Dear PR Flack: We know that your life is impossibly busy. But If you can’t be troubled to read a little of our work, why should we bother with yours?

If you’re diving head-first into the world of blogs and social media, take a moment to learn about your target. Nobody expects you to keep a thousand blogs in your reader, but at least read the first 10 posts of any blog you’re pitching to before you hit Send. If the blog is any good at all, the first page will be all you need to understand its focus, readership, and goals. If you’re still unclear, it never hurts to ask the blogger in question whether she considers a given topic appropriate.

And don’t forget to check the each blog’s About page; there’s often lots of good info there. Like the actual given name of your pitchee (hint: it’s probably not ‘Dear Blogger’), her preferred contact method, her review and advertising policies, and pretty much anything else you might care to learn. Of course, not all bloggers have a well-crafted About page, but most of the ones you care about do.

Here’s the dirty little secret about why spam-pitching is a bad idea: Campaigns that fail to grasp basic etiquette are often circulated to other bloggers for merciless ridicule. Don’t be that flack. And don’t be surprised when we forward your badly targeted, typo-ridden, grammar-challenged pitches to your client or your boss, pointing out that your PR skills are sadly lacking. They love to hear from us!