Read the blog before you pitch

Reading seems to be a lost art for so many people. I'll admit, I tend to do more skimming than reading these days. We all have plenty of work with tight deadlines and don't have a lot of time to get it done. Pitching your topic to the right blogs can be a long, tedious process. There are so many blogs to look at and only one of you!

But if you're going to pitch a blog, you better make sure you've read some of their posts before you fire off that email.

Last week the blogger behind Food Network Humor posted two examples of PR people pitching her blog. The title of the post? "Laugh of the Day: Clueless Guy Fieri PR People Asking FNH to Promote His Products."

Yeah, you know where this is going.

Not one, but two people associated with companies that do business with Guy Fieri, a famous Food Network personality, pitched the blogger to promote his products on the blog.

One cursory glance of the Food Network Humor site's header shows Paula Dean with a mustache, Sandra Lee next to two bottles of vodka and Rachel Ray with devil horns. In fact, several posts prior (and before one of the PR people pitched her) there is a post making fun of Guy Fieri. This is clearly not a blog where anyone would pitch this man's products.

This is why you read the blog before you pitch it. Nothing is worse for your company or client than becoming a big joke on a blog where you want positive coverage.

Luckily for the PR people, the blogger chose not to name them. Some blogs are more than happy to call out PR professionals for bad pitches (TechCrunch immediately comes to mind), so these people got off fairly easy. Their companies, however, did get named. I imagine these PR people are getting a stern talking to (hopefully it's not an intern at their first internship!).

Blogs are a whole different animal than traditional media. A misplaced pitch might just give you the coverage you don't want.