From Our Inbox

We learned the hard way so you don't have to. Lessons from fashion & beauty blogging veterans, inspired by our inboxes. Opinions belong to the post's author only & may not extend to all contributors of From Our Inbox. All examples are designed to be constructive and educational. Question? Comment? [email protected] var _gaq = _gaq || []; _gaq.push(['_setAccount', 'UA-23902088-1']); _gaq.push(['_trackPageview']); (function() { var ga = document.createElement('script'); ga.type = 'text/javascript'; ga.async = true; ga.src = ('https:' == document.location.protocol ? 'https://ssl' : 'http://www') + '.google-analytics.com/ga.js'; var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(ga, s); })();

[whitewhine-blog]

"I made this video last night by reading real comments left by jilted Lilly Pulitzer customers on the company’s Facebook fan page. Apparently, their site crashed in the middle of their annual sale and mayhem ensued. Some men just want to watch the world burn."

[whitewhine-blog]

LOL. Keep em coming! If you find a White Whiney comment thread, make a video reading the comments and I’ll post it here. 

[fromourinbox]

How every social media community manager feels about their Facebook fans.

[fromourinbox]

On pitches and the mass blast

I get it - pitching can be a major time suck, especially if you work at an agency on multiple accounts or your media list is extensive. We all want to do more with less, especially when it comes to the hours in the day, but there is something to be said for common courtesy.

As someone who has been on both sides of the table, both pitching and receiving, I can empathize with how much your clients and your supervisors expect from you. However,  as someone who receives anywhere from 200 - 300 emails daily, I find it difficult to be motivated to respond to an email where someone has not even taken the time to use my first name in the greeting. Hint: it’s not difficult to locate if it is the beginning of the email address.

If you do not deem it necessary (or responsible, conducive, or polite) to greet me personally, why should I take the time to consider your client’s request for publicity. Furthermore, how would you feel if I replied to a pitch that you sent addressed to ‘blogger’ or ‘there’ by calling you ‘public relations professional’ ‘or faceless human who wants something from me’?

At the end of the day, you need to establish a relationship with a media outlet and that media outlet needs content for their readership. Wouldn't it be great if your hard work was acknowledged with a response as opposed to being moved directly to trash?

A simple human connection can make all the difference. Give it a try!

[fromourinbox]

What's the difference between editorial and sponsored content?

As a new-to-me NYT article pointed out, we're all busier than ever before, doing things that don't matter and don't have significant ROI. Bloggers want to pursue their passion full time and brands want eyeballs on their latest campaign. What are the guidelines for asking for compensation or understanding when your is outside the realm of editorial? Here's how I determine if I should ask for compensation:

1: What are the details? Recently I've received several emails asking me to participate in a campaign, project, or event that have been very detailed and outside what I consider to be my typical sphere of editorial content. Here's an example:

Take a look at our look book  and choose your favorite style. Then, come up with 1-3 different looks using your pick. If you’re interested in modeling your three different looks, we can arrange to send you a pair of the shoes you picked (Not required, just a fun option). Once you have your outfits, share them with your readers.

This is not the type of content that I would normally run on my site. For these types of campaigns, if I'm not able to find a creative way to make the campaign work (for a brand that I'm keen on working with), I will respond with my standard compensation.

2: How specific is the ask? If the brand is asking you to create detailed content on a particular deadline, I would consider asking if there is compensation available. Here's a recent example:

The challenge is simple:

· Create a Vine video 

· Tweet your Vine video @{redacted] using the hashtag #[redacted]

· [redacted] will create your Vine video into a #[redacted] GIF for you to post on your blog, encouraging your readers to submit their own Vine #[redacted] videos by tweeting their Vine videos @[redacted] using the hashtag #[redacted]

Timing:

· Send your Vine video by April 10, [redacted] will turn it into GIF and send back to you for your post.

· Readers should tweet their Vines @[redacted] leading up to the show for the chance to have their Vine turned into a GIF that will be shared via the @[redacted] twitter feed on the day of the [event], 2013. In addition to the challenge, we’d love for you to be a part of the [event] festivities:

· 3-5 tweets during the pre-show using the hashtag, #[redacted] to comment on the attendees hairstyles · 3-5 @[brand] retweets · Tweet to your followers that @[brand] will be giving away products to select fans who retweet or favorite @[brand] throughout the show

In this case, the brand's ask has all the big three - content creation, deadlines, and many, many specifics.

3: How do you ask for compensation? This can be an awkward situation, but I'd first make sure to ask any questions that you might have for the campaign that they've outlined. This is an example of my standard compensation response:

[insert greeting here]

It sounds like the program that you've outlined is quite detailed and specific. Do you have a compensation structure for this program? 

