Kent writes on the subject of getting a blogger’s attention with five suggestions:

1. Develop a relationship with the blogger before you email
2. Don’t just start sending indiscriminate emails to people who don’t know you and expect to get link love in return
3. Be brief, kind and appreciative.
4. State why the post might be of interest to the recipient.
5. Be patient.

Those are good suggestions, but there are at least three major things I’d like to add to Kent’s list.

6. Contact people the way they prefer to be contacted
Kent’s list assumes email is cool and that might not be with everybody. Email is more passive than IM and voice contact so timing there isn’t as important (it still is though, keep reading). We’re human beings and like to be contacted at the right time and place, preferably not be interupted in the middle of something important. The problem for those doing the contacting is how to know when is a good time to send an IM? Answer: very carefully. I would adhere to Kent’s #3 suggestion when contacting anybody via IM: be brief, kind and appreciative.

7. Be sure the person hasn’t already written about the same thing (and if s/he did, that you linked to the person and your post adds something new/different/unique to their post)
If you contact me and say: look I just found this super cool link and it’s something you might like. And if it happens to be something I’ve already written about — and reviewed — hours, days, weeks, months or [gasp] years ago and you chose not to link to my post, if I respond at all it would probably be a link to my prior post saying something like: “hey, did you read this?”

Frankly, I think it’s rude to ask a blogger to look at what you’ve written/created and not to have known they have already seen and written about the same thing. Use their blog search and see if you can find anything before you approach the blogger and add an update to your post with their thoughts so they know you took the time to research.

It is true that you might have some compelling twist or new information on the topic/news/link which the blogger might be interested but I know of very few bloggers who want to be asked to check out something where no new/different/unique information is provided — trackbacks excluded — when they’ve already looked at/reviewed or commented on the same thing in detail.

8. Random selfless acts communicated separately
It can be a brief compliment on something the blogger has done (really interesting post, link, design, script), a thank you for something cool the blogger has shared, a friendly correction or bug report for their site, etc.

Recently I contacted Chris Pirillo via Skype to compliment him on blaugh.com. I’ve been critical of some of Pirillo’s other online launches but I really like these daily Blaugh comics. I also like that people can put them on their blogs too like I’m doing below. That’s very smart viral marketing and it’s working for them. My message to Chris was a single brief sentence thanking him for blaugh. Nothing more. In fact, when you do #8 do not mix in a “BTW, here’s something of mine …” (selfish). Just get in, compliment, and get out. No brownnosers though, make it heartfelt and keep it real.

I don’t know of anybody who dislikes receiving compliments via IM.

Watch out for preferred contact methods that change
The method of how a person prefers to be contacted can be a moving target so you do have to do a little research to see how people prefer to be contacted when you are ready to send them something you think will be of interest, not just assume the last time you contacted is still their preferred method. Thing might have changed.

A couple examples. First, what if the blogger is on vacation? [Note: if you are reading this shortly after it was published, I’m on vacation right now] It’s lousy timing sharing stuff like your blog post with someone who has limited time to access the web (unless they blog it otherwise, of course) during a vacation, unless it would be something relevant to their vacation, I suppose. If anything that’s probably a good time not to contact somebody because when they get back in the office they are going to have to go through tons of messages. Be careful adding to the vacation return load.

Second example, I wrote about my preferred contact methods on April 1st, 2005 (April Fool’s day, a lousy day to do anything serious, doh!) and Second Life was not a preferred contact method of mine then. I wasn’t even a Second Life Resident until December 31, 2005. Also, voice was a preferred method back then but isn’t as of this writing unless it is for specific business purposes (script/programming-related). Part of the reason it’s that way currently is because I’m nervous how Skype will be used by the internet world at large when always connected. With other IM networks, I’ve found that being always connected can lead to more noise than signal, but so far the experiment is working well. If it’s not a big change from what we’ve been used to with Vonage, then voice again will become a preferred contact method on my next update (hopefully not a year plus from now). IRC chat isn’t listed below either. Perhaps because SL has become more of an idler than IRC for me.

You can compare the list of preferred contact methods to the one below.

