Made a Pitch Lately? PR Web 2.0

I've been hinting a lot lately at the necessity for companies to promote their products to the blogosphere and it's influential authors. Slowly but surely I am discovering just how this phenomenon is continuing to develop. While the tools for promoting products over the internet are still being changed and implemented, PR Professional Todd Defren has some great insight on current tactics being used.

Tagging is the obvious way to keep people in the loop. Technorati, del.icio.us, and RSS feeds offer great opportunities for just that. However, sometimes companies want to be more explicit than that. So, what are their options?

In an earlier post, Todd talks about Trailfire, a service that allows users to create a "trail" to help reporters interested in their story find "relevant research" to their "pitch." However, the latest service available that is really intriguing is that of PitchWire. This is the first community set up to purposely connect "Influencers" and "Publicists" (We all knew this couldn't be far away). The key thing to watch is whether or not this will actually catch on in the blogosphere community.


In addition to mainstream companies promoting themselves, there are also increasing resources for smaller companies, organizations, and even individuals to distribute social media press releases to the general public. Posting on this earlier in the week, Todd points us to PRNN, a press release distributor that makes it affordable for anyone (just $25 per release). In addition, they make their services available one time for free in Second Life!

Regardless of how these services continue to expand and develop, I think it's going to be essential for companies to utilize them. The blogosphere and social networks are powerful tools for product promotion, and if one company doesn't take advantage of the opportunities there, you can be sure another will.