PR 101 and How Not To

Like I, editor-in-chief of CloudAve Zoli Erdos gets to see far too many PR
releases. He posted
the other day about an experience with one – the gist of the post was that a PR
hack posted an abomination of a release – full of nonsense and hyperbole and
saying nothing much. Luckily (for the company) the founder posted an entry soon
after that restored Zoli’s faith in the company.

I’ve long held the view that most PR is of marginal benefit. For those who
don’t subscribe to my other gig, here follows a recent funny (if tragic)
story;

Good friend, web visionary and generally nice guy Mauricio Freitas, founder
of Geekzone, forwarded me this email from a
PR person. I’ve removed the details to protect identities but count the number
of times Mauricio’s name has been written and how many times it’s been misspelt
- PR FAIL!

Hi Maurice,

Thank you for agreeing to meet with xxxxx of xxxxx on xxxx. As agreed, xxxxx
will meet you outside the café on the ground floor of the xxxxx.

xxxxx is a start up company based at the xxxxx and has developed a unique
online xxxxx application called xxxxx. xxxxx’s very keen to meet with networked
technology people in the know, like yourself, who can help point him in the
right direction with regard to networking and promoting his company and
xxxxx.

Attached is some information about xxxxx, and this link will take you to
xxxxx’s bio online: xxxxx

xxxxx, this is Maurio’s bio and blog – there’s also a photo of Maurcio on the
page – http://www.geekzone.co.nz/freitasm

Mauricio’s mobile and email are:

Maurice, xxxxxx’s details are:

Thank you so much Maurice.

Kind regards

xxxxxx

That’s right – Mauricio’s name was written six times. How many times
correctly?

Once

A less kindly man than Mauricio wouldn’t even agree to meet someone that
employs a PR firm that makes a balls-up like this – they’re lucky they chose a
kindly recipient.

After that post I received a very angry email from an extremely upset PR hack
who accused me of ridiculing her in public. I responded to her that removing her
details showed that, rather than ridiculing her, I was protecting her.

What I was attempting to do however was to ask some questions about the very
value of PR itself. Almost certainly in small markets, but also arguably in the
US, a direct contact to a blogger will generally elicit a response – especially
if it’s a personal reach out and doesn’t "guild the lily".

To my way of thinking, communication 2.0 is all about disintermediating those
who add no real value to a transaction, A lot of PR I’d put into that class -
filters that at best slow things down, at worst cause untold damage to the
relationships between a company and it’s potential friends.

I’m sure there are some great PR people out there (cue a reply from Julia – you know you want to) and I’d love to hear their take on this – hey I’d even welcome some guest posts to give the view from the other side of the fence.

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