Do bloggers deserve the same respect as mainstream media contacts?

What happens in the blogosphere most definitely does not stay in the blog-osphere. Witness the lightning speed at which a blogger’s feud with retailer Target ended up in The New York Times in late January. It’s a lesson on the dangers of underestimating—or simply misunderstanding—the power bloggers have to influence the mainstream media.

PR pros below share their counsel on the care and feeding of your most important bloggers, but first, here’s how the Target blog slap went down.

On Jan. 8 Amy Jussel, founder of the Shaping Youth blog, wrote about a recent Target ad campaign featuring a woman splayed across the retailer’s bull’s-eye logo, with her crotch smack-dab in the center. Calling it “sexualized ad slop,” Jussel e-mailed Target’s PR department asking for details about the ad campaign’s context and motivation and a few days later, got this unsigned e-mail reply:

“Thank you for contacting Target; unfortunately we are unable to respond to your inquiry because Target does not participate with nontraditional media outlets. This practice is in place to allow us to focus on publications that reach our core guest.”