Code Of Ethics For Pitching Bloggers

A tip of the cap to the good folks at Ogilvy Public Relations for their recently posted Blogger Outreach Code of Ethics. The list, posted by Kaitlyn Wilkins, Ogilvy’s Digital Influence Strategist, offers a solid primer on how PR folks can start off a relationship with a blogger on the right foot.

Our favorites:

• 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.

• We will always be transparent and clearly disclose who we are and who we work for in our outreach email.

• 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 won’t pretend to have read your blog if we haven’t.

• We encourage you to disclose our relationship with you to your readers, and will never ask you to do otherwise.

• 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.

Click here for the full post.

I particularly like the last one, which is a policy I try to adhere to when approaching media (and I include bloggers under that umbrella) about filling out our Straight Pitch survey.

Be sure to read the comments, too. M.C. Milker has a great response that enumerates a Bloggers Guide To Publicity she says was inspired by their post.

And another tip of the cap to Spike Jones at Brains on Fire for leading us to the info.

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