Facing the reality of PR perception on the web: Revisited
| July 22nd, 2008Yesterday I spoke to Anthony about PR FAIL and again, it made me ask myself if I was being too harsh with this post and setting up PR FAIL. I thought about it for a while and then decided, nope, I’m not - I’m just trying to make it easier for people to face up to some of the really basic mistakes that are being made all around the web and the current (and unchanged in most cases) perception most people have when it comes to PR on the web and engagement with bloggers.
Then, as it happens - later on in the day - this popped up in my Twitter stream via Whatleydude (who also wrote a great post recently on o2, CPW and evangelists) - a great post full of insight (and a whole load of reality) from top blogger Vero (aka Canadian Girl), positioned as an open letter to PR agencies to try and help things change for the better.
Here’s the summary Do’s and Don’ts’ that end a blunt, honest post about how PR people engage with bloggers, complete with real life examples. You should head on over there and share your experiences. Together we can all change this - just as you encourage all the brands you work with to listen to the conversations on the web, now is the time for the PR industry to listen and CHANGE.
Personally, I think it boils down to two words: Be Human. Over to Vero . . . . . .
Do…
- Have a Twitter account or personal blog where we can find out about the real you.
- Have a product geek or evangelist we can speak to and quiz without getting the canned marketing answers (Carphone Warehouse and O2, I’m looking at you, guys. You could have definitely done with a public-facing real-person on the days surrounding the iPhone launch.)
- Participate in events in an altruistic way every so often. We’ll get to know each other, and it’s bound to be good for your karma.
- Put some chili in your cornflakes; By that, I mean, have genuine energy and passion about your client’s product. If you don’t get up in the morning loving your job, maybe you need to find something else to do.Don’t…
- Try to buy our participation to your event. Telling me you’ll pay £150 to show up on Thursday morning with a video camera for a “secret launch” isn’t social media, it’s cheap labour and fake hype.
- Send us a stock press release with an intro that betrays you’ve never even looked at our blogs
- Always play it so safe that we’d rather read the back of the cereal packet than your press release. Have some balls, and hey, have some fun!
- Don’t run with scissors Be afraid of asking a couple of bloggers for a pint to bounce some ideas. Most of them will be happy to help you out!
As for PR FAIL, it’s a ’see what happens’ thing as I said at the time - so make sure you keep sharing your experiences by using the tag ‘prfail’ or ‘uselesspr’ in any Tweets about some of the bad experiences you have. And let’s ’see what happens’ . . . . will things change?
PS I’ve now sorted out the feed after I found out Feedblendr had gone offline, so I had to set up a Twummize feed and everything should be working properly again now, aside from the del.icio.us integration.
UPDATE 22/7 - Lloyd has blogged about this and reminded people that ‘we don’t have to write anything’. Valid point and makes it even more important to bring value to the conversation and be interesting.
[…] Véro kicked something off that James and Jonathon are running with. So there’s less I want to say that hasn’t already been said. And now […]
Good post Jonathan and point well made about the simple law of “be human”.
It’s funny though how many brands are really scared by this idea. I was speaking to the PR account director of a high street brand, who sucked through his teeth a bit and said ‘oooh not sure about that, my client’s very risk averse’.
There is an enormous “get it gap” that needs to be filled - not just client side but in agencies too.
Be human - very good way of distilling it. And to err is to be human, right?
I do buy what you’re saying about your reasons for setting up PR Fail, but I’ll nail my colours to the mast and say that, when you say we’ll ’see what happens’, what will happen is just more poking fun and laughing at PR. I’m not entirely sure we’ll actually learn anything new. That’s all.
Still, it’s provoked debate and that’s A Good Thing.
Agreed - I’ve commented over on your blog. Let’s keep a close eye on things and make sure the outcome is a positive one.
Hello Jonathan,
I know, I know I am a little late to the table here, but I recently posted a slightly different point of view.
In particular, though calling out bad practice is obviously completely fair enough, some blog posts I’ve seen naming and shaming individuals who have sent out press releases make me a little uneasy.
Singling out some hapless exec (and I know you don’t do this, but sadly some do) can be mean, and it makes you wonder…a touch of hubris?
Anyway, I appreciate it won’t be universally popular, but it’s here:
http://www.thisisherd.com/2008/07/do-you-know-who-i-am.html
Great blog btw!
Hi Dirk - really good to see you on here. A great post - as usual you’ve presented a really balanced view of the ongoing ‘discussion’ that is bloggers and PR pitches. I know exactly what you’re saying about naming and shaming and understand that it’s not a nice thing to single out individuals - but I do think it’s the responsibility of the agencies they work for to make sure they don’t make those silly mistakes.
Brands make silly mistakes all the time and those people representing them (including crappy sales assistants, call staff and front-of-house staff etc) are representing that brand and acting on behalf of it. They get called out and I don’t think PR should be any different - we just need to make sure that it is done in a wholly productive way which due to the tendancy of the web to amplify the negative, it’s hard to.
Social media and the web is making everything totally transparent (if it hasn;t done so already) and we need to be prepared for that as much as physically possible, because things are only going to get tougher.
And thanks for the compliment on the blog. May I return that and say nice new Cow website (which I note has lost most of its reference to PR . . . . !)
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