Deirdre Breakenridge: Scribnia for Discovering and Rating Bloggers

I met David Spinks (@davidspinks) in May at the PRSA Digital Impact Conference in New York City. I felt like I already knew David just through our interactions on Twitter. After meeting him IRL and learning about his company, Scribnia, I thought it would be interesting to have a Q&A with him to find out more about an organization that helps PR professionals find and rate bloggers.

A little bit about David … he is the Community Manager for Scribnia (where readers can review and discover online authors and bloggers) and he is also the co-founder of the #u30pro with Lauren Fernandez (@cubanalaf), a dynamic chat session on Twitter that takes place on Thursday nights at 7:00 p.m. EST.

Here’s my Q&A with David:

Q. Tell me a little bit about how Scribnia started?

A. Scribnia was started by Russell D’Souza and Jack Groetzinger in 2009 based on a simple idea: There were a ton of bloggers and other writers online, but there was no where for readers to share their opinions of their writing. We wanted to provide a platform where readers could share the writers they love and hate with each other, discover new writers and learn of a writer’s biases and focuses from their readers. We launched Scribnia while participating in the DreamIt program in Philadelphia in the summer of 09. The company has since been sold, revamped and relaunched under the ownership of the new CEO, Marc Duquette.

Q. How do you think Scribnia will help PR professionals in their blogger relations programs?

A. You’ll find influential writers on Scribnia that you often wouldn’t find anywhere else because of how our content and rankings are generated…100% crowdsourced by readers.

Agencies like Porter Novelli and SHIFT Communications have already started to use Scribnia in their regular outreach programs.

Unlike other tools that PR professionals use, Scribnia allows you to find the bloggers that are specifically suitable for the audience you’re trying to reach. For example, say your client is selling baby bottles, and you need to find mom-bloggers who focus on newborns, rather than adolescents. You can use Scribnia to filter down to the writers that are writing for your specific audience…in this example, mothers with newborn babies.

(If it helps, here’s a quick video showing you how to use the Scribnia filters to find writers based on their specific focuses:

http://scribnia.com/blog/2010/04/28/video-how-to-find-influential-writers-niche-scribnia/)

Additionally, what you’ll find unique with Scribnia, is that since we rank writers 100% based on reader reviews, it’s not always the “A-List” bloggers you see first, like you do on sites like Alltop or Technorati. There’s only one way to be found on Scribnia, and that’s by writing well and engaging with your readers… two things that are important for blogger outreach campaigns.

We are working on adding a number of new functions that will make the blogger outreach process much easier, and more efficient for PR pros as well as for bloggers…so stay tuned.

Q. How are you growing the Scribnia community?

A. As a blogging focused site, it’s very important for us to be present in blogging communities across the web. We are constantly on Twitter (@Scribnia) responding to bloggers with questions, participating in lively chats like blogchat, journchat, and sharing posts from the amazing bloggers that we come across within the Scribnia community. We also participate on blogging forums, ning networks, and anywhere else where we can meet and engage with bloggers on the web. We’re also very fortunate to have power users that have been supporting us from the start. Without them, we wouldn’t be here today.

A lot of our growth is also due to how the site works. Any user can add a writer to the site…even without the writer’s knowledge. Bloggers typically are interested in what their readers and others have to say about them, so when they see that people are talking about them and reviewing them on Scribnia, they’re inclined to come check us out. That’s where I come in to engage with them, see what we can do to help, and hopefully earn their trust and support over time.

Q. What are some of the most helpful features or ways people are interacting on the site?

A. Most of the interaction that goes on is between bloggers and their readers. Often, readers will review a writer, and the writer will comment with a response to the review. It’s a great way for readers to provide feedback on a writer’s work in a way that they just couldn’t do in blog comments or on an open platform like Twitter. It’s a dedicated feedback platform.

We actually make it possible for that interaction to occur on blogger’s own sites using the “Scribnia Review Widget”. This widget allows readers to read, and write reviews of the blogger, right on their blog without ever having to leave their site.

