Do you find that most clients already expect us to have a prior relationships with the bloggers (just like how we should with mainstream media) and not just start targeting a few after starting with a new project?

PRgoddess,
Thanks for adding me onto your blogroll. Glad some of my posts provide some information for your students.

Walter,
In the ideal world, it will be great to have the client participate and keep the conversation going between client and bloggers on their own. But in reality, from experience, the chance of that happening is pretty low (not all clients are savvy and understand the new media as you do) but I agree it is definitely worth looking into. Perhaps, like how agencies arrange for clients/ spokesperson to have media training, “blogger relations training” can be included in that.

Posting the same question to you as I did with Matt – as a client, do you also expect your agency to already have prior relationship with bloggers (esp. the 15 and more who are relevant to your company)? Is that a key to you as a client? Most clients all assume we are great friends with ALL the media, so for new media, what is the expectation?

What you have stated so far comes pretty much from an agency point of view. As Matthew has rightly alluded to, the multiple number of clients multiplied by the time needed to service each account makes it difficult for you to be best buddies with A-list bloggers. The need to multi-task makes it difficult for one to build truly endearing relationships on 2nd life – 1st life is already difficult as it is!

However, the situation varies considerably with inhouse PR practitioners like myself. My blogging strategy is simple. Work with those who have shown an interest in my subject matter (in this case heritage, culture, museums and nostalgia), and cultivate plus engage them. Make them part of a community. Even better if they can be friends.

I am glad to report that my community of about 15 heritage bloggers are still going strong. When I ask them for a favour, it isn’t seen as a pitch if I can show that it is mutually beneficial (eg I will link back to related posts). Perhaps something which PR agencies can help to do is to facilitate the building of long-term customer and user communities of bloggers, and get the client involved in helming it. Once that happens, they can then gently let go.

Thanks for commenting about my reference to your blog. I made sure my students took a look at your post.

No, not working on a Ph.D. in PR. I have a master’s degree in administration, an undergrad in PR, and did some Ph.D. work in sociology. I teach PR at K-State.

Thanks for pointing me toward your colleague’s blog. I’ll take a look. In the meantime, I’ll add you to the blogroll!

Unfortunately, there is really so much we as PR practitioners can do to engage new media in Singapore. Even then, any semblance of these efforts to what one would seriously consider a “New Media Strategy” would be almost self-delusional.

Pardon my ignorance but Singapore’s new media scene has not reached that kind of critical mass to warrant a “strategy” in its engagement. And I hate to admit that for me the fastest way to reach the most mothers online is still through my wife’s personal blog, and there are probably a few hundred of such mummy circles talking about everything from breastfeeding to their husbands’ performance in bed (ok, maybe not that…).

Still the fact remains that any grand plans to engage such blogging circles would be a long, protracted affair which is tedious to uncover, nurture and sustain, and something not really worth embarking on unless you have a long term project that requires such extended contacts.

And hence the dilemma. Frivilous (albeit popular)bloggers who talk about everything under the sun should not be pursued simply because they reach a wide audience, because their huge reader base may not include many of those whom you’re targeting.

Yet relationships with popular bloggers who talk about specific areas are difficult and often not cost- and time-effective to maintain, expecially for that one-off 3-month project.

How many of us have the bandwidth to build and maintain that kind of participative relationship (as Jeremiah mentioned above) with each of the few hundred mommy circles? Even if we do, we do so with vested interests and would most probably disappear from these circles once our projects that warrant such relationships are completed, not because we want to, but because we simply can’t afford the time and energy to do otherwise.