional, and unfortunately, this is still how it works. I wouldn't say that bloggers/journalists are lazy, but they get pitched so often it's hard to select a good story for them.

Some other advice: Find out which blogger usually runs stories about Pinterest or social startups. Find out his/her email address, and write a personalized pitch. Keep it short but engaging.

Last tip: you can call Robert Scoble. His phone number is on his website, and apparently he doesn't mind getting pitched over the phone. Be sure to have your story straight, though!

secondmod2• 13 years ago

Thanks. I was always confused about my email's subject line but the post your mentioned above gave me some idea. I approached around 7 bloggers in last 4 days with personalized pitch with different subject lines but didn't even get a reply.

I tell them 4 things : 1. How I found them (like read your post regarding Pinterest tips on XYZ.com) 2. What is Pinwoot? And why we started? - 5 lines 3. Traction info - 2 lines 4. About me and my cofounder in 2 lines.

I will be using tips from link you gave. Lets see how it goes.

How to get bloggers to write about you?

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