Today we're going to talk with you guys about tips and advice
for seeding your content to blogs with a pro blogger
himself.
That's coming up.
Our personal bubble is just a little bit too small,
right now.
Hey guys, my name is Tim Schmoyer,
and this is Alan Van, from New Media Rockstars.
What's your role, and position there?
I'm the editor in chief there.
And what's the site all about?
What do you guys write about?
We write about online video, lots of YouTube,
internet culture, fun things, funny things, tutorials,
et cetera, et cetera.
Great site.
I read it very regularly.
So we want to talk to you guys about when
you seed your content, you know it's great to promote it,
to send it out to bloggers, and influencers.
And Alan, do you get a lot of people
trying to seed their content to you?
How should they approach you when they send you
those emails, and such?
They should approach bearing gifts.
That's the number one way to get our attention at NMR, for sure.
Complements-- we bloggers are very hungry and starving.
We'll take anything we can get.
Our egos are constantly being squashed,
so we love it when people raise us up.
Honestly, though, I think that when
you're seeding a video, whatever, I think first,
you should know the site.
What is the site that you're sending it to?
What is their tone?
How do they cover things?
So if you send, I don't know, some kind
of documentary video to NMR, we're
probably a little less likely to cover that.
So you guys have like a little sarcastic type of humor
involved, so when they write you, in the email,
the email might be helpful if it's a little sarcastic,
is that what you're saying?
Content-- I think that what it is,
because we get a lot of emails that are really
just kind of like I can tell that they're uniform,
that you basically send it out to everybody.
Right.
You send it to BuzzFeed, you send it to NMR,
you send it out to everything.
So you should definitely address NMR, or whoever
you're wanting to send it to at NMR.
And say hey, I think you'd love this video
because you guys cover funny videos that have gone viral.
You guys covered this my previous video and this one's
doing even better.
So it's got to be kind of customized to us, and yeah.
I notice like when people send me emails,
they wanted me to plug and promote their stuff,
you can tell from the copy and paste email,
because sometimes like they'll have a copy and paste email,
but they'll just change the first couple sentences.
And I can tell because the font size is different.
So a lot of times like when they copy when they paste it
back into another email, like the font size will
be like one point smaller, or one point larger, or just
doesn't fit right.
So just like be genuine, right?
Unique emails for each person.
Don't like the copy and paste thing, just isn't cool.
So anything else they should do when they approach you?
How long should the message be, how short should it be?
Should they include the URL to the video?
Should they just reach out for a relationship
first before even promoting-- what else?
You know, honestly, one big tip and this is like basic,
but really, if you're writing to New Media Rockstars
or whoever you're writing to, make
sure you spell the name correctly.
Because I get a lot of emails that are like Dear New Media
Rockstars, Dear NMN, or just something that is completely
like oh, what is this?
I'm not going to pay attention to that.
But really the email, I think it should be pretty short,
because honestly we go through so many emails.
We get so many submissions that when it's long,
you just kind of tune out.
It's the same way when you're reading articles
when you see a ton of text, you're
probably like oh my gosh, short attention span!
I got to go watch youtube video right now.
So you want to keep it short.
You want to the point.
You want to know what are the selling points to NMR,
or whatever the publication is that you're sending it to.
And sell them on that quickly.
Obviously don't spam.
I would send the first email out, and then
wait a couple days, a few days later to send the second one.
Obviously, we're not kind enough to have an automated system
we're like oh yeah, we got your email.
We saw it, but we're just not that interested.
Thanks for reading.
We just don't reply, because we ain't that great.
So if you don't hear response, don't get personally offended.
Your next video, if it's got something noteworthy, if it's
relevant, it's timely, send the video.
And obviously, another thing too, is a lot of people
send submissions, and they're always like oh,
do you want to check this out?
I'm not-- just put the link to the video in the email.
Put it right there, and we'll go check it out.
Don't ask us, because then we have to reply and be like yes,
and who knows what else there is?
One thing that I found is you got
to send-- you mentioned this, relevance--
but like if you're going to send it to me, for example.
Like sending me your comedy video, or your cooking video,
like I'm sure it's nice, but like it
has to have some sort of value for the audience,
like in my case for video creators or for his case,
people in the industry.
Or, just whoever you're reaching out to,
like the video has to be relevant to their audience,
in order for them to share it.
I think like sometimes too, we get emails
and it makes me feel bad, because they're always
like oh, you have to check out this video,
because we worked really, really, really hard on it.
And to be honest, you working really,
really hard on it is just not a selling
point, because everybody works really,
really hard on their videos, I hope.
So yeah, just like Tim said, you've
got to have a selling point.
You've got to know who our audience is.
You've got to know what our voices are like.
And you have to sell it to us on our terms,
on our readers terms.
Great.
I want to hear from you guys in the comments below, as always.
I know a lot you guys have been very successful with this,
and if you have, I'd love for you
guys to share that wisdom and insight with the rest of us.
Make sure you go check out New Media Rockstars dot com,
I put a link to them in the description text below.
Go check it out.
If this is your first time here, I'd love to have you subscribe.
Every week we do tips just like this just to help you guys out.
And then on, let's see, we also do YouTube Q&A with you
guys on Thursdays.
And then on Wednesdays, YouTube News
just to keep you up to date with what's
happening in the industry.
And again, New Media Rockstars is
where I get a lot of that information,
so go check it out.
And I will see you guys again next week.
Bye.
Remember to send me complements, even if they're insincere.
I'll even take those.
Alan's the best.