Top blogger urges: Send your PR pitch via Facebook

I read Silicon Valley Watcher from time to time and I subscribe to it on my feeder. But had Tom Foremski not been my Facebook pal, I’d have missed his important message today — a message that tells PR folks how to get his attention.

I saw the post because Tom placed the link on his Facebook page. I visit FB 4-5 times daily; I check my feeder 4-5 times weekly.

Now let’s be clear. I may be Tom’s friend on Facebook, but we’ve never met nor have we spoken. We exchanged a couple of terse emails shortly after I “friended” him, which came after he joined my Facebook group, “PRSA Need Professional PR Help — NOW!” Tom found that Facebook group because I promoted it in this post, which also links to Tom’s now-classic essay, “Die! Press Release! Die! Die! Die!” That’s how it works in the tangled web of social media. You get used to it.

Tom’s headline sucked me in: “PR Pitches Through Facebook: I Have 37, 366 Unread Emails in Gmail…”

No need for media relations — not when you make the blacklist!

Here at Kent State, some of the journalism faculty urge student reporters to duck PR people at the slightest hint of trouble. PR people are obstacles on the pathway to truth, they say. And too often, I’m afraid they’re right.

As a profession, we’ve earned the brickbats of journalists based on decades and decades of bad pitches. The problem is so prevalent that Kevin Dugan — a PR professional — dedicates an entire blog to the topic.

Of course, not all PR people are media pitching flim-flam artists, and I’m certain none of my readers are — right? But armed with digital publicity distribution tools that’ll spam half the free world with click, it’s little wonder some media have slammed the door.

Just yesterday, Chris Anderson posted the emails of PR people and organizations now banned from pitching him at Wired — 328 in all, and some names you may recognize. Chris claims he gets 300 pitches daily, most of them impersonal spam from flacks hoping to get lucky.

Lazy flacks send press releases to the Editor in Chief of Wired because they can’t be bothered to find out who on my staff, if anyone, might actually be interested in what they’re pitching. Fact: I am an actual person, not a team assigned to read press releases and distribute them to the right editors and writers (that’s editor@wired.com).

Mark Frauenfelder at BoingBoing is taking a similar path, but without the public outing.

For the past week or so, I’ve been blacklisting PR flacks from my email inbox. Anytime I get a press release that doesn’t interest me, I add the domain name of the PR agency to my killfile list.

So be forewarned, my brothers and sisters. The gatekeepers of the MSM and the blogosphere have put a bounty on the heads of publicity spam artists. Those who made the blacklist likely had it coming. Let’s hope they can find another line of work.

It’s the leadership, stupid — not the media relations!

If you were awake during the 1996 presidential election, you know where I got the headline for this post. I got the idea for it from PR’s favorite blogging vixen, Strumpette.

Yeah, I’m giving “Amanda” some ink this week, but she’s earned it.

In yesterday’s post, Strumpette takes to task Matt Szabo, press secretary to LA Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. Seems that Szabo tried to set some last-minute ground rules for an interview betweeen LA Times columnist Steve Lopez and the city’s transportation director. Szabo thought he had a deal; Lopez didn’t. You can read the complete column, but here’s the gist of it:

The lowly press release tops PR headlines in 2006

If you’re not a regular reader of the PR blogs, there’s a good chance you missed the birth of the Social Media Release (SMR). I was too busy, and maybe too self-absorbed, to chime in when the news was breaking. But since we’ll all be talking about it next year, I figured we could use a primer. And yes, this will be on the test.

Talk of this new type of news release arose last February with Tom Foremski’s now infamous post, “Die, Press Release, Die Die, Die!” Tom (who used this artwork in his post) insisted that the old release format just doesn’t work in a wired world. He offered some suggestions for a new approach, and a few PR pioneers took it from there.

You can learn a lot from a throwback — really!

My students think I’m a throwback. In part it’s because of the offbeat contemporary references I bring to class. You see, I stay up on events thanks to a secret source my students seldom tap: the morning newspaper. It’s not a habit most 20somethings have acquired yet.

