Bloggers: Are you engaging with PR people?

As someone who has worked for a number of blogs set up by traditional journalists with fairly large readerships and crossover into mainstream media (at least as far as companies’ public relations teams are concerned) I’ve been used to getting a lot of direct contact and interaction with PR people from the start.

However, something I’ve noticed recently is that I’m getting more interest from PR companies for coverage on some of my own personal projects – ones that are much smaller in terms of visitor reach and online influence.

I’m not sure how much of this has come because switched-on PRs have found a link between my higher profile work and the more low-key stuff I do, or whether PRs are generally more interested in appealing to smaller, more niche audiences now?

While my ego would probably like to think the former, as someone who cares about the reputation of bloggers and blogs, I’d prefer it to be the second.

Some bloggers (like journalists) get very irritated with the more traditional methods of public relations – phoning to see if you got an email, and then proceeding to explain the contents of the email even though you said that you’d received it – but for others, it’s great to be included because it gives a sense of recognition, even if sometimes you’re just another contact on a mailing list.

What do you think of public relations? (keep it clean). Have you engaged more with PRs in the last year? What could they do to better tailor their communications to your needs?