Another big function of our site is recommendations. We take pride in being able to provide highly personalized recommendations to users. We do this in two ways:

1) Your friends. You can find all of your friends who are using Scribnia easily by connecting your Facebook, Twitter, and other accounts. Once you’re connected on Scribnia, you can easily click “Recommend” on any writer’s page, and choose which friends you’d like to recommend the writer to. So, if I find this really sweet cooking blog, and I know my friend is big into cooking, I can recommend the writer to them and it will appear on their recommendations page.

2) When a user reviews a number of writers (set at 5 right now), we can learn of their tastes in writers. I won’t go into too much detail, but we use the focus/bias filters that I discussed earlier, to match you with writers that have focuses that you tend to rate highly. So, for example, if you’re into marketing, and you tend to give a higher rating to writers who write about “low budget” approaches to marketing campaigns, we can recommend other writers who share that same focus.

Q. What’s next for Scribnia?

Well we plan to be bigger than Google by 2011 by upping our SEO efforts. (bwaha…ha…)

But seriously, we just hope to keep the site and community growing. It’s been amazing so far, and we know the more great writers we get involved, the more valuable our site becomes for readers, writers, and businesses.

As far as features go, we’re constantly building and improving. A number of new widgets will be available soon that bloggers will be able to customize for their site.

We’re also exploring and developing a few avenues to make that money. To this point, we’ve really just focused on building up the community and content...Deirdre Breakenridge

Deirdre Breakenridge: Social Media from the Inside Out

I recently participated in a webinar for the Ocala Chapter of the Florida Public Relations Association. My topic was building social media into your business plan. Social media is a game changer for businesses and as a result companies are rethinking resources (people), process and technology . And, with employees engaging in the social landscape many companies have finally realized the necessity for policies and guidelines. My video discusses several question that executives should ask about their own organizations, with the first one being: Just because you have a social media policy, does this mean that all of your employees actually want to participate in social media?Deirdre Breakenridge

Deirdre Breakenridge: My PR Advice to the Class of 2010

I thought one of the most important questions during the Wednesday night #PRStudchat Celebration of the Class of 2010 was, “What is your advice to the Class of 2010.” The response was overwhelming and advice was offered that touched on everything from how to network and excel in your career to PR accountability and ethics.

There were three special Graduation Speakers who took part in the celebration and I want to not only thank them personally for their participation, but also highlight their great advice.

First, @laermer, @PRsarahevans and @BrianSolis, thank you for your contribution to our #PRstudchat graduation. Your words of wisdom were deeply appreciated by our community.

Here’s what our Graduation Speakers had to say:

@laermer:

Believe in your own abilities. A lot of people think somehow others will ‘notice them’ but you have to show em. #prstudchat

Q3 Take a break from work every day. Even if you don’t think you need it. (Like a cleaning at the dentist==yearly.)

@PRSarahEvans:

The best advice I received as a new pro, “work like you’re not afraid to be fired.” I’ve kept it w/ me .. #prstudchat

You are not lesser than anyone in an organization because of experience. You bring valuable skills, creativity and promise! #prstudchat

@BrianSolis:

The distance between who I am & who I want to be is separated only by my actions & words http://bit.ly/a3tMKn #PRStudchat

I, too, offered advice to the students and it was short and sweet, although I have a lot more to say. My tweet said:

“Listen, learn and practice, then give back to the community!”

This little piece of advice is what I’ve done throughout my entire career (even as student and then as an intern). Let’s start with “Listen.” My very first mentor talked to me about listening. He said, “If you listen long and hard you will do very well in this business.” Of course, we talk a lot about listening today in the social sphere and it’s tremendous importance. But, when I say listen, I mean to all types of conversations, everywhere and in every situation. I started to hone my listening skills early on by writing everything down in company meetings, during phone conversations and when interacting with clients (I had a yellow pad and/or a notebook practically attached to me).

