K Street Cafe

Cross-posted from No Straw Men

Why you should host one, and how to do it

Bloggers’ roundtables have been around for a while. They’re especially popular for book clubs, with the Department of Defense, and among politicians. (One wag asked John McCain if he knew the difference between YouTube and MySpace.)

Yet roundtables never really took off as a form of outreach. That’s too bad, because as a vehicle to engage many stakeholders at once, roundtables can be as effective, if not more so, than their headline-grabbing cousins, Twitter and Facebook.

What is a bloggers’ roundtable? Technically, it’s a conference call. Figuratively, it’s a virtual press conference or editorial board meeting. Instead of standing at a podium, the speakers sit by a speakerphone, while the audience—the bloggers—dial into a conference line.

When is a bloggers’ roundtable useful? A roundtable works best when you want to share your story with a small, engaged group; when you want thoughtful feedback; and when you want substantive write-ups. (“Small” can range from a car-full of people to a dinner party to an NFL team.) The conversation is more intimate than a live chat, the invitation is more prestigious than a tweet or Facebook update, and the whole thing is more fun than an e-mail. (more…)

Mention the phrase “blogger engagement” to today’s marketer, and you’re likely to get an eager response, followed by self-professed ignorance. “We’d love to do that—we just don’t know how.”

To some, this scenario spells new business. (In part, this explains why many agencies separate their “digital” practice from their traditional ones.)

Yet an honest blogger whisperer will let you in on a secret: If you can pitch a reporter, producer, or booker, you can pitch a blogger. After all, bloggers are just people—susceptible to the same charm-and-disarm techniques that every PR pro performs every day.

Indeed, the best way to understand bloggers is to view them as members of the media. Think of blogger engagement as public relations, albeit a new kind. Neither straight reporter nor pure pundit, the blogger is a hybrid creature who observes his own rules.

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Do Lawmakers’ Texts During Public Meetings Become Public Documents? (Tech President)
Cities and towns nationwide are grappling with this question.

Connecting with the Super Bloggers – Think Content
(Business 2 Community)
Instead of “pitching” PR-style to super bloggers with press releases, focus on leveraging your own content.

The Convergence of Search and Social (ClickZ)
Search engines are becoming like social networks and vice versa. Learn what this means for your digital marketing efforts.

8 ways not to pitch a blogger (Ragan)
Capture the attention of bloggers by avoiding these 8 mistakes.

The White House and Chinese Bloggers (Tech President)
Last week, the Obama White House rolled out a live videoconference hook-up between National Security Council officials and Chinese bloggers.

The Obama White House’s Full-Internet SOTU Press
(Tech President)
The White House will have many ways one can connect digitally with Administration officials about Tuesday night’s State of the Union address.

An inaugural post is always hard lame odd. So I’ll spare you the James Stockdale introduction and just get to it.

One of the reasons you might be here at K Street Café is to get a better understanding of the power of the “network of networks” and tap into the new tactics of the old game.

Understanding the how and why of this new world is important.  So, with apologies to the Kennedy family, ask not what the internet can do for you, ask how it is changing the balance of power in the influence game.

To get a better understanding of how these emerging networks of linked citizens is changing that balance, my humble suggestion is to start by reading The Cluetrain Manifesto. It has long been required reading for bloggers, it’s time others glean from its lessons, too.

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