Catching Flack

Most PR people I know don’t like to pitch stories to the media. A big part of the problem is that the people doing the pitching are at a big disadvantage: they are essentially ill-prepared to be successful, and that drives the fear and anxiety.

So what can you do to prepare yourself better? Here are five keys to more successful pitching:

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Has the wall-to-wall coverage of the Olympics affected your PR strategy? Did you avoid releasing news during this period, fearing a lack of coverage, or did you release bad news during this period (also to avoid coverage)?

If you have sports-related products or something to do with China or the Olympic movement, did you try to pitch Olympic-themed stories? If so, how has it gone? Are journalists receptive?

Please take this poll, and add some comments regarding how the Olympics has or has not affected your PR program this month.

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Have you been holding back news because you are afraid of it getting swamped (no pun intended) by Olympics coverage? On the other hand, are you using the Olympics as a smoke screen to release less-than-positive news?

I ask these questions because I got a follow-up from the PR rep for Women Against Fantasy Sports to the post I did over the weekend. She provided the rationale for launching the site without a press release:

I advised them to delay announcing their site launch, which was August 8, given it was the opening day of the Beijing Olympics. I thought it could get lost in a sea of Olympic hype, and I also wanted WAFS to have an opportunity to work out any kinks with their site launch. We went out on BusinessWire this morning, which was the plan all along. [Here’s the release — JG]

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When you launch a new web site to right a perceived wrong, it’s not good enough to just put it on the Internet and hope someone finds it. You’ve got to promote it.

Last weekend, I caught wind of a new site called “Women Against Fantasy Sports.” At first, I thought it was a joke, but then I checked out their site and it is definitely not a joke. It has been started by some fantasy sports widows, who feel that their husbands have become addicted to fantasy sports to the detriment of their marriages.

I think they may have a valid point, Read the rest of this entry »

If you’re interested in how the news media creates and sustains fame, if PR alone can manufacture a celebrity or whether or not any press is good press, download this interview with Mark Borkowski, author of the new book, “The Fame Formula.”

Go to the podcast with Mark Borkowski.

[BTW — the above was taken directly from the PR pitch. When a pitch is this on-target, the journalist can just cut-and-paste]

Here are some details about what Borkowski discusses with interviewer Eric Schwartzmann:

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There’s a little debate out in the blogosphere about whether the “PR profession is broken” due to the rise of blogs and the Internet. Yes, PR pitching is broken, but the industry as a whole is thriving. Why else would so many journalists be jumping ship and coming over to PR?

While the two most prominent bloggers involved in the debate — Steve Rubel and Michael Arrington of TechCrunch — lump PR pitching with the entire profession, pitching is really only one small part of the business. And no doubt — PR pitching is broken. But guess what? PR pitching has been broken as long as I’ve been in media and PR, and that’s more than 27 years. I started getting inane PR pitches as soon as I arrived at the San Jose Mercury News in 1981, and I got one this morning. It was ever thus.

The problem is the same as it has always been: Read the rest of this entry »

If you’re looking to learn more or solve some problems regarding social media, Shel Holtz has recently posted a great online resource list of social media information.

There are primers on social media and articles on blogs, podcasts, and social media demographics, as well as links to more than a dozen books that have already been written on the subject.

Here’s that link again to Shel Holtz’s social media resource list.

Here’s a new buzzword to add to your PR jargon: “precycling.”

Brandweek reports that this word is starting to catch on as the latest manifestation of the green marketing fad.

Now, what does it mean? It’s apparently another way of saying “conserve.” As in, re-using plastic water bottles rather than tossing them and buying another one. Re-using plastic and paper bags. Buying large quantities rather than single-serving  packaging.

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The embargo has been one of the most useful tools in the PR toolkit. It allowed newsmakers to get their news out in a timely and orderly fashion, and it allowed journalists a little extra time to work on future stories.

And the buggy whip was a key product in its time, too.

Now, in the ages of blogs, “continuous news desks,” and email, is it possible to release news on an embargoed basis, or is that a tool we need to retire?

If it is dead, then I say, rest in peace. I’ve found embargoes to be one of my favorite tools, because it added an air of exclusivity to a story. And if it is dead, what do we do to replace them?

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I know that many in the BNET audience are in search of free whitepapers so I thought I would pass along a high-quality source of PR whitepapers: PRWeek.

For some strange reason, PRWeek has two different ways to access whitepapers:

a) go to their site at whitepapers.prweekus.com and you can sign up to access a white paper library on topics such as email marketing, newsletter design and search engine optimization.

b) sign up as a user on their main site and you’ll get emails from them offering other whitepapers, such as the one I got this morning from Vocus on “the expanding role of PR professionals.” In these cases, you once again have to give them your contact info, because these vendor-sponsored whitepapers are all about lead generation.

BTW — I’m a big believer in the use of whitepapers for lead generation and for positioning yourself in the marketplace as an expert.

It’s much easier than you think: pick a topic, research/write 5 or 10 good pages on it (hello, high school) and post it on your web site. The topic doesn’t have to be groundbreaking (see Vocus’ above) but it would be nice if you had something fresh to say about it.