If not, I completely understand and I am happy to consider products for review, but I wouldn't be able to execute the program as you've outlined it below.

Looking forward to your feedback!

[closing]

The most important part of the response is to be as friendly and understanding as possible. Not all brands are able to provide compensation and there is another blogger who will execute the campaign as they have outlined with little or no return. It's important to preserve the relationship with both the brand and the representative for future opportunities while still asking (politely and clearly) for compensation.

—- Sarah Conley, Style IT & SarahSocial

[fromourinbox]

Three Reasons Why Your "Blogger Competition" Campaign Is A Bad Idea

Blogger competitions have been part of the standard brand campaign ideas for about two years now. If you're looking to drive "conversations" about your brand or "traffic" to your website, they are a fine idea. Note my use of "conversations" and "traffic" - I want to stress that while yes, you may be able to file these results into one of these two labels, the true end result that you're looking to create (ie, drive brand awareness and a purchase) won't match your investment. Here are three reasons why:

The campaign isn't really about your brand. You've gotten a handful of bloggers to agree to participate in your campaign. Great! But what is this contest about? Likely having your community, be it from Facebook, your website or otherwise, "vote" on a set of given criteria. You've asked the participating bloggers to drive their traffic to a dedicated landing page or Facebook tab to cast their vote. Once the blogger's audience arrives at the landing page, they vote. Then what? Most likely, the audience closes the tab and moves on. If it's a Facebook campaign, you'll likely see a boost in page Likes, but as brands like HauteLook and MyHabit are learning, these empty fans aren't actually moving the needle for your brand. The conversations the participating bloggers are driving on Facebook & Twitter also isn't about how great your brand is. They are driving their followers, readers, and fans to your site for one purpose with no additional action. 

Your first choice of bloggers won't participate. Why? They realize that in most cases, the effort required to execute (and win) a blogger competition isn't worth the end result. Multiple tweets, Facebook updates, and blog posts are a hefty effort for a result that isn't guaranteed and the blogger's audience will eventually tune the promotion out. A blogger is only as good as their integrity and if they participated in every campaign offer that landed in their inbox, they would have no credibility with their readers. 

It's a loser's game. Say, for example, that you ran a blogger competition with 10 participants with only one winner. The winner receives their prize without much fanfare and the other nine bloggers go on about their bloggity blog lives. How does that conversation with the brand who held the competition continue? Does the brand think less of this blogger because they weren't able to leverage their audience to pull off a win? Perhaps the brand is disappointed at the lack of results from the campaign? Participating in a blogger competition is like going on a promising first date with a guy who you never hear from again.

Have you executed or participated in a blogger competition that you believe to be successful? Tell me your story in the comments below!

--- Sarah Conley, Style IT & SarahSocial

[fromourinbox]

What is wrong with this picture? The veiled "Guest post"

Let's see how many things we can find amiss with the email I just received, shall we?

Hi,

  I’ve really enjoyed your recent work on your blog, and can see that you are a big fan of the latest fashion and styles. I’m writing because we've just launched a men's fashion website that you might be interested in, both from a personal and professional perspective. As such, we are looking to spread the word about {redacted} and have identified your blog as the perfect space due to the high-quality content and overall website style.

  {redacted} were wondering whether you would be interested in receiving a guest post from one of our personal stylist team. We are happy for the blog post to be about a subject that you require, and we can write it in the same technique as your current content. If you would be interested in this proposal, or even better to mention {redacted} in one of your upcoming posts, we would really appreciate the effort.

  Thank you for your consideration; we look forward to your reply!

  Best, 

The {redacted} Team

1: I do believe this is the first time we've ever corresponded. Perhaps the inclusion of Sarah in my [email protected] email address was misleading, but I do believe you have absolutely no idea who I am.

2: Speaking of, who are you? You share your site's name, but in no where do I see a link to visit your site. Are you hiding from me? The internet is many things, but a keeper of secrets it is not.

3: Who are these stylists? Are they the same invisible gnomes that attempt to help me get dressed in the morning by scattering my already-worn clothes all across the floor? I really wish that I had more information. 

4: Oh, I see. You're "offering" me a "guest blog post" (because I don't have enough content of my own). It's a thinly veiled attempt to boost the SEO rankings of your own site. This might be a great tactic if I had absolutely any idea who you were and found your content compelling.

What have we learned today? Even a seemingly two way street can only be wide enough for a smart car.

[fromourinbox]

Rest-assured

it's unlikely that ANY blogger needs a high-res image.

[fromourinbox]

Embedding a PDF

does not a pitch make.

