Web Marketing Blog
By Sara Hofstetter

THE DARK SIDE
Posted on November 29, 2007

 Ironic how my opportunity to re-enter journalism comes as an offer to blog. When I first graduated from college, I was completely enamored with the idea of being a reporter. I had interned at the New York Times and was dead-set on telling stories to large audiences. Shortly after that, I got bitten by the PR bug; journalists call it "going to the dark side." When I took my first PR job, I swore I'd come back to reporting, but I really never looked back. How ironic that more than 10 years later, I'm back in the saddle, but now writing for today's form of trade journalism and what I think might be the biggest threat to traditional journalism – a blog.

Blogs today are specialized forms of media surrounding a particular content, specifically tailored to fit select audiences, whether it's those interested in politics, pure-bred dogs or a particular lifestyle. With all these new so-called experts available today, media continues to grow more niche-oriented than ever before. While there is still great demand for mass-market media – whether it's broadcast television or national newspapers – consumers are increasingly gravitating toward specialized media as expert sources in their fields of interest. This presents great opportunities for marketers to target their audience and refine their messaging for each group.

As the role of the journalist changes, the role of the PR specialist changes as well. After more than a decade of managing PR and corporate marketing for Top 1,000 companies, getting them placed on CNBC and in the New York Times and Wall Street Journal, I'm now running a group responsible for raising the visibility of some of the biggest brands in the country to the newest form of reporters: bloggers, forum moderators and online community advocates.

The power of the pen has now been granted to anyone with an Internet connection and those who have a passion within a particular interest area. So why not feed their desire for information?

The stakes, in a sense, are higher in the blogosphere. Do it wrong, and you'll never hear the end of it. Real journalists will just ignore you if your pitch doesn't interest them. A cranky, influential blogger will make you wish he'd ignored you as he publicly berates you on his blog. But on the other hand, if you do it right, you have real praise from someone with industry street credibility, and it gets read by people already interested in whatever you're promoting.

For example, we were given the opportunity to build awareness for a new show on HGTV called Living with Ed with Ed Begley Jr. Not sure if you remember him, but he was popular in the '80s for St. Elsewhere and is now a huge environmental advocate.

We had a huge branding problem on our hands, though, because people use Google as today's TV Guide, so making sure you have solid visibility in search is key. However, upon searching for "Living with Ed" across Google, we were presented with dozens of listings for how to cope with erectile dysfunction. Not quite what we were looking for, but certainly relevant for those interested in living with E.D.

To make sure we had relevant listings, my team found brand advocates online that would talk about the show. The most effective marketing efforts are based on word-of-mouth referrals, so we started a concentrated publicity effort targeted to the most influential people online who would be likely to write about the show and the targeted message based on their interest areas. This spanned environmental blogs, blogs about '80s TV (yes, they exist) and celebrity blogs. We wanted to pique bloggers' interest enough that they'd write about the show and link back to hgtv.com. We offered them videos, tips on living green, photos and more. Embedded videos and widgets are today's press kits. Hundreds of blog posts later, the top listings for "Living with Ed" now talk about the show (just Google it now and you'll see what I mean).

Most self-proclaimed journalists who received this dedicated attention were happy to be recognized by a big brand like HGTV. They appreciated the fact that we're reading their blogs, care about what they have to say and provide them with the fodder to write richer, more engaging content.

And now, with PINK, I've joined them in the blogosphere to write about a passion of mine: being a storyteller (albeit in a different way than I initially envisioned). Joining the dark side turned out to be a bright idea after all.

Sarah Hofstetter is vice president of emerging media and client strategy for 360i (360i.com), an independent metrics-driven agency that serves as a strategic digital adviser to large brand marketers.

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