SAI, former VentureBeat reporter here, few observations:
1) What is Buffer? If I don't know what the company does, I'm going to pass it off to the tips folder and it will probably die in obscurity.
2) The "saw the post you wrote yesterday" is not the approach you want. I cover social games — be aware that I cover social games and make it relevant to that. Reading my last three posts is not enough to tailor a pitch, because we write about a lot of things and they aren't all necessarily on our beat.
3) Seriously, introduce yourself. Don't do it with a pitch — let me know who you are and what you do. We do Q&As all the time with companies that have no news. You are 100x more likely to get published if I know who you are, what you do and why what you are doing is important.
4) How does this relate to normals? Most Twitter users don't actually Tweet. This is useful to me, but not necessarily my readers — who are of utmost importance to me.
5) Know the publication you are pitching. Blind pitching everyone is a waste of time — if you are a social game developer, go for Inside Social, GamesBeat, TechCrunch, etc. Fast Company is not going to listen to you.
6) We have to rush through literally hundreds of pitches each day. Just because we phrased something differently than you'd like, if it is still factually accurate, you're going to upset a reporter if you try to nitpick on wording. I once encountered a PR person that was yelling at me because I didn't call an online deals site a "mobile platform" and, instead, an "online deals site."
7) Also, we do want to know what you think. Entrepreneur and founder input is valuable in just about any story. If some big news happens — Steve Jobs resigns, for example — let us know what you think. When Jobs passed away, the first person I heard from was Box.net's Aaron Levie, who told me it was such a gargantuan loss and he was basically his idol and what made him want to become an entrepreneur. That, in of itself, is a story because Levie is running a company with a val of more than $500 million.
8) Don't be afraid to have a personal relationship with reporters — we aren't going to screw you, because blowing a relationship is worthless in this industry.
1) What is Buffer? If I don't know what the company does, I'm going to pass it off to the tips folder and it will probably die in obscurity.
2) The "saw the post you wrote yesterday" is not the approach you want. I cover social games — be aware that I cover social games and make it relevant to that. Reading my last three posts is not enough to tailor a pitch, because we write about a lot of things and they aren't all necessarily on our beat.
3) Seriously, introduce yourself. Don't do it with a pitch — let me know who you are and what you do. We do Q&As all the time with companies that have no news. You are 100x more likely to get published if I know who you are, what you do and why what you are doing is important.
4) How does this relate to normals? Most Twitter users don't actually Tweet. This is useful to me, but not necessarily my readers — who are of utmost importance to me.
5) Know the publication you are pitching. Blind pitching everyone is a waste of time — if you are a social game developer, go for Inside Social, GamesBeat, TechCrunch, etc. Fast Company is not going to listen to you.
6) We have to rush through literally hundreds of pitches each day. Just because we phrased something differently than you'd like, if it is still factually accurate, you're going to upset a reporter if you try to nitpick on wording. I once encountered a PR person that was yelling at me because I didn't call an online deals site a "mobile platform" and, instead, an "online deals site."
7) Also, we do want to know what you think. Entrepreneur and founder input is valuable in just about any story. If some big news happens — Steve Jobs resigns, for example — let us know what you think. When Jobs passed away, the first person I heard from was Box.net's Aaron Levie, who told me it was such a gargantuan loss and he was basically his idol and what made him want to become an entrepreneur. That, in of itself, is a story because Levie is running a company with a val of more than $500 million.
8) Don't be afraid to have a personal relationship with reporters — we aren't going to screw you, because blowing a relationship is worthless in this industry.
I'll add more as I think of it.