her able hands

Hey, do you see that little button over in the sidebar that says “Get Me Blogging”? Let me tell you a little bit about it. You see, Dawn, who works really hard in the blogging world, started up a PR site for bloggers called Get Them Blogging. She used Drupal and built the site herself with the support of the Drupal community. Maybe that doesn’t mean anything to you, but I’ve been playing around with the idea of creating a web community for garden and food lovers and writers and the layers of coding that has to go on to make it seamless gives me a big headache. I’m super impressed with what Dawn’s accomplished.

So rather than paraphrase what’s already spelled out so clearly, let me just quote directly from the Get Them Blogging FAQ.

What is Get Them Blogging?
Get Them Blogging is a categorical database for the PR industry. It lists blogs and bloggers who are interested in reviewing new products and services on their blogs.

What does PR stand for?
PR stands for public relations. PR and marketing people are the ones who put together campaigns to sell products and services. If you see the host of your favorite morning show interviewing an actress about her new movie or doing a story on a great new cleaning supply, somebody’s PR machine got that story on there.

Why would a PR person care about my blog?
Savvy marketing people are learning that blogs are an easy way to get their products and services into the hands of their target audience. It’s a great way to get feedback, to create word-of-mouth buzz, or to improve their site’s page rank with search engines.

How do PR people contact me?
When you add your blog listing or blogger profile to the database there will be a link at the bottom that says “write to author.” If a PR person wants to include you in his or her blog campaign, they will send you a private message through our system. If you asked our system to email you when you receive a new private message when you created your account, you’ll get a notification email. It’s a good idea to set the system to email you so you never miss a review opportunity! Also be sure that “admin@getthemblogging.org” isn’t ending up in your spam folder. If you’re interested in reviewing the product or service, can reply via private message with your contact information.

How do I let them know I’m not interested?
You don’t need to do a thing. PR people will only have your contact information if you give it to them.

How will PR people send me their stuff?
If you are interested in reviewing something then you will need to share your contact info — likely your name and address — with them. Again, you do NOT need to share your contact info with Get Them Blogging! staff and you do not need to share it with any PR person with whom you are not interested in working.

Pretty cool, right? So bloggers! Dawn would love to get more bloggers registered in the database. It’s easy-peasy, free and no obligation. You might get the opportunity to try out and review (honestly) a product you’ve thought about buying before, but haven’t.

You shouldn’t worry about being a blogger with a small readership, either. That’s not an issue. Don’t believe me? Read this. Makes perfect sense to me.

Now I’m just waiting for the people promoting the cool new garden tools to contact me. I’ll be all over those like mud on feet.