Technoflak: Alice Marshall on "How to Pitch Bloggers"

Alice Marshall's session at the New Communications Forum was of PR folks, by PR folks -- more accurately, by a self-described PR "flak" -- and I must confess, I ended up there by accident. Happy accident, as it turns out.

Alice's notes for the session are posted on her blog, Technoflak. What I notice in reviewing my own session notes are many bon mots and memorable turns of phrase. Here are a few for your delectation:

- Bloggers have no editors, so they will run with your stuff if they like it, unlike reporters, who get thousands of press releases. Bloggers may blog about the press release from hell.
- The all-time low water mark of pitching to blogs, according to Alice, was received by Dan Gillmor, who then posted it verbatim. It concerned steps companies can take "to protect their corporate reputations from bloggers/digital influencers."

- Bloggers can give you a second voice if your company or client is taking a beating in the press, if you provide the appropriate documents.

- Blogrolls are very important because they reveal the foodchain of the blogosphere. Links are even more important in this respect. When you're seeking attention in the blogosphere -- what I call digital ink -- "don't just be conscious of the blog; be conscious of the food chain."

- Alice took exception to influential blogger Jay Rosen's view of what all the PR folks at the conference call "the Ketcham/Williams affair" -- a reference, I eventually learned, to "the Armstrong Williams corruption case, in which one of the leading PR agencies, Ketchum . . . funneled $240,000 from the Department of Education (DoE) to Williams, the conservative syndicated columnist and television host, who was paid to promote the No Child Left Behind Act."

Alice expressed her views in an e-mail to Rosen, whose text she also posted to Technoflak, engendering a link from Rosen's PressThink.  The bottom line for Alice: "I don't want his love. I want the link."

- Last but not least, Alice's mantra. If you represent a company or product, "Don't just disclose it; brag about it."

Listening to Alice is enough to change one's entire view of the PR profession.