As our society moves away from traditional media and we begin to go to web-based resources for our news and entertainment needs, the public relations game is shifting as well. Connecting to online sources such as blogs is now an important aspect of many public relations campaigns.

If you’re thinking of using blogger outreach for your business, here’s my quick primer on how to approach this tactic.

Qualify blogs based on their audience
There are over 200,000,000 blogs on the WWW and the vast majority have little to no following. Not to say that more is always better (if what you are marketing is a very niche product then that niche blogger with a small but loyal following could be an incredibly effective media outlet) but in general, a decent size audience is important. The other thing that I think should be obvious is that the blog’s audience should directly correspond to the target market of whatever it is you are marketing.

Read the blog
This is also part of the qualifying step because there is nothing worse for a blogger than to have to waste time going through pitches that aren’t relevant to their blog or their audience. Engaging through comments or on twitter is also a good way to start to build a relationship with the bloggers you are hoping to gain coverage from.

Location-based advertising (LBA) as defined by Wikipedia is “a new form of marketing communication that uses location-tracking technology in mobile networks to target consumers with location-specific advertising on their mobile devices”. Recently, a slew of location-based social networks have been creating a buzz including Gowalla, Loopt, Yelp, MyTown and, most notably, Foursquare which has rapidly grown to almost one million members.

As marketers, any time there is a large gathering of people, be it online or offline, our ears perk up and we take notice. Like the little capitalists we are, we rub our hands together and ask ourselves: “how can we use this to promote business growth”?

As it happens, location-based media makes it easy for us by offering several options for businesses and, with a range of levels of involvement to commit to, most businesses can benefit from getting involved. Here is our list of how you can get your hot little hands into the action.

1. Get Listed
Whether or not you plan to fully embrace lo-so (that’s location-based social networking), you really should take a few minutes to make sure your business is listed correctly in the most popular sites. This delivers two benefits. The first and most obvious is that it allows you to be found by people participating in these networks. The other is that it helps you to be found by anybody browsing the web by boosting your SEO (Search Engine Optimization).

2. Do Your Homework
As with any foray into a new medium, if you plan to go beyond the basic step of listing your business, it’s important to take time to understand the community. Spend some time learning how individual members and businesses interact within the platform to avoid looking like an amateur.