

How to get bloggers to write about you?  - secondmod

Hi,<p>I told my recently launched side project's early traction story here : https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5600281<p>To move to next level, I need support from blogger community. People are loving my product but none of the big or even small blogs are writing about it. I have mailed some bloggers about what Pinwoot does and traction info, but I dont get replies. Any tips that you can help me and other fellow first time entrepreneurs, will be really helpful. Looking forward to your comments.
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dirktheman
I read a piece on this recently: [http://jasonlbaptiste.com/featured-
articles/how-i-pitched-te...](http://jasonlbaptiste.com/featured-articles/how-
i-pitched-techcrunch-and-13-ways-to-get-press-when-you-launch-your-startup/)

The main gist is that to get journalists/bloggers to write about you, you have
tell them a story that they can rewrite and run. I spent years as a PR
professional, and unfortunately, this is still how it works. I wouldn't say
that bloggers/journalists are lazy, but they get pitched so often it's hard to
select a good story for them.

Some other advice: Find out which blogger usually runs stories about Pinterest
or social startups. Find out his/her email address, and write a personalized
pitch. Keep it short but engaging.

Last tip: you can call Robert Scoble. His phone number is on his website, and
apparently he doesn't mind getting pitched over the phone. Be sure to have
your story straight, though!

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secondmod
Thanks. I was always confused about my email's subject line but the post your
mentioned above gave me some idea. I approached around 7 bloggers in last 4
days with personalized pitch with different subject lines but didn't even get
a reply.

I tell them 4 things : 1\. How I found them (like read your post regarding
Pinterest tips on XYZ.com) 2\. What is Pinwoot? And why we started? - 5 lines
3\. Traction info - 2 lines 4\. About me and my cofounder in 2 lines.

I will be using tips from link you gave. Lets see how it goes.

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cdvonstinkpot
I once knew a woman who worked in marketing who said she could get a local
newspaper to write a feature about my startup, but I wasn't ready yet right
then. Then it folded- but you might want to look into local agencies who could
help you with publicity. Ad agencies or PR firms.

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joelgascoigne
You have some fantastic traction and revenues already, that's awesome.

My recommendation, which worked very well for us, was to focus less on
articles about the startup, and more on articles about the Pinterest, about
all the challenges people face using it and growing their following. What
types of images should you pin? How frequently should you pin things? So many
people have no idea about these things. Then, often your product will
naturally fit into some of these articles. You can write these articles on
your own blog, or offer them to other blogs.

We did a lot of guest posting to get the first 100,000 users for Buffer.

~~~
secondmod
Big fan of you and Buffer. Thanks for the tip. I am actually focusing on that
now. I don't have much idea about guess blogging, any tips on that like how to
pitch a blog for guest blog?

~~~
joelgascoigne
My co-founder Leo wrote a great guest post (could you have guessed?) on how to
get started with guest blogging :-) Here it is -
<http://askaaronlee.com/bufferapp/>

Also he wrote an article for OnStartups about getting press, which might also
be useful - [http://onstartups.com/tabid/3339/bid/80121/How-To-Get-
Media-...](http://onstartups.com/tabid/3339/bid/80121/How-To-Get-Media-
Coverage-For-Your-Startup-A-Complete-Guide.aspx)

Hope that helps :-) Good luck.

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orangethirty
Pay them.