[fromourinbox]

PR: I Attended Your Press Preview And All I Got Was This Lousy CD

Earlier this week, I attended a holiday press preview at a reasonably reputable pr agency. I walked in, was greeted by someone who had no idea who I was (which, sadly, is quite typical) and asked "What are you working on? What do you cover?". Both of these might be completely reasonable questions for a magazine editor, however I personally find the "What are you working on?" question to be so awkward. Um......whatever I want?

After letting her know that I cover personal style, beauty and lifestyle, she proceeded to take me through the children's & men's sections of their showroom. Easy enough mistake to make, but as I left their office, I was handed a paper bag simply containing - wait for it - a cd.

Don't get me wrong, press materials can sometimes be helpful for the finer details of writing about a product, but I don't even work on a computer that has a cd drive.

What are the key takeaways from this experience?

When it comes to press materials, keep it simple. If you feel that you must give us materials when we leave, FTLOG please don't give them to us on cd or in paper form. 9 out of 10 times we're going to throw it away the minute we leave your office & you've wasted your client's money (not to mention trees & some poor intern's time).

If you put materials on a flash drive, please not only label the flash drive with the brand, but also which product launch or event the drive is from. I have over 200 flash drives sitting in a drawer, taking up space & I couldn't tell you Fall 2010 from Spring 2012.

This may sound radical, but what's so wrong with digital press materials? Perhaps emailing them to us or - and I know this sounds extreme - a digital press room or FTP site that we can visit at our leisure and from anywhere we might find ourselves squeezing in a blog post.

-Sarah Conley, StyleITOnline.com

[fromourinbox]

Some Honest Reasons Why Your Email Pitches Are Being Deleted

So in my inbox yesterday was a link to an article (from a friend) entitled "10 Dead-Honest Reasons Reporters Delete Your Emails" that was recently published on Business Insider. Since it came from someone I knew...I didn't delete it. In truth the title alone was compelling enough for me to click the link.

I'm not going to go through the entire article as one, you can read it for yourself and two, not all of the information is pertinent to fashion & beauty bloggers, but for the most part it was pretty dead-on.

Here are three of my favorite reasons why pitch emails get deleted (of the 10 detailed):

1. Accept that most of your emails get deleted instantly.

Not only do I (and I assume every other fashion/beauty blogger that has been at this long enough) receive anywhere from 200-400 emails per day...most are worthless. I find myself hitting the delete tab at rapid-fire pace. Do I possibly overlook something worthwhile? I'm sure I do, but the headline wasn't compelling enough for me to open it then. The main reasons I delete your email (even if I do open it) is because:

I don't know who the sender is

You spelled my name wrong or worse yet, called me "Dear Blogger"

Your first sentence was boring or confusing. That's about all the time I can give you. Next!

2. Do not ambush or give a false sense of urgency.

I can not tell you how many pushy follow-up emails I receive from PR peeps and all this does is turn me off more. Trust me, if I were interested I would reply. And probably pretty quickly. When you send me the initial email, and the next day send me a "just checking in" and then an "I thought I would try one-more time" (but proceed to send me 3 more emails, so you lied) and then call me? Well, you are a stalker and are now on my black list. Oh and marking your email as urgent is plain annoying. As is putting 'RE: XXX' to make me think we have communicated before on this subject. We are all on to this sly tactic. Delete!

3. Decide what is most compelling about you to the vast majority of people.

True most PR sent emails nail this (or why would they get paid?), but I do get quite a few emails from start-ups doing their own PR and marketing and so many miss the mark. I appreciate a start-up may not be able to afford professional marketing help, but that is no excuse to be vague about what you do. If you can't communicate what you do, how you are doing something fresh and what sets you apart from your competition in the first (short) paragraph, you are going to lose me. I don't have time to figure out what you do. I have at least 200 more emails to read/delete.

Read the rest of "10 Dead-Honest Reasons Reporters Delete Your Emails" here.

- Lauren Dimet Waters, Second City Style

Image: Business Insider

[fromourinbox]

On Those Who Choose to Follow & Unfollow

Oh hey guys, guess what? @Emily_Stuart_ is following me on Twitter:

Flattering, right? I mean, "Emily" as we'll call her (though I'm not convinced this is an actual person, to be clear, APPEARS to be an authoritative Twitter user that I might be interested in following.

But, what Emily's done wrong is the incessant follow/unfollow game. Any "influential" Twitter user has experienced this - another Twitter user who is so desperate to get your attention, they repeatedly and POINTEDLY Follow, Unfollow, Follow again, and so forth.

