Public Relations, Social Media and Ephemera Since 2005
A certain local PR shop in Stamford, CT, that coincidentally is advertising on this here blog, is shouting out loud about its Web2.0 and Social Media chops.
And their blog hasn’t been updated since April of last year.
Fish meet…. oh you know.
Just saying…
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When starting with a new client it’s generally standard practice to ask if they’ve had any previous experience with public relations agencies or freelancers. When they’ve fired their previous agency it’s also a good idea to ask why. Sometimes it’s a matter of poor expectations on the part of the client (PR will get me on the cover of Businessweek!) and sometimes it’s just an incompetent agency.
And sometimes you just don’t have to ask. Like when you look at your new client’s previous agency’s web site and there are lots of pictures of the principals posing with b-list celebs, but not mention of clients, no case studies and no discussion of their capabilities beyond ‘we’ve been on Good Day Reno!!”
Just saying.
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Mike Arrington observes:
All this stress on the PR firms put on them by desperate clients means they send out the embargoed news to literally everyone who writes tech news stories. Any blog or major media site, no matter how small or new, gets the email. It didn’t used to be this way, but it’s becoming more and more of a problem. As the economy turns south, PR firms are under increasing pressure to perform and justify their monthly retainers which range from $10,000 to $30,000 or more. In short, they have to spam the tech world to get coverage, or lose their jobs.
Funny thing, just the other day I was discussing with another PR blogger the increasingly common “we’re offering you an embargo” emails we’re both getting from firms who obviously never read our blogs, or just could not care less as long as they can get a hit, any hit.
With the economy rapidly going to hell in a hand basket, this will only get worse. As Mike points out, the agencies are under a tremendous amount of pressure and that pressure means that increasingly lower paid, junior staff are on the front lines with little or no supervision and are being told to produce or take a walk. Which means more candidates for the Bad Pitch Blog and more pissed off tech bloggers.
Update: I like Brian Solis’s take on this:
The truth is that embargoes are special. They are not supposed to be used as a “PR trick” for locking-in stories with anyone and everyone. Ideally, they’re strategically reserved for important stories and they’re only effective when used in a “less is more” approach. Embargoes ARE NOT dead, however, they need to be practiced with great focus and respect. I guarantee you greater results and stronger relationships if you work with a smaller group of trusted and relevant contacts rather than embargo spamming everyone from the A-list to the C-list in your wish list.
This isn’t email marketing. It’s not a numbers game. There are real people on the other side of our “pitch.” This process must become humanized once again.
Update 2: Robert Scoble points out that many companies are getting more hits through Twitter than through TechCrunch. I’m not so sure about the number of hits but I could imagine that dealing with Twitter is a lot easier than dealing with TechCrunch.
Update 3: Centernetwork’s Allen Stern has a very thoughtful piece on all of this. The money quote:
At the end of the day, it’s all about trust and relationships. It seems to keep boiling down to that, no matter if it’s about paid reviews, advertisers, how winners are selected at startup conferences or embargoes.
Update 4: ReadWriteWeb is very happy to take your embargoed news.
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I’ve worked with Marshall Kirkpatrick, formerly of TechCrunch and now of Read/Write Web many times and have always found him easy to deal with. A real straight shooter.
And as a publicist, you learn that you can’t put words in the mouths (or on the pages) of journalists and bloggers alike. You can serve the story up but at some point the Law of Murphy takes over.
Well Murphy must have been looking after whomever handles PR for Amazon because they really screwed the pouch on this one. As Marshall put it:
The long and short of it is this: Amazon has nothing to say; they told us they did, but they don’t. If they do have anything to say they would like to say it through words put into my mouth. Thanks, Amazon. I don’t think you’ve got much Openness to bring to my Social even if that is what you intend to do.
The full story is here. PR people should read it and tremble.
Even in my capacity as a D-list blogger, I get so many ‘embargoed’ releases from PR agencies who are just praying for a hit, any hit, that they think by blindly offering up releases stamped ‘embargoed’ they’ll get their pitches read by someone. I even considered starting a blog of releases put out a day or two before their official embargo dates. It’s a stupid game to play and even dumber when done with such a high profile client like Amazon. And to top it all off, the PRbots offered Marshall language, written in the first person, to put on his blog to clarify the situation.
What. Were. They. Thinking.
Todd Defren’s blog entry on the tactics proposed in a proposal from a “guerrilla marketing” agency (note, there is no such thing as guerrilla marketing, just poorly planned, seat of the pants stunts) has generated a considerable amount of thoughtful discussion on the role of PR in social media and how PR is perceived.
As Mike Driehorst puts it in his comment:
I sense a theme — a bad one — during the past few weeks. PR people suck. They are lazy, dishonest shysters. (See Chris Anderson/WIRED and other posts.)
According to Todd, the marketing proposal in question offered this approach:
After gaining a sense for the community at the blog/user forum, our rep (posing as a typical user) will begin to post up to 10 separate Comments over the course of a week or two, to achieve credibility – leading up to the post that will be of-value to the client.
Then, another of our reps (also posing as a typical user), will come in a day later – using a different IP address – to thank the original poster for the ‘great find.’
What’s left unsaid and what’s truly disturbing is how many marketers and clients would look at this proposal and wonder what’s wrong with it. And by marketers, I include people in public relations agencies.
The heart of the problem with adoption of social media tools in public relations agencies has as much to do with ignorance as it does with mistaking strategies for tactics and believing that trickery is a means to an ends.
There are a lot of agencies doing great things and pushing the proverbial envelope. I’m proud to know many of their practitioners and call them friends. Unfortunately there are far more PR agencies willing to throw an AAE in front of a phone or computer screen with a stack of contacts and no training or guidance. And far too many agencies willing to boast of their ability to get a hit at any cost.
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