Engage with the blogosphere--even the writers who criticize you: use the Web to market your product.(MASTHEAD SYMPOSIUM: Care an

Robert Cox loves to mix it up in the blogosphere.

The president of the Media Bloggers Association rose to prominence when the New York Times ignored his concerns about an inaccurate quote in a prominent columnist's article.

He began blogging and linking and sharing his work and the result was the venerable Times adopted a new corrections policy.

Now, Cox is leading the fledgling bloggers association, but he has some advice for traditional editorial pages that are trying to bust into the blogosphere.

The challenge he sees with many editorial page blogs is a lack of engagement with community.

"They [editorial page writers and editors] are facing out from the organization," he said. "They're not actually in the blogging community. They need to go out and understand that ecosystem."

That means building relationships with local bloggers--yes, even the ones that are the most shrill in the criticism of your editorial page. Link to their blogs on your blog roll. And pick up the phone, send them emails, link to their content.

You might even be able to elevate the community conversation.

"It's really hard to hate someone you've had lunch with," Cox says.

Cox also suggests taking advantage of the Internet to market your editorial page blog in new ways. Make sure people can subscribe to your blog content through RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds.

Get on Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and set up a YouTube channel. Make sure your own page has plenty of ways for readers to share something they like, such as Digg, Newsvine and Facebook.

Set up a fan page on a social networking site to alert people who choose to be fans of your blog when you post new content or are hosting an event, such as a debate, they might be interested in.

"This is free promotion" Cox says. "You should use it."

Cox understands that all this interaction is a little foreign to people who entered journalism when feedback from readers included an envelope and a stamp. But it's important to link a lot--to other sites and source documents. It might seem counter-intuitive to some editors, who fear they are sending audience away, but it pays off.

"You have to trust that if you send a reader away, they will come back," Cox says. "They are trusting you are going to send them to places to show them good stuff.

"They will be back."

Kate Riley is associate editorial page editor/ online at The Seattle Times. Email:kriley@seattletimes.com

Print Get the Mag Weekly Updates