No matter what your business, product or service, with more than 180 million blogs online there is bound to be someone with a blog who is interested in what you do.

Blogs are often overlooked in favour of either traditional media coverage or social media sites like Facebook or Twitter, but a positive review by an influential blogger could actually have a much bigger impact in terms of both brand awareness and sales.

‘Blogger outreach’ is something which I think PR companies are starting to branch out into more, but sadly not everyone who is doing it is doing it right, and some are getting it very badly wrong.

As a blogger myself, I would say that the number one mistake you can make when making contact is not being personal. Within the first few seconds of scanning an email, you can tell if it has been written for you or if you’re just another nameless, faceless email address BCC’d in with hundreds of others.

I know that typing out a hundred different emails would be incredibly time consuming, but even if you copy and paste the body of the email the least you can do is find out the name of the person you’re emailing.

The top giveaways of a mass email are the opening lines ‘Dear journalist’, ‘Dear blogger’ or perhaps the worst, ‘Dear Sir/Madam’.

Just saying ‘Hi’ is also rather suspicious, unless you are a particularly secretive blogger and there’s no way they could have found out your name.

If you really are too busy to make your emails personal, you at least need to make sure the blogs you are contacting are relevant to what you are trying to sell – don’t just go by the name of a blog, actually read it.

Some bloggers state quite clearly on their blog that they don’t do reviews – if that’s the case, asking them to review your product is only going to irritate them.

There is no ‘one size fits all’ with blogs. You might find a database of fashion bloggers and think “great, I’ll email them all about my client’s latest range of dresses”; but as well as the blogs that would be interested in that, there will also be some which are only interested in menswear, some which are all about shoes, and some just about celebrity fashion faux pas. If you send a generic email to these people, it will be blindingly obvious that you haven’t even glanced at their blog.

I think part of the problem with blogger outreach fails is that a lot of people have the attitude of “oh well, even if only 5 of the 100 bloggers I contact are interested, what harm can it do?”

The problem with that is there is the chance one of the other 95 will find your email so irrelevant, ridiculous or even offensive that they will take to their blog to vent their frustration. I’ve seen plenty of examples of bloggers posting entire emails from companies which can completely discredit their online efforts and quite frankly make them look stupid, so the answer to ‘what harm can it do’ is, actually, quite a lot.

Working for a PR company and maintaining a personal blog, this is something I’ve seen from both sides. Having experienced being sent impersonal, totally irrelevant email pitches, I now know what to avoid doing.

I received a fantastic email this morning, offering me ‘free gourmet meats’. They said that “having looked at your blog, I think it would be an excellent place for you to honestly review your thoughts on the value and quality of the pack?”

Yes, my blog is about food, but you don’t have to read very far through it to see that I am a vegetarian and therefore not very likely to be interested in your packages of meat. I’m not quite sure why their opinion was punctuated with a question mark either…

If my ranting hasn’t completely put you off wanting to contact bloggers (who in general are a lovely bunch, really!) then these are my top tips for blogger outreach:

•    Do your research – make a list of blogs to contact which actually focus on your product or industry
•    Read the blogs first to make sure they are suitable to avoid embarrassing yourself
•    Try and find out the name of the person you’re contacting, and if you can’t find out then at least mention the name of their blog in your email
•    Keep an eye out for pages called ‘press’ or ‘media’ which will actually tell you how they like to be contacted
•    Don’t send mass emails – keep it personal!

If any bloggers are reading this, what do you think? Are there any things that really irritate you when people contact you promoting their products of services? Let me know!

Posted by @natblachford

In the past year, the issue of unpaid internships has been a hot topic, particularly in the PR industry.

The question essentially boils down to whether or not it’s acceptable to ask someone to work for free for a sustained period of time, in order for them to gain the experience they need to secure a full-time, paid position.

In 2011, PR Week and the PRCA launched a campaign to end unpaid internships in the PR industry, and in March this year the CIPR launched a toolkit for both employers and interns to help explain the issue – but still it rumbles on.

Having experienced the struggle of getting a foot in the door after graduating (in 2009, the worst possible year) and also working for free to get the experience I needed, I have quite strong views on the issue.

