The nine tactics

Nine ways to exploit the incentives of blogs, each resting on a weakness in how online media earns money.

Ryan Holiday's framework, from Trust Me, I'm Lying, pp. 18 to 125.

Tactic 1: Bloggers are poor; help pay their bills
Use free products, perks, access, ads and early support, because pageview pay makes every post a conflict of interest.
Tactic 2: Tell them what they want to hear
Give them pre-written material such as leaks, press releases, HARO answers and Wikipedia edits, since they have no time to verify.
Tactic 3: Give them what spreads, not what is good
Design the story around high-arousal emotion, with anger the strongest, because that is what gets shared.
Tactic 4: Help them trick their readers
Hand them a click-friendly question or mystery for the headline, and tee up a story that will draw comments.
Tactic 5: Sell them something they can sell
Supply a story that works as a one-off sale on its own, since blogs have to sell every article afresh like the yellow press.
Tactic 6: Make it all about the headline
Write or hint at the headline in your pitch and let the blogger take it.
Tactic 7: Kill them with pageview kindness
Show a story is a traffic draw, link it to a popular topic, buy a little traffic and leave fake comments to fill the silence.
Tactic 8: Use the technology against itself
Package material in the short, fresh, simple form the medium demands, and come to bloggers with the story already written.
Tactic 9: Just make stuff up
Offer an exclusive on a small or nonexistent story with an arbitrary deadline and let the blogger find the angle.

From chapter: Book One: Feeding The Monster: How Blogs Work, pp. 18–125

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