If you've got this much time on your hands, congratulations. I personally do not, but I DID find the time today to pull together a few quick tips on Twitter follower acquisition, and surprisingly enough, none of them involve repeatedly following and unfollowing people:

BE INTERESTING.  People ask me ALL the time how to get more followers on Twitter (as if that's all it's about...but that's another convo for another day) and frankly, it's very simple. PROVIDE CONTENT OF VALUE.  Perhaps you are an expert in your field? Perhaps you are ragingly hilarious? Perhaps you know that the meaning of LIFE can be distilled to 140 characters or less. Awesome. If your tweets provide value - be it professional or strictly entertainment - I'm more inclined to follow.

ENGAGE AUTHENTICALLY. Ugh, y'all. I'm cringing that I even used those two words side by side. But it's the truth. If you want me (or another "power Twitter user") to reward you with the reciprocal follow, try interacting with me like an ACTUAL PERSON.  Since I am a Leo, this can be as simple as paying me a compliment on THE TWITTERS, but for others, it may mean retweeting their best tweets or sharing a thoughtful @reply. If you show that you're legit interested in me as a person, and not just a +1 to your follower count, I'm that much more inclined to follow you back.

BE SELECTIVE. This may seem counterintuitive (and even contradictory as I myself follow over 3,600 people on Twitter) but if it's clear to me that you simply follow tweeps for the SAKE of following them (generally indicated by a negative follow-follower ratio, or an insanely high # of follows on your account), I can only ASSUME that you're in it for the numbers, and that you're not necessarily really interested in what I have to say. Frankly, my fragile ego CANNOT HANDLE THIS, so for the love of Jesus/Allah/Buddha/etc., be selective in who you follow.

Follow the author on Twitter here - she promises not to follow/unfollow you repeatedly.

[fromourinbox]

Pitching: Celebrity Placement Do's & Don'ts

(click photo to enlarge)

After any major red carpet event, every bloggers' inbox is flooded with images of celebrities wearing designer XX at XX event. After the Golden Globes or the Oscars, the emails can come in at the speed of light, leaving bloggers sifting through dozens, sometimes hundreds, of emails to find the interesting content. Competition can be pretty steep if you're looking to get your client's celebrity photos placed, so how do you get your client noticed?

Don't:

-> Send a watermarked photo

While the image may be a great example of the celeb/event/placement, most bloggers don't have Getty account (and don't generate enough revenue to pay for photos). If your client can't afford to pay for the photo from the image service, find the photo online & send appropriate credit. While it's not ideal, it'll make you (and your client) look less silly.

-> Send the information more than 24 hours after the event

The Royal Wedding and the Academy Awards are great examples of events that seemingly never stop, especially in a blogger's inbox. The public has a short attention span, and so do we. If the public isn't searching for it any more, we're not posting it. Traffic = money, and there's a very small window of time for the information to be relevant. 24 hours is being generous - my own personal rule is 16. In fact, if you can send the information during the broadcast, A++.

Do:

-> Know who (and what) you're pitching

While almost every celebrity has an audience (even those crazy reality stars), not every celebrity is right for every site. Segment your media lists so that the right information is being sent to the right site. There's nothing worse than receiving 10 celebrity placement emails a day from a publicist that isn't a good fit. 

-> Make the information easily digestible

While there's nothing worse than a blogger who repurposes press releases, in the case of red carpet events, the information needs to be as easy to digest as possible. Who/what/when/where/why are crucial, as well as the link to buy. 

-> Develop relationships

Celebrity pitches can account for 50%+ of a blogger's daily inbox total. What happens if you really need to get a client's photo placed? It doesn't hurt to get to know the blogger - tweet with them, send a personalized email or a compliment - once in a while. We're much more likely to share your client's information (especially in a pinch) if we feel that we're appreciated.

Do you have any tips to add? Share them in the comments below!

-Sarah Conley, StyleITOnline.com

[fromourinbox]

Advertising: What's a text link?

(click photo to enlarge)

If you’ve had a blog for any amount of time, you’ve likely received an email from someone asking you to review a product, host a giveaway or add a text link within an existing article, requesting that specific keywords link to a specific URL. These links are part of a broad SEO strategy, designed to boost that site’s ranking within search engines for those specific terms. Guess what? That link is worth money. 

Should you trade text links for money? On one hand, those advertising dollars sure could come in handy. On the other, those text links will lower your page rank in Google (not sure what your rank is? Use Google’s Page Rank Checker). The higher your Page Rank, the more likely your site is to appear within the first few search results. Page Ranks of 4 or higher are generally considered good. 

Whether or not selling text links is the right decision for your site is an entirely personal choice, however don’t be taken advantage of by companies looking to boost their SEO ranking by trading a link for a free moisturizer giveaway (trust me, it’s happened) in exchange. 

When you’re asked to do a specific action (ie, linking specific keywords to a specific URL), be sure to ask what the motivation behind the request is and what you’re getting out of the exchange.

-Sarah Conley, StyleITOnline.com