E-Marketing Strategy: The Power of the 
Blogosphere

Building Relationships With Bloggers

Now, how does all this happen? The first step is to load up your own blog with several months of original content. A healthy archive of quality content will prove to blog editors that—even though you are new on the scene—you are capable of pumping out great content on a reliable schedule. This archive also will serve as a showcase for the type of content you will be creating and will help you in recruiting your authors to contribute content.

Now that your own blog is full, begin to reach out to the editors of the blogs you have added to your list. Sometimes blog editors make it very easy to find them, either through published e-mail addresses or contact forms, but often, it is much more difficult to find a direct line to an editor. Twitter is a great place to track people down. Find and follow the blog's Twitter account, and feel free to drop them a line there.

Your first communication with a blog editor should be informal and without a heavy agenda. It's best to introduce yourself, briefly describe your new blogging effort, the type of content you (and your authors) will be pumping out, and ask them if they are interested in working together. It may take some time to build up a relationship, but once they trust you as a reliable source for quality content, they will come to depend on you.

One important thing to keep in mind is that lead times for blogs are usually nonexistent. If a blogger has your content, it will run the next day—if not sooner. If you are planning a wider, coordinated media blitz that involves blogs, be sure that you deliver the content to the blog editor near the time it should be made public.