Image via WikipediaHoward Owens has a great list of ways reporters can make themselves more valuable and also “take ownership” of their stories.
Several of these things I’ve talked about often with editors and reporters. And generating your own story ideas was a requirement when I began as a features reporter (I still don’t understand student journalists who’ve never heard of a story budget before).
I would quibble with one of Howard’s suggestions:
When the story is published, you socially bookmark the story as appropriate; you send the link to bloggers you know who might be interested; you e-mail the link to sources or readers you know would be interested.
Be VERY CAREFUL with e-mails to interested bloggers. I’m a blogger, and I’ve e-mailed friends around the blogosphere with links to things I’ve written that I think they would be interested in. But I do so judiciously.
If you e-mail bloggers too often, you get a reputation like that of a PR hack who sends out irrelevant press releases for every little thing that happens at their company.
Make sure:
- your story is relevant;
- you have a relationship with the blogger previously;
- and, that it’s a two-way street (i.e., he/she is not just a place for you to dump your stories, but a source for story ideas as well).
on Jul 30th, 2008 at 8:20 pm
Your caution is appropriate. You don’t want to bug the same blogger too often. He should A) only get your best stuff; B) it needs to be on-target for what the blogger is most interested in - you better follow and know that blogger.
That said, over time, if you’re a good networker, you’ll have relationships with bloggers who will never mind hearing from you.
Part of building that relationship would be sharing stuff with them that isn’t your own stuff … find a link they’ll like, but you’re not using — send it to them; this will win you friends.
And, if there is a way to share the link-love back once in a while, also a very good idea.