The New Blogger Outreach Code of Ethics – by Ogilvy
September 7th, 2007
It’s no secret that we’re fans of John Bell in these parts. Those Ogilvy folks are no slouches and now they’ve come up a new code of ethics for reaching out and contacting bloggers. And it’s great stuff.
We do get our fair share of PR folks contacting us to “review this book” or “take a look at that product” on a regular basis. Some reach out the right way, and some paste our name and email address into a form letter and let ‘er rip.
My favorite points from the new Code?
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.
Nice. Reaching out to bloggers isn’t right for every project. Sure, it sounds cool in the pitch, but it has to be a part of something bigger.
We won’t pretend to have read your blog if we haven’t.
That’s huge. I’d rather you be honest and tell me you have no idea who Brains on Fire is or what we do instead of reading two lines of our last post and pretending to have had us on their RSS for years.
Kudos to John and the gang for paving the way with some very forward thinking. (Read John’s comments here.)
Other posts by Spike.
Alison Byrne Fields says:
Thanks, Spike, for the the shout out for the code of ethics.
I’m a fan of John Bell’s — and I get the added bonus of getting to work with him every day.
WOMMA talks about the distinction between “organic” and “amplified” word of mouth and “amplified” is where we, as marketers/PR folks come in. It’s NOT “organic” versus “manufactured.” There has to be a seed of discussion that already exists, a REASON for people to talk about something, a passion/a fire that can be flamed. So, it’s not just that blogger relations needs to be part of something bigger, it needs to be because we actually, SINCERELY believe that there is something to talk about and an existing community of people who want to talk about it.
While I haven’t had Brains on Fire in my feeds for years, I have had you since I saw y’all win the WOMMIE at the WOMMA conference in DC. Thanks for all of the insight since then.
September 8th, 2007 at 2:06 pmSpike says:
Thanks for chiming in, Alison. And great additional points.
We’re submitting and entry for another WOMMIE in Vegas this year, so maybe we’ll get a repeat performance.
Will you be there?
September 10th, 2007 at 9:38 amAlison Byrne Fields says:
I am hoping to make it out to Vegas, but it’s not a done deal just yet. Maybe you can put in a good word for me with John . . .
Good luck on the Wommie.
September 10th, 2007 at 5:03 pmDavid Binkowski says:
I think it’s great that they’re putting this out there, but when WOMMA called for folks to lead the initial Blogger Relations Ethics discussino Ogilvy PR was nowhere to be found. Robert Ricci, formerly of Weber Shandwick, and I led that discussion and published the code through WOMMA a year ago. I agree that adding blog outreach to a campaign shouldn’t be included in every campaign, however that’s the given. It’s like saying not every product launch should include street teams. Nothing new to see here, folks.
September 15th, 2007 at 6:42 pmAlison Byrne Fields says:
David - As WOMMA members (my boss, John Bell, is on the board), we’re cheerleaders for the ethical standards that WOMMA upholds. In fact, when we counsel our clients on how best to participate within social media we point them in the direction of WOMMA and its principles of transparency.
I respect your criticism and am sorry that you feel like we’re late in coming to the table, but our aim was never to suggest that our code was meant as a proposed industry standard or something that no one had done before. What we were trying to do was threefold.
1) As the team that people come to for social media strategy, we wanted to communicate these standards to our colleagues around the globe to help those who are less steeped in this stuff than you and me.
2) We wanted to communicate these standards to our clients who come to us for guidance in how to navigate a territory — and relationship dynamic — with which they are unfamiliar.
3) Most importantly, we want to let bloggers know that we had standards to which we wanted to be held accountable.
Yeah, most of it is just plain old common sense — what your momma taught you — and, yeah, it’s pretty damn obvious that blogger outreach doesn’t fit into every strategy. But just like the clients who come to us with a request for a “viral video” and “buzz,” we get requests for blogger outreach. And we need to make it clear that we’ll do it if it makes sense, if they have something remarkable worth talking about, and if it’s about amplifying something authentic and not creating a bullsh-t PR campaign.
Thanks for the chance to chat.
September 19th, 2007 at 11:05 am