Being Cheryl: Columbus Social Media and Random Humor

First and foremost, my hair looks awesome:

That would be courtesy of Kenneth’s Salon. As part of my 3 Things You Didn’t Know About Me video series, I’ve been talking about a lot of random things lately. My preschool boyfriend. The military history of my hometown. The circle of fifths.

How hair-styling-incompetent I am:

A few days after this video went live… I received this email:

Hi Cheryl,

My name is Lauren Bryant, and I work at Kenneth’s Hair Salons and Day Spas here in Columbus. I saw your video “3 More Things You Didn’t Know About Cheryl Harrison” (loved it!), and I wanted to extend an offer to you from Kenneth’s to help you with styling your hair! We would be glad to offer you complimentary services at one of our salons. Personally, my thick, wavy, frizzy hair was a disaster before I found someone to show me how to tame it! I have a few stylists in mind if you are interested in taking us up on this offer. Let me know what you think!

Thanks,
Lauren Bryant

Ahem.

2 Reasons Why Lauren Bryant Is Kicking Your Ass at Blogger Outreach:

Pitching Based on Content

It’s common for a PR person to refer to a blogger’s specific post in a pitch. It usually feels disingenuous at best, or complete BS at worst (i.e. they clearly didn’t actually READ the post.) Or even WORSE, the pitch includes a blanket statement such as, “I’ve been reading your blog for a while, I’m a huge fan!” Ha, yeah, and I became a vegetarian for my health. Riiiiiight.

A good pitch to a blogger centers around specific information, not a broad topic area. A certain Tweet. A particular post. A stupid YouTube clip. This post from Danny Brown has a great example of pitching to specifics – in this case, for a book.

Don’t pitch Chris Brogan because he blogs about social media and your company does something social media related. Pitch him because you have a really awesome travel accessory that would go well with this suitcase. (Incidentally, Chris has a great post about pitching to bloggers.)

NOT asking for coverage

You’ll notice that Lauren didn’t ask me in that email to blog about, or Tweet about, Kenneth’s. When she greeted me at the salon, she didn’t ask me to blog about, or Tweet about, Kenneth’s. And when I left, she didn’t ask me to blog about, or Tweet about, Kenneth’s. The stylist who did my hair didn’t even know I was getting free services, or that I was a blogger.

I get offered a lot of free stuff with the explicit condition that I talk about it online. What, you’re gonna send me a FREE COOKIE and all I have to do is bombard my 6,500 followers with posts about eating it?! WHERE CAN I SIGN UP?! I turn most of this crap down.

…It’s implied that you want me to talk about you. And don’t worry, if I really like, OR dislike, you, I probably will. But please, don’t ask.

And when someone DOES write about you, don’t forget to say “thank you.”

2 Ideas for Kenneth’s (And Your) Future Blogger Outreach

Timeliness

If I HADN’T gone to the salon yesterday, tomorrow’s 3 Things video would have made it shockingly obvious that I’m not a natural redhead – damn root regrowth. How cool would it have been to get a pitch right after that offering a complimentary touchup? Or to send that travel accessory to Chris right before he leaves for a big trip?

Takeaways

You want me to tell people to try Kenneth’s, right? Empower me to incentivize my audience to do so. Offer me a gift certificate or discount codes – something I can share or give away.

It’s kind of funny, because obviously the goal was to get me to talk about Kenneth’s online, but the outreach was so damn good that she’s instead got me talking online about how good Kenneth’s is at getting me to talk about them online.