Technorati's Blog Finder - a hidden great PR tool
The art of public relations comes down to a few key criteria, one being to find the right audience.
That's the key: find the audience. When you willy-nilly send out press releases to reporters that are not the right contact, you can both infuriate the reporter and ensure you will get no coverage.
It's the same - and worse - in the blogosphere. While some people think to pitch bloggers, you go for the A-list and A-list only, that's most likely the worst way to pitch bloggers. Yes, you want to target blogs that are read by more than a handful of people, but you want to target bloggers that are going to care about your product. So, just because you are a Web 2.0 company doesn't necessarily mean that Robert Scoble is going to care.
In PR Week, Andrew Gordon writes about the new influencers: bloggers. Gordon highlights that you need to be aware of what is happening with blogs. Well, part of that is how do you know what blogs are what, and who are the leaders?
Well, Technorati has launched a beta version of Technorati Blog Finder. While there are issues with Blog Finder - come on, it is Beta, so there should be issues - there are also a few great things that should be noted. Prior to Blog Finder, you would have to use a variety of tools and searches to find what blogs are writing about what subjects, then go read those blogs, and then figure out if there really is traffic, or if the blogs are merely link farms.
Does Blog Finder solve some of those problems? Well, yes. By looking at how many links a blog has, though, you can gauge the popularity and trust related to the blog. While there are issues with tag SPAM, and link farms, this does cut down on those types of issues by highlighting what blogs are for a specific industry.
For example, today I wanted to find blogs that write on golf, to pitch them a new golf product. I did a Blog Finder search on golf, and found a list of 20 blogs. While not all are applicable, there are at least a few that I can now touch base with, and pitch (in a smart pitch way). It's a good way to search for the right blog (and hopefully the kids at Bacon's will work a deal with Technorati to help add categories to their blog listings in MediaMap....)
Hat tip to Blake Barbera for getting me to think about Technorati Blog Finder as the hidden, great PR tool.
Hat tip to Mike Manuel for his post and link to the announcement, as well as his post on the PR Week article on blog influencers that gave me more fodder.
