We often get emails from people who want to increase exposure of a new online service or software and hope that we’ll blog about it.
I have no problem with this as I see this practice as acceptable…as long as the writer has a clue who I am and why there’s a possible connection between their product and my interests.
But a few days ago I got the funniest pitch letter ever, and I mean “I’m laughing at them, not with them” funny. This letter was a form letter with all the options left in. I’m reprinting the first paragraph here for your entertainment, and I will omit the name of the of the writer, but not of the product because it actually seems useful. The “funny” parts are highlighted in red:
Hello,
We have just launched the “Real Time Board” at surchur.com and wanted to give you a first shot at helping us spread the news. Based on your passion for/interest in/blog that covers social media (or some other topic) at somedomain.com and your voice as an incluencer [sic] in the social media/search/real time search/media (pick one of these or something else related) community I’d honestly be grateful if you’d take a look at surchur.com, give us feedback but especially help spread the word on your blog or twitter account….
The writer left me hanging! Am I passionate or just interested in social media (or could it be race car driving)? Am I an incluencer? What is that? And if I am one, then is it in the social media, search, media or perhaps race car driving communities?
Don’t do online PR this way. The one thing bloggers HATE more than anything are mindless efforts to get their attention without taking the time to address them as a human being, rather than as another person on the mailing list. Take a few minutes to address me properly, and I’ll take a few minutes to see what it is what you want. Otherwise, into the Trash your email goes.
As for the product above, Surchur – well, I checked it out anyways and it seems worth looking at for tracking current trends. You can also search for any term and get a quick overview of activity around the web related to that term, from Google Blogsearch, IceRocket, Technorati, digg, delicious, twitter, flickr, Yahoo News, YouTube and more. And the results really are up-to-date, as opposed to what we’ve seen on other services that offer similar results.
