Affiliate Summit Media Coverage Panel

Media coverage on the Internet, and print, is always a hot topic.  How do you handle an advertiser who wants coverage after buying a full-page ad?

Some of the comments so far are great.  Send us a case study, make sure it’s of value to my readers, is it newsworthy.

Andrew Wee mentioned that in smaller publications there is the blurred boundary between editorial and ad sales.

Jim Kukral … bloggers and journalists need content just a press release is the incorrect way to do it.  Giving us more content (images, charts, quotes, etc) and we’re more likely to write/blog about it.  Taking the easy way out?  Nope.  The more I get to work with the easier it is to get your info into my workflow.

Google searches–Journalists, of course, use Google to start researching a topic.  So by getting your name into articles, etc you raise your profile as an expert in the area and therefore more likely to seek you out as a source.

Sidebar: Sam Harrelson and Justine Ezarik are sitting with me.  Sam is on his Asus Eee, I’m on my laptop and Justine is on her iPhone.  Talk about a cross-section of the evolution of tech!

How do folks like to be contacted.  Standard range of things.  Connections with friends, introductions, etc.  I don’t mind email, but I really like it if I get an email first that is more of an “are you interested in x…” instead of “hi I’m so-and-so and here is our latest release…”.

Oh here’s a revelation … we’re people too!  “I just want my muffin dude…” Just jumping into a pitch right off, nope.  Get to know us.  Chat a bit.  Here’s a thing … maybe read up on me first.  Fight out what I’m into.  For bloggers it’s pretty easy since a lot of our public lives are online.

“If you just throw stuff out to see if it sticks…it won’t”

We all do have our secret black list (yep me too) of folks who we would give the time of day to, on the other hand the folks who are my friends and have been giving good stuff…well if they need a Digg or Stumble, or a little link love, no problem.

Deadlines … embargoes … I completely respect embargoes.  Know the timelines on how things work.

Jim Kukral “Bloggers are vain…” in terms of we love getting a scoop and knowing that something will go live so we like getting that.  Appeal to our desire to get a scoop.  Jim also doesn’t think that bloggers are journalists–I agree and disagree.  Bloggers aren’t pure journalists, but I think they are a new breed of journalists.

Andrew has a great point.  As bloggers, when we write about something, our credibility is tied to that post.  So if you’re product isn’t solid, if it isn’t something that I would recommend, I’m not going to cover it.  Or I’m not going to say … “try this it’s great” … I’d be more likely to say “this launched, I think it looks interesting for these reasons, but…”.

Interesting fact for our panel coming up: Justine, Deb, and I are all left handed.

Yeah you’re not going to see the story until it comes out.  I’m not going to send you the story first.  If I have questions, I’ll ask.  If I make a mistake (it happens), I’ll post an update.

PR, hire or in house–doesn’t really matter just don’t let the interns said out the “Hey we saw that you’re coming to Affiliate Summit, if you’d like to meet our CEO…” [delete, block].  I got several of those emails last week.  My question is always…why?  Who are you?  Did you read what I cover and what my niche is (Canadian tech, Web 2.0, and photography, in general)?

Nobody reads press releases, nobody cares.  Why?  Most press releases suck.  Maybe if people wrote better press releases …