I found out quickly that listening takes time and requires great skills. It’s true that we only retain a small percentage of what we hear. I believe that sometimes when we think we’re listening, we’re really thinking about the next thing that we want to say or contribute to the discussion. Once that happens, we automatically stop listening. Hold that thought, wait and listen some more. It’s only when you are really listening that you can offer advice. You must have a complete picture in your mind and it has to match what’s being said, with all the pieces to analyze, in order to solve a challenge. If we only listen partially and then act too quickly, our solutions may end up purely reactive and temporary. Sometimes listening means sitting back and connecting the dots.

Listening also means “hearing” when no one else is paying attention. There were times, in the past, when I would be in a meeting and an executive would go on and on about a topic. Other employees would joke, “How many times are we going to hear this?” I figured out that if I could find the meaning in the repetition, while others were complaining (doodling or planning their shopping lists), then I would pick up some valuable knowledge about that executive or the message that he/she was really trying to get across to the team, even if it appeared repetitive. Note: The executive suite is looking for real listeners, who can interpret and solve their issues.

The “Learn” part of my advice for the Class of 2010 is what I call “the climb.” If I can offer any advice here, it’s don’t neglect that climb. There’s a reason why your supervisor wants you learn the ins and outs of day-to-day PR life or the nitty, gritty details of a new office software program (even if it appears to be mundane or busy work) or why that same supervisor sends you whitepapers and countless documents for you to review. Soak it all up and learn as much as you can. There’s also genuine logic as to why junior people start with research and monitoring (this used to be compiling the clip books) and helping with news releases and media alerts to hone their writing skills (of course, not the fluffy releases, but the really good stories). Your higher ups are not trying to punish you (whether it’s a manager or an executive), when they want you to know everything about PR. It’s the climb that teaches you and prepares you for everything that you’re about to experience.

I’ve always believed that you have to experience and master something yourself before you can teach someone else. When I put the pieces together about my own climb, there was a reason I enthusiastically set up our small NYC office every morning, before the executives arrived. I’m thankful that my office manager showed me what to do because I knew exactly what to do when it came time to run my own office, and when I had to show someone else. So many want to race past the climb to advance to a higher level, to take part in the strategy and present at the big client pitch. Whether it’s climbing the corporate ladder or moving up in rank at your agency, I still believe that it’s critical to learn all the steps in between and experience what you are going to be managing and/or supervising in the years to come.

The “Practice” part of my advice will never stop in your career. As PR is constantly changing, you always have to roll up your sleeves to be a part of the team to embrace a client’s challenges (getting involved in an account way beyond just the strategy and planning). The opportunity to practice every moving part should never leave you. Although you will grow in your career, with new approaches and the blending of PR, social media, marketing and Web, you may find yourself in the “trenches” with the team more often. This enables you to move to the next part of my advice, which is the “give back the most updated information to your community”. If you don’t continually experience all of the changes (especially the technology), and how they affect your client’s as well as your own brands, then how do you know what really needs to be set in place to be successful in today’s marketplace. By continuing to practice the very latest techniques (and I do mean by doing it yourself and working closely with your team) you will stay on top of your game and always be a valued asset in your organization.

Lastly, my advice focuses on giving back to the community. As you reach new PR heights, reflect on all of those special professionals who have helped you and in the spirit of community, and for all that you’ve received, take the very same approach. As you get, always give back, and the cycle will continue with someone else.

I wish all of the graduates the best of luck in their PR endeavors! Do you have any more advice for the Class of 2010? Deirdre Breakenridge

Deirdre Breakenridge: Groundswell Book Review: Part I

This is a first for me, the book review in two parts. I found so much useful information in the book Groundswell by Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff that I thought it would be best to break the review in two. Now I know why this book is a BusinessWeek bestseller and when I mentioned that I was going to read Groundswell my community on Twitter told me how much I would enjoy the book. Thank you Twitter friends, you were right! Tapping into the Groundswell is a great experience and I want to share my thoughts with you.

As I read through the chapters I found myself saying, “I can’t believe I haven’t read this book.” Here’s my first bit of advice to you. If you haven’t already, go and pick up this book or if it’s available on Kindle, then you should download a copy...Deirdre Breakenridge