Kami Huyse has a great post on "online reputation management in a Google world". This is a constant weakness for PR people so have a read and click through the presentation.
Trevor Cook links to part of a document on Edward Bernays, the "father" of Public Relations. Some of it makes uncomfortable viewing 🙂
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Andrew Smith makes a great point on the importance of analytics for marketing and PR moving forward. Online is a great medium for measurement and god knows that’s a sore area for PR. As I always say as long as PR agencies view measurement as a "competitive differentiator" you know we’re having problems.
Eric Eggertson points to some interesting PR-related dialogue in the latest installment of the every entertaining TWIT podcast.
Eoin Kennedy points out that Irish Times journalists have started posting audio from interviews.
I think the “PR spam” snafu is finally subsiding.
Thank goodness.
Back to the real world…
Geoff Livingston has posted a short video interview with Ford’s Whitney Drake on how they are using social media (and interestingly how they used Twitter to address a crisis).
For the record a couple of other posts on this snafu:
Phil Gomes points out the issue was that people were using her PERSONAL e-mail address. [I hadn’t spotted that myself]
Jeremy Pepper pipes in on the same factoid, but makes a broader point about PR people not being trained in good practice in this area – and like Damien bemoans the lack of focus on relationships.
Susan Getgood suggests that blacklists just don’t work…
Damien Mulley has posted a very interesting and thought provoking comment on my post regarding PR spam.
I think it raises some interesting points….
The sheer arrogance from PR people on this matter speaks volumes. If what you’re pitching is so important to this blogger then shouldn’t they be coming to you?
Just because you have done some research and you are now highly targeting someone does not mean it’s not spam. It’s targeted spam. See? Still spam. It’s also a bit arrogant, yes you worked harder for that pitch, your work has value but it’s rich if you think you deserve respect and airtime from a stranger just because you worked hard.
Would you walk up to someone that just gave a speech and shove a press release into their hand or would you introduce yourself, say what you do, hand over a card and ask permission about sending something to them that may interest them?
Don’t pitch if you contact a blogger, ask can you pitch and explain why the pitch could be of value. No sell at all in an initial email/intro. “Hey Gina, this is what you do, this is what we do, any interest if *I* send you on some stuff from time to time or maybe you can dip in and out of my blog where I talk about these things?”
So PR community. What’s your view?
Update:
Jeremy Pepper makes a similar point.
Bad or irrelevant PR pitches are nothing new.
Many of us, in our more quiet moments, will admit to probably not investing the time and effort we should have from time to time (a long time ago obviously 🙂 ).
The key thing is to remember your mistake and learn from it.
We’re seeing more journalists and bloggers publishing lists of PR firms they are blacklisting. [Ref: Chris Anderson last October]
Now a guy called Matt Haughey is doing something similar as has Gina Trapani.
See here and the PR Spammers Wiki for more details.
(For the more evil minded among you, although it’s a Wiki, you won’t be able to edit it without the right log-in. You could always ask, but I get the feeling you won’t get a favourable hearing 🙂 )
Todd Defren, whose firm is on the list, has posted an “open post” (I am assuming that’s the correct blog equivalent…) to Gina.
I like it. It’s conversational.
Brian Solis, whose firm is also on the list takes a different tack. (I have to admit I came away thinking about meat more than anything else and I’m not sure that was the objective!)
I hope that before any “holier than thou” PR person starts to crow, they stop and realize that we all live in greenhouses on this matter.
We should strive for best practice, reinforce the right and wrong way to communicate (online and offline) and reflect that sometimes mistakes happen, and sometimes people are more or less forgiving.
That’s not to say that I am adopting a see-no-evil, hear-no-evil stance on this matter. To be honest, even this little blog receives a lot of “PR” pitches that don’t make the mark.
If you’re going to engage online, then for the love of jebus do some research. That’s what Internet browsers and search engines are for…
On a related note, Alice Marshall offers some advice on the importance of being proactive before an issue arises rather than hiring shady companies to try and out rank negative blog posts.
Hear hear…
Murphy's Law 