Confession from a ‘long lost friend’

By Dan Wool on August 15th, 2008 In Advice

Bzzzzzz...Forgive me Phoenix for I have sinned. It has been five weeks since my last blog post.

Phoenix, my fellow Valley PR Bloggers are disturbed. They think I’ve been out of town. Or out of touch with the PR gods. But I’ve been clear with everyone: blog when you have something to say. However, I was mute. I was on a break, or perhaps self-imposed exile.

Maybe it’s because I have too much to say. You see, Phoenix, I have lots of material these days. Len and I have somehow gotten onto the Vocus and Cision lists of the world and onto the radar screens of many PR firms. Our blog has become…wait for it… Important!

But every day is like Groundhog Day. We, the bastions of best practices and spreaders of good industry karma, receive pitches and press releases from people we don’t know – but pretend to know us. And Phoenix, almost all are terrible — in fact worse — irrelevant. What career sin did I commit to deserve this fate?

Like Groundhog Day, one of my resolutions in the past year or so is to not criticize but to attempt to make things better. Aah Phoenix, I’ve tried this. I’ve very politely written some PR people back to thank them for their pitch/release, informed them it was a little off-the-mark and encouraged them to please visit our site, assess the content and that we’d be happy to reconsider it and help them promote their story, etc. But alas, when I attract with honey, the bees get insulted.

So, I remain optomistic but find myself siding with the rest. But, in my own growing infuriation with ignorant PR people, I have found one area of solace: the lazy, the users of technology before best practices, the shunners of good advice, the “this is the way we’ve always done it” crowd, exponentially increase my value (and that of many of you). We provide strategic PR counsel and they don’t. We get results in a way that understands and respects journalists and they don’t. We actually stop and think, and they don’t. They can’t even get a hold of a third-tier PR blog with a relevant pitch!

So, congratulations ignorant PR folks, you completely suck at your job — and you’re an inspiration. That’s a nearly impossible task but you’ve done it.

You’ve turned the rest of us — the somehow dwindling minority — into journalists’ long lost friends — that is, it’s been so long since they encountered good PR folks that they are thrilled to see us. Bless you.

In the meantime, Phoenix, let’s continue to stop PR’s enemies: Laziness and Disrespect. In the coming weeks, my blog catharsis will touch on these new rules and pillars:

● News needs to be actual news.

● Blogs are just niche media outlets.

● Blast emails are spam. (And, yes, that makes you a spammer).

● Customization is the rule not the exception.

● Social media are additional tactics to consider – not a way of life.

● You are public relations, not awareness relations.

Confession from a ‘long lost friend’

Comments

Ania Kubicki Says:
August 16th, 2008 at 9:21 am

So very eloquently phrased. By far, the best Saturday morning reading I’ve had in a while. What comes to mind however is a quote from the late Will Rogers. Sometime in the 1930s he said “There’s no trick to being a humorist when you have the whole government working for you. “ yes, a disturbing similarity indeed.

Jim Veihdeffer Says:
August 16th, 2008 at 12:10 pm

For your penance say 5 Vandevredes, 5 Gutmans and watch 2 episodes of Mad Men (or 1 Office and 1 Factory.)

Richard K. Says:
August 17th, 2008 at 4:14 pm

“ignorant PR folks, you completely suck at your job — and you’re an inspiration. That’s a nearly impossible task but you’ve done it”

Is it me, or are these the same ones getting the $100,000+ per year jobs because this is what employers are seeking, while the skilled ones go unemployed and have their homes foreclosed upon and become homeless? Jaded?

Ryan Keough Says:
August 17th, 2008 at 7:42 pm

In this age when opinions and feedback spread like wildfire through blogs and social media, I can’t understand the refusal of inadequate PR people to adopt good practices and continue their ignorance. Media are not expendible commodities — they are precious resources, no matter how big or small. Such disservice those PR people are giving to the brands they are responsible for promoting! Don’t they realize what they do actually does more to hurt their clients? “It’s how we’ve always done it” is no excuse — any other business using that as a rule is doomed to failure! (Unfortunately, airlines have done just THAT!)

Perhaps I am biased — the 80-year-old brand of the company I work with is too precious to risk with such a haphazard PR strategy. Approaches like you describe make me literally cringe.

Dan Wool Says:
August 18th, 2008 at 8:31 am

Richard – one of the pitches we got (from an automotive research company!) was so off that I tangled for several emails with the PR manager, who was trying to defend her strategy – i.e. to pitch a blog she’s never even looked at. In the end, I really just wanted to go tell her boss, “Why are you paying this person to destroy your brand?” Instead I jumped up and down and screamed “I’m too nice, I’m too nice, I’m too nice!”

What companies need to remember is that paying good money for a good pro will earn them 100X their investment.

Valley PR Blog » Blog Archive » News needs to be actual news Says:
August 19th, 2008 at 1:43 pm

[...] I mentioned last week, we’re getting a lot of irrelevant pitches to the blog. Perhaps most frustrating is that many of [...]

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