Getting Political

In an article in the Charleston (SC) Post & Courier today, the reporter notes a well-known political blogger lauds South Carolina Senator Jim DeMint as the most Web savvy U.S. senator. Kudos!

DeMint, who previously owned a market research company, obviously understands the power of PR and marketing and has tapped the power of the Web to further spread messages on issues he he’s supporting. He notes he regularly sends email press releases and pitches bloggers (the likes of the infamous Matt Drudge) and ultimately sees his messages end up in the mainstream media.

“When these radio talk show hosts come in, they’ll sit there for 30 minutes reading the blogs before they go on the air. It used to be the newspaper, but now it’s the blogs,” says DeMint in the article.

It’s true that journalists nowadays scour the Web for information and story ideas. If you can get your message out there and get bloggers to write about you, it’s very likely you’ll end up in traditional media as well. And the reverse is true too — if you secure a major story in the media, bloggers will jump on that and write about it too (exactly what I am doing here).

Case in point: a Wall Street Journal article in its small business section noted a man who sold bean bag chairs and who hadn’t been successful with his business. On a whim, he sent a pitch to the write of Engadget.com, a popular technology blog, who didn’t write about him, but traded advertising on the blog for some free chairs. What do you know? Within 48 hours, the editor of Playboy saw the ad and wrote about him in the magazine, after which he sold 500 chairs within a week. Pretty powerful stuff.

So whether it’s politics or bean bag chairs, don’t forget about the Web when it’s time to spread your message.