Business Blog Consulting has some good tips on how PR professionals should approach pitching story ideas to bloggers. I’ve heard people argue that pitching to bloggers is completely different to pitching to journalists, but the key to successful pitches to both audiences is in two of the tips featured: relevance and personalisation.

To make a good pitch to a journalist you need to know and understand the media outlet, be sure that the story is of relevance to the journalist’s areas of interest, and reflect this in your pitch. The same goes for bloggers – you need to be familiar with the blog, be sure that what you’re proposing to send to the blogger will be of interest, and engage with them on an individual level.

One way that any reader can build a relationship with a blogger is through leaving comments on posts. For PR professionals, whether or not it’s appropriate to do this will depend on whether it fits with the overall strategy being followed, but if you do take this route it’s essential to be transparent about who you are.

Head over to the Business Blog Consulting article for more practical advice.