First of all, it should be clear than an unpaid internship is not the same as work experience or volunteering. As far as I’m concerned, work experience is expected to be unpaid, but should last for no longer than a month, and volunteering should be for charities, not-for-profits or community groups, and is something you do in your spare time rather than instead of a full-time job.

Age comes into it as well – a 15/16 year old living with their parents who wants to get some work experience in the summer holidays is not the same as someone who has just graduated from university and needs to start earning their keep.

When I graduated, I saw A LOT of internships advertised in the media industry that were either three or six months long and completely unpaid – not even any travel expenses.

For the business, of course I can see why they would want to do this – why hire a paid employee when you can have a stream of unpaid interns coming in to do the same job?

But for the majority of graduates, and for the industry, it’s not good at all, as it breeds a culture where only the wealthiest and best connected young people are able to find the experience they need to get ahead in their chosen career.

I certainly don’t know many people who can afford to move to London and work for six months unpaid – even if you already live there with your family you’ll need a lot of financial support to get by for that long with no income.

I believe that long-term, unpaid internships are simply exploitation – but exploitation that businesses have been able to get away with thanks to the incredibly tough competition for jobs.

So what do you do if you can’t afford to do an unpaid internship?

Well for me, I got lucky – I was able to work part time as a shop assistant to fund working part time as a PR assistant for a not-for-profit organisation, which gave the experience I needed to land the job I’m in now.

I would also strongly advice anyone still at university to get as much experience in now as you can – at least you’ve got your student loans to support it!

If you’re lucky enough to be doing a degree with an industry placement year, you should definitely try and make the most of it. Although they don’t legally have to be paid as they form part of your degree, a lot will at least give you minimum wage or cover expenses, and the experience you get can be invaluable – I also know quite a few people who have finished their placement to be told that when they graduate a year later a job will be waiting for them.

For any current PR students in Cornwall or Devon, there’s more good news – DCA is recruiting! We’re looking for someone to spend the sandwich year of their degree with us, starting this summer – so if you’re interested get in touch!

Posted by @natblachford

There is no doubt that the London 2012 Olympic Games are going to put the UK in the spotlight this year. But what can we make out of it in the Westcountry, being so far from London and with so many restrictions around aligning marketing activity with the Games if you’re not an official sponsor?

Whilst for commercial ventures this might prove difficult, for destination and visitor marketing the Olympics – and the Torch Relay in particular – present a great opportunity to showcase our visitor offer to the world.

This week (Monday 19 March) the route of the Olympic Torch was announced along with some of the torchbearers, many of whom had been nominated by their local community to carry the flame through their city, town or village.
 

Plymouth's Olympic torchbearers, Andy Netherton, Poppy Mills, Jordan Anderton, Frances Johnson and Ian Sherriff

Down here in Devon and Cornwall we have the incredible advantage of being part of the first day of the Torch Relay, one of the most iconic elements of the Olympics.

Starting in Lands End on the morning of Saturday 19 May, the Torch’s first day will see it travel through Cornwall, across the Tamar Bridge and into Plymouth. Destination Plymouth (a DCA client) will welcome the Olympic Flame on Saturday night for its very first evening celebration, with a glittering party up on Plymouth Hoe.

An iconic flame, in a dazzling location on Plymouth’s stunning waterfront, with fantastic free entertainment – what a proposition! What’s more, the international news interest in the start of the Torch Relay will broadcast beautiful images of Plymouth and Cornwall around to the world.

In terms of promoting our region’s visitor offer on a regional, national and international level we need to grasp this moment in the global spotlight and make the most of it – we can be sure we won’t see it again in our lifetimes. 

Posted by @MissBishops

Last night I had a conversation with a group of friends, who don’t really ‘get’ social media. They’re all on Facebook, and one uses LinkedIn, but apart from that they don’t really understand or see the benefit of using anything else.

In my work life, I’m surrounded by people who are avid users and advocates of social media, so it was quite refreshing to talk about it with people coming from a different perspective and they rose one point in particular which I think is worth discussion:

“Why on earth would you want to tell the world where you are?”
 

Or in other words, why do people use geo-location sites like Foursquare and Facebook Places to document their daily movements by ‘checking-in’ to every place they visit?

