Understanding how to pitch bloggers is a skill every PR pro needs.

It can be tricky, though—bloggers work under different conditions from those of real reporters. They may not answer to an editor; some are not beholden to deadlines, and more.

In a recent blog post, PR pro Heather Whaling, of Geben Communications and #pr20chat, talked with blogger Meghann Anderson of MealsandMiles.com, and fleshed out a few useful tips for pitching bloggers.

Among the tips:

• Do not send a blogger an email that is “just a press release.” More personalized approaches work better. Anderson suggests sending bullet points in the email body and perhaps attaching a press release.
• PR people need to “work their way into a blogger's social network,” to become a “friend” of a blogger before asking for coverage. This means interacting with bloggers in places like Twitter.

Here’s the full chat. It might help you land coverage on that long-coveted blog.