Yesterday 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.

UPDATE – I’ve created PR Fail as a way to help people face the reality of the perception of PR on the web, be better and stop doing bad things. A ‘see what happens’ thing.

UPDATE 2/6 – it’s still going on and this time there’s accusations flying around about the integrity of the PR industry – to which the PRSA responds

UPDATE 31/5 – the debate is still on – spreading to Phreadz

Coming from a background in PR and still very much involved in it on the digital side of things, I keep a close eye on the general feeling from the web community towards PR – and file any examples of really good (and really bad PR) or particularly fruity opinions about it. More often than not though, it’s negative and that’s obviously not a great thing.

Over the last couple of days, I’d be hitting del.icio.us every few minutes, as it’s all kicking off right now with a debate raging about whether or not companies need to do PR and general thoughts and feelings about PR are being thrown out left right and centre.

It started with Brian Solis revelaing his ‘PR Secrets’, then Loic Le Meur replying with his “Not a Secrets’ that pretty much dismissed Brian’s guest post on TechCrunch. Then, as is the case with social media and the web of today, it’s spilled out into Seesmic, Twitter, FriendFeed and a whole lot of other places.

So, rather than wade in fully and add to the noise, I thought I’d just share a few recent quotes from people on Twitter that I’ve been collecting and offer up my thinking that the definition and role of PR has changed to some degree, but people’s perception of it (and in a lot of cases, use and execution of it) hasn’t.

It’s this difference (and the fact there’s still a long way to go for the PR industry) that causes this debate and that the overall perception of PR on the web is a MAJOR FAIL. And that’s why (and I hate to say it), I more often than not cringe when I think about being in PR – as the industry has so much to do to change perception online and this needs to be led by actions and not more (insert expletive) words. This, is where the industry should be focused its efforts as I don’t think it’s ever going to shake off feelings like this, if it doesn’t change for the better and do so fast. As to how, not sure. More thinking needed, I don’t have all the answers. But in the meantime – consumers are just getting on with their lives and filling them with stuff they like. They don’t really care.

(Hope people don’t mind me ‘re-tweeting’ here. I just want to help spread the word. And, on Twitter, you really do have to face the true reality of what people think)

Charles Arthur – a particularly negative tweet, includes the word ‘DIE’

Jemima Kiss – a funny (but negative) tweet, made me really cringe

Mike Butcher – a negative tweet , I can almost hear him shouting this, my personal favourite one that also makes me cringe big time

Neville Hobson – a positive tweet (yay!), that is in fact negative when you think about it.

David Ciccone – a negative tweet