While the morning headlines fuel conversations, they also offer lessons in public relations. Just yesterday I read with highlighter in hand, marking passages I could use in class, and in this post. So here ya go.

For evidence of PR’s impact, just check the headlines

It’s the end of another semester in Kent, Ohio. There’s a blanket of fresh snow outside and a hot mug of coffee next to my laptop. Life if good.

If I did my job these past 15 weeks, students are a little wiser about the world of public relations — maybe even the world in general. Today I take the morning off to smell the roses, then begin the tedious process of grading final projects.

So, what’s the first thing I do with this respite from academe? I write this post outlining another “lesson” on public relations and how it affects our lives. I really need to get a life. But you know, PR does affect our lives, sometimes profoundly. Once in a while we should remind ourselves of that.

PR bashing from the media? Take your best shot!

It took a local news story about “image makers” to remind me again that the media don’t like us — or at least they act like they don’t like us. I didn’t need the reminder, but there it was on page one.

Fact is, I’m OK with news-media types taking potshots at public relations. I mean, they need to assert their independence just like everyone else. So I say to my partners in public relations: Stick out your chins and let your reporter friends take their best shots. Trust me. It won’t hurt a bit.

That local story was Phil Trexler’s piece in last Sunday’s Akron Beacon Journal, flagship paper of the former Knight-Ridder chain. Trexler’s report doesn’t just cast aspersions on PR people, it questions the very need for us to exist — at least in the public sector, where taxpayers fund our salaries. The headline decries that “media handlers” often are paid more than teachers or police. Sheesh. Should I even try to point out the fallacies in that one? Nah. It’s too easy.

‘Bad Pitch’ blog teaches media relations by showing worst of the worst

As a public relations professional, I never liked media relations. Or maybe media relations didn’t like me. But when the strategy included publicity, I pitched aggressively, and I landed some big stories for my clients over the years.

I earned those placements one at a time, tailoring story angles and crafting details for specific outlets and specific journalists. I don’t know any other way. And never did I use the scatter-shot news distribution or the kind of cold calling that Kevin Dugan calls “steamroller public relations.

Kevin is co-author of the Bad Pitch blog, and he’s helping teach my class on Media Relations & Publicity this semester simply by posting his discoveries and his comments. So this post is, in part, to thank Kevin and his blogging partner Richard Laerman for dishing up media relations wisdom with a side of humor and attitude.

‘Fake blog’ accusations focus on Edelman. Say it ain’t so, Richard!

International social media champion Edelman Public Relations finds itself the target of accusations it created “a phony blog” as a front for client and retail giant WalMart. I heard about it from a colleague who passed along this item from Online Media Daily. Arrived home a few minutes ago (8:45 EDT) and have been unable to find a response on the Edelman website, or any of Edelman’s numerous bloggers.

Is this a hoax, or am I the only one horrified by what the story presents?

Not only has Edelman been a huge blog booster. CEO Richard is leading the way in worldwide discussions of corporate social responsibilty and transparency. I talked up his Monday post on CSR to everybody I know telling them, “This guy really gets it.”

Top Edelman blogger Steve Rubel has been silent since 10:45 this morning. That would be about the time things hit the fan in New York. The world’s waiting to hear from you guys. And of all people, you know the blogosphere doesn’t sleep.

Remember the good old days when we had 24 hours to formulate our crisis plan?

What public relations can’t get from business school

Because I’ve worked in higher education for some 15 years, I shouldn’t be surprised that we’re still arguing over PR’s rightful place here. No school or department in the university seems to suit us public relations educators in our quest for a “seat at management’s table.”

The latest entry in the where-we-belong discussion comes from John Guiniven, associate professor of public relations at Elon University and regular contributor to Tactics, PRSA‘s monthly tab. Dr. Guiniven is a veteran PR professional and scholar,and I read his contributions faithfully. This month we disagree.

In the October issue, he argues that PR should abandon its traditional home in journalism. Dr. Guiniven, and others he cites, suggest that business school would make more sense for PR students and for the discipline.