Source: Now is Gone blog

Much has been written about the shifts in media consumption and influence.  And much has been said about the Long Tail.

The phrase The Long Tail was first coined by Chris Anderson in an October 2004 Wired magazine article to describe certain business and economic models such as Amazon.com or Netflix, where you can garner as much traffic, influence or income from the ‘tail’ where a very large number of smaller orders or search terms are collectively worth as much or more than the big top ten hits in the ‘head.’

Applying it to PR means that there is as much, if not more, gold to be mined in the long tail of blogs with a small audience than in the big mainstream media outlets.  And you need to pay particular attention to the magic middle.

You can find more about this PR Long Tail at the Now is Gone blog by Brian Solis and Geoff Livingstone.

“When a word of mouth campaign has actual substance it usually cascades,” writes Geoff.

He cites this example:

FortiusOne received significant blog hits in the magic middle last fall. When pointed to this significant traction, the Washington Post took notice and wrote them up. Then ABC, Information Week and a new host of bloggers saw the Washington Post story and covered FortiusOne. And then speaking engagements and secondary trade press coverage ensued.

At the Executing Social Media event in Atlanta in November the Department of Defense spoke about an Itaq story they pitched to mainstream media and got zero interest. They did a webcast with a bunch of military bloggers who ran with the story.  These bloggers created so much traction around the story that it piqued the interest of mainstream media and then they got great coverage in the Washington Post.

This ping pong match can be played to your advantage:

“One great way to promote your new media initiative remains traditional media, who often use well-respected blogs as sources or even the subject of stories… [Social media attention] drives information into the spotlight forcing traditional media to pay attention – or look like they’ve missed the news, and most importantly the conversation. Blogs [can be] a more effective way of reaching and inspiring traditional media to react than most PR professionals and wire services combined.”

We all know how to find the mainstream media we should be pitching.  How do we find the magic middle?

Very few PR people attend the Search Engine Strategies conferences, but they should.  There are always sessions that have PR value. I spoke at SES in Chicago this week on a panel called How to Meet the Bloggers Who Can Make Your Cash Register Ring.  It was aimed at retailers, but there were many lessons for anyone listening with a PR point of view.

• Examine the landscape
• Listen to what is being said
• Use tools that can track conversations, not just mentions
• Linking is the driver – track who links to whom
• Gauge the bloggers authority and influence in your own space
• Put out really good content and syndicate it in RSS feeds
• When a blogger uses your content start a conversation with them and build a relationship
• Read your log files to see who drives traffic
• Give the bloggers what they want – good content, first stab at information, exclusives, links to their blogs

Is social media replacing old media?  No. But the Long Tail of Public Relations shows nicely why it is important to foster relatiobships with both mainstream media and bloggers in the magic middle.