How to get my attention
As of this writing, my most preferred methods of contact (in order of preference):

1. A comment or two-way trackback to a related post on this blog. There are thousands of posts covering a wide range of topics here and 99.5% of them are open for commenting/trackback. I do not close old posts to comments/trackbacks unless there is a very good reason, so show me that you’ve actually read/researched something here before hitting me with a link I might have already covered. Use the Hmm search first to make sure you comment on the most recent and relevant post. By two-way trackback I mean that if you send a trackback ping one of the first things I will look for on the page is a link back. I rarely like or appreciate receiving one-way trackbacks from anybody. It’s selfish. If you want me to look at and maybe write about and link to something you’ve written/created, then take a minute or two and make sure that I haven’t already written about the same thing.

Tip: You can also send me a private message through the blog comments form below. This would be something you do not want the whole world to see, just me. To do that, just add the word PRIVATE! as the very first word in the post and add a few random characters to your name. Since all first time posts are moderated this is a good way to send me a private message.

2. via RSS using my name or relevant website name. Link to me and/or mention my name “TDavid” somewhere and I’ll see it most likely). Example, Gerald linked to me Friday referencing my concerns about the environment. In a few words, he illustrated he remembered a concern of mine. This works well for me.
3. An IM inside Second Life. I am currently deeply involved in trying to figure out how to blend our online business with SL. Therefore, this opens the door for other bloggers with similar interests to contact me through SL. One of my friends started blogging recently for a blog network about SL and we talk occasionally about bloggable topics. I’ve talked to Eric Rice more in SL than in Skype, although I have him in both contact areas. We’ve exchanged a few links on some posts. I’m pretty sure if he was doing something cool he’d IM me in SL. He let me know about the first SL Barcamp and it was welcomed. Hopefully the feeling is mutual.
4. A brief Skype IM. Now that our office is using full time Skype VoIP this means we can be contacted via IM or voice using Skype. My preference is IM for short things like here’s a link. It’s hard to give a link using voice (”read that URL to me” is clumsy) and if someone Skypes me with voice to say they have something to show me I’m just going to ask them to send me the link via Skype chat anyway. No need to waste either of our time, just hit me up in the chat with the following information:

A) hello, and who you are (if I don’t already know you of course). If you read/use one of our websites/services then mention that briefly. It always scores points when you mention something we are doing on one of our sites — but only if it’s related to your message or contact somehow.
B) briefly why I might be interested in what you’ve written about on your blog (#4 on Kent’s list).
C) wait for me to ask for the link. A link by itself without A and B is going to seem spammy to me in the majority of cases. If what you ask from me is interesting, I’ll write back and say: link? or something to that effect. Don’t just send me links with no other explanation if I don’t already know who you are. The rules change for people I know, trust and have communicated with before. Those folks can skip A & B. I know they aren’t going to spam me. Even with them though it’s still nice to get at least a “hello.”

Note that none of the options above mention email. These days I consider email and phone calls for primarily business use and while sharing with me something cool you are doing on your blog or found might be business oriented, it’s my preference to receive this communication in one of the four other ways mentioned above.

The problem with email is it continues to be a mostly broken method of communication. With our intense spam filtering false positives are much more likely to occur than these other methods of contact which means you might have something to share I’m very interested in learning about and never see it thanks to some anti-spam measure. The other day I was trying to troubleshoot a problem with spammers with our hosting company attacking one of our servers and my support emails explaining the situation were being bounced for spam.

One final bonus suggestion I’d make about whatever post or link you are taking the extra time to contact someone about:

9. Be sure it is among your best stuff and in the blogger’s field of interest
If you are going to make that leap into a potentially gray area contacting a blogger about something you’ve written/created then by all means do not have it be with something unspectacular. Make sure it’s clearly among your best stuff and in the blogger’s area of interest. Sending a tech blogger links to stories about animals would be ill-advised unless you know for a fact they like animal stories. If you’re peddling a link to a third party site then don’t waste our time on something lame.

Best of luck snagging your favorite blogger’s attention, but luck won’t be needed if you’ve done a little homework first.

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