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.

The Non-Story: A Win for All... or Maybe Not

It never ceases to amaze me just how fast the news cycle really is.

Last Thursday, Allstate Insurance issued a news release on the best and worst drivers based on their zodiac sign. Virgos held the dubious distinction as the worst, while Scorpios were the best. Allstate based the results on an internal study of their own customers.

This was a complete non-story. There is absolutely no news value and the study is only on Allstate customers. But the content is interesting and bound to generate traffic. Allstate gets free attention and the news site gets traffic. A win for everyone, right?

The journalist in me scoffs at the blatant publicity for Allstate, but the PR professional in me thinks this is great way to raise more visibility for the company. I even spoke with a colleague and commented on the pointless article, but what a great idea it was to get a news mention (and potentially get picked up by Yahoo, MSNBC, Gawker and other big outlets). I considered looking at ways my company could do something similar.

What could possibly go wrong with this seemingly harmless story?

Well, hell hath no fury like a Virgo scorned.

Today, Allstate issued an apology for the study and removed the study from their online newsroom. People were vocal, threatened to not consider Allstate and thought Allstate used this information seriously when deciding whether to raise premiums or issue new policies.

I never thought this non-story would get such a hostile reaction. Allstate's PR team probably thought the same thing. I'm not really sure Allstate could have done anything different to change people's reactions either. Did people have such a negative reaction because the study came from Allstate rather than a journal or university? Multiple studies say men are better at "x" than women or women are more likely to "x" than men. None of those stories elicit an apology.

I guess the lesson is no matter what you may think is harmless, people can still get upset. Yeah, that's not really much of a lesson. Anyone else have a better take away or are people's reactions too unpredictable?