|
|
 |
| |
By Neville Hobson
Expert Author Article Date: 2008-05-21 Like many in the PR and journalism blogosphere, I get PR pitches by email every day. Like many, too, I welcome pitches if they are relevant to my interests. If they are, the chances are good that I will talk about the product or service, either in my blogs or podcast, or I might Twitter about it. Those emails are currently averaging eight. Every day. The vast majority, though, I regard as spam, pure and simple. In fact, PR spam is a topic that is constantly on the tips of online tongues. What's my definition of 'PR spam'? Any one or all of this:
This is borne out by the majority of those emails being automatically caught by the McAfee spam and junk mail filters in Outlook. Now and again, I might send one along to Kevin Dugan for the Bad Pitch Blog although lame PR pitches are no longer hot news items for that blog. There are just too many of them. All that said, I do get increasingly worried for the overall reputation of our profession as if I'm getting such crap every day, imagine what journalists working in the mainstream media must be getting. If the stuff they get is anything like the stuff I get - and it surely is just as bad, if not worse - then no wonder too many members of the mainstream media see public relations lower down in the food chain than lawyers or estate agents. One thing I haven't done is go the Chris Anderson route by posting on this blog all the domain names of the PR spammers. Or create a wiki as Gina Trapani did with a similar goal - outing those PR people and agencies and causing maximum damage to their reputations. The fact is, I think much of what passes for PR pitching by email is simply very poor and careless practice by PR people who still don't know better. They ought to, clearly, as this is PR 101 stuff to do with reaching out and making connections with people, whether they're journos or bloggers. Some basic principles apply that we all should know from our early days in the profession. So I prefer to focus on helping PR people understand how to build relationships online where how you go about that - including by email - is an integral part of the conversations we have, what I suppose we're now calling 'blogger relations' and how to bring that new practice into traditional PR practice. But when an email does come that is characterized by such abject carelessness - no, stupidity - in its approach, it just makes me angry. This one, for instance: 
No, I'm not going to deliberately identify the sender, purely use it as an example in order to say - Come on, you can bloody well do better than this! You want attention? Well, at least take a bit of time and care and apply even a little bit of thought to tell a story, not just blast out a pathetic email like this one. Which brings me back to another related point - those database-driven emails. Many PR agencies use database services like Vocus and Cision to research bloggers and others and gather email addresses for mass emailing. Whatever you think of that approach - and I think it's a total waste of everyone's time - if you do use it, at least take note of some of the simple guidance the information provider will include. Vocus, for instance. I don't subscribe to Vocus but a kindly reader of this blog sent me a copy of the information about me in Vocus' database - information that's available to agencies who subscribe. The database listing includes this text: PITCHING INSTRUCTIONSRead that last paragraph - how clearer and simpler to understand can it be? This isn't about blogger or media relations, it's about common sense and taking care. Yet too few in the PR profession seem to be paying any attention. On Wednesday June 11, Shel and I will be hosting a call-in discussion about PR spam with FIR Live on BlogTalk Radio, starting at 5pm GMT. This is the idea of John Cass and Jason Falls, both of whom have posted detailed commentary on a very big problem in the PR business. Let's hope we can inject some thoughts for care back into the profession. Comments About the Author: Neville Hobson is the author of the popular NevilleHobson.com blog which focuses on business communication and technology. Neville is a UK-based communicator, blogger and podcaster. He helps companies use effective communication to achieve their business goals. Visit Neville Hobson's blog: NevilleHobson.com. |
 |
| Newsletter Archive | Submit Article | Advertising Information | About Us | Contact |