There are A LOT of things that irritate me when I see people checking-in, and a lot of really sensible reasons why you shouldn’t want to, so I can certainly see where my friends are coming on.

Firstly, checking-in can be just plain annoying. Top of the list of check-ins that annoy me are people who do it every day when they arrive at work. Lets be honest – who cares?! Congratulations, you’ve become the ‘mayor’ of your own office! You’re at the place you’re expected to be! What an achievement, you really should be proud.

Next up, check-ins which are just plain embarrassing. I think the worst I’ve seen so far is “Joe Bloggs has just checked in to X-Town Magistrates Court”. Seriously?! You want the world to know you’re in court?! For as long as I work in social media, that’s one that I don’t think I’ll ever get my head around…

My final entry for the irritating category of check-ins is the show-off. You know, the one that has no tangible benefit to it, which no one will be interested in, and clearly has just been done as a location-based boast. A great example of this is people who check-in at the gym every day (or more). Why do that? Do you think that I’ll subconsciously remember all those check-ins next time I see you and complement you on how buff you’re looking? I think not.

Aside from making you look rather foolish, there are actually some serious reasons why it might be better not to check-in.

One of the most obvious is the “Jane Smith is at Heathrow Terminal 5”. I absolutely get that you’re excited about your holiday, and want to make you’re friends jealous, but telling the world that you’re off on holiday for a fortnight is like sending an open letter to opportunistic criminals telling them they have a two-week window to break into your house. And if you’ve also recently checked-in at “Jane and Jim’s love nest”, giving everyone your full address… well, really you only have yourself to blame.

You should also think about who is going to see your check-ins, and whether or not it’s appropriate to be telling them where you are. For example, my colleagues, employers and clients all have access to my Facebook updates and Tweets, so I’m always cautious about my work and social lives crossing paths.

Imagine you check-in to a bar at 1am on a Sunday night. Then on Monday morning, your car won’t start so you’re late for a 9am meeting with your boss. If your boss saw your late night check-in, it’s easy to see how, even if you do have a genuine reason for being late, they might still put two and two together to make six…

So with all these reasons not to check-in, why should you use sites like Foursquare?
 

Well, if you’re somewhere that will be of genuine interest to your friends, I say go for it. If I ever get an invite to Buckingham Palace, I think that would be worth a check-in. Yes, that does slightly fall into the boast category, but I think it’s an acceptable one.

Then of course there are the places that reward you for checking in. If your local pizza takeaway wants to give away a free pizza to whoever has visited the most that week, it’s definitely worth risking your friends thinking you’re a bit of a porker to keep checking-in and get the freebie.

It’s also great if you want to recommend somewhere where you’ve just had a really good meal, or offer future visitors a tip about the best table to sit at or where you can get free wi-fi. If you’re at an interesting event or conference, by all means let people know about it, or if you’re out at the weekend you can let your friends know where to find you.

What does everyone else think? Do you like the world to know what you’re up to and where you’re going, or do you prefer to keep things private?

Posted by @natblachford

Those of you who know me know that I have a tendency to get a little bit excited now and again – it is par for the course in this job. This month I am particularly giddy that I have a copy of the 2012 Plymouth Visitor Guide in my sweaty little mitts.

Creating the Official Plymouth Visitor Guide was a very special project to us here at DCA: we love Plymouth, we love to tell people why we love it and even better, by working with our fabulous friends at Fuel Communications (who worked some super design and sales magic) we were able to produce this fantastic visitor guide at NO COST to the client… that’s right, zero, nada, zilch…See – free stuff – told you it was exciting!

A foreword from the city’s newest celebrity chef, the lovely Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, very aptly describes Plymouth as a city of undiscovered gems. If you haven’t discovered Plymouth for yourself yet then grab a copy of our shiny (it’s actually matt – printed on untreated stock for the paper geeks amongst you) new Visitor Guide.

Download the Plymouth Visitor Guide here or pick up a copy from the Tourist Information Centre on the Barbican. It’s also going to be winging its way around the south west so keep your eye out for a copy while you’re out and about in the region.

Enjoy reading and I hope you have fun exploring Plymouth!

Jenny x

Posted by @MissBishops