The Intersection of Online and Offline

Like a rabid dog with a with the mailman’s leg, I just can’t seem to let go of the whole hand-wringing scenario about media and public relations “professionals” doing bad pitches. In the old days, I have noted, as a young buck in the PR agency side of things, I reporters would screen my calls or just hang up on me. And it was over. I’ve been rejected more times than Kate Moss at Weight Watchers meetings (and I won’t even get into my dating life back in the day).

Now you have things like the “Bad Pitch Blog,” designed to bitch-slap mostly junior or clueless individuals who don’t know how to pitch properly. The tag line is “read our wrath.” That’s telling. I won’t mention any of the creators by name, but you need to get over yourselves. Has anyone keyed your car? Stolen your iPod? Assassinated your penguin? You don’t kill a fly with a sledgehammer, and this site reeks of new media hubris. Bad karma. I loved Jason Falls’ “Friday Frustrations” post in which he stated:

“A-list bloggers have an awfully bad habit of blowing smoke up each other’s asses. I’m probably guilty of it, too, though I don’t consider myself an A-lister, but for chrissakes people, you’re not celebrities so stop acting like them.”

Amen, brother.

I swear this is the last time that I am going to say this, but somehow, I am not that irritated by bad pitches. I either ignore them or have even created a folder in my email programs that pick up on key words, stores them there and I go back and read them when I have time. Maybe I am a softy in this regard because I have been both the pitcher and the pitchee, but I think that most people complaining about this just need to get over themselves (see above).

But in the spirit of “can’t we just get along?” here are just a few fundamental tips that I would provide to people who pitch either in the offline or online environment. Good communication is good communication if it’s a ten page fax or a 140 characters.

1. Identify your target audience. If you are looking to reach a target audience via a publication or blog, your first step should be making sure that the outlet matches up with the audience that you are attempting to influence. Otherwise, as Shel Holtz calls it, it is just “shovelware.”
2. Think about your objectives. Why are you communicating with this audience? I know that in the agency world you are communicating because your client thinks that he/she should be above the fold in the Wall Street Journal, but if you spend some time thinking about the benefits NOT to your client or organization but to the people receiving or potentially reading the information, you’ll go a long way towards happy, shiny people reading what you have to say. And if you work for an agency, the best consultants know when to say “no, this will be a waste of your money.” Courageous conversation for sure, but things will end up better.
3. What messages are your target readers likely to want? Knowing this will make you happy and, provided that you select the right people to pitch, it will make the writers/bloggers happy too.
4. List the types of questions that individuals may ask or additional information they may want. This is how your are going to write your pitch, your press release, or if you are doing it right, putting together your interactive press release. Answer these questions in advance and reflect it in the way that you present your information.
5. What do you want to achieve? Think about this in two ways. If you send a pitch to a blogger or print reporter, what is the action that you want he/she to take? Visit a link with more info (good call). Read an attachment (bad call: Esther Schindler has correctly noted that “attachments merit the death penalty”). If you have spent all of the time and money getting something placed, I am no fan of the statement “raising awareness.” In the age of interactivity, there has to be some action that people reading your information can take besides merely processing it.
6. Surmising that you accomplish your objectives, then what? If a reporter calls you back, you had better have your act together (no “ummm, uhhh,” or putting reporters on hold while you look for your cheat sheet with talking points on it) . And for God’s sake, list your cell phone number on your voicemail. If a reporter/blogger calls you back and gets your voicemail, it drastically reduces your chances.
7. Push vs. pull. Regurgitating information all over people who may or may not want it can work, but a largely ignored pitching vehicle is simply putting information where you want reporters or bloggers to get it. Think: ProfNet, SEO, Peter Shankman’s “Help a Reporter” listserv and Web site. If your information is waiting for people who want it, your chances go up dramatically.

I could go on and on, but given the fact that I keep promising that this will be my last post on bad pitches, look for my next post on bad pitches.

Mark

Found this in Jason’s Falls’ tweet today, and it just reminded me of the awful divide that exists between those in the “traditional” (read: declining readership) and “new” media (read: millions of new platforms for user-generated content per year.)

In about the dumbest public relations move in recent memory (and I am counting Microsoft and Yahoo! in this one), the Associated Press has said that they do not want bloggers linking to and quoting their stories. That’s right, they do NOT want the additional traffic generated from the additional links.

Here’s what Colleen in BuzzNetWorker had to say:

Recently, the Associated Press threw down a gauntlet and started a great big hairy fight with bloggers. The gist of the matter is that they’re they don’t want bloggers to quote from their stories. They asked one blogger to take down seven posts from in which quotes from AP stories were used. The quoted pieces varied in length from 39-79 words.”

I am not a lawyer, do not play one on television and don’t have a good grasp of “fair use.” But in a note to our pals at AP: if the publications in which you syndicate your content were losing more and more readers every year, thus reducing your relevancy (and ad revenue) why on earth would you NOT welcome more traffic?

I just wrote an article that will probably go up in Media Bullseye tomorrow, but one of my points was, as online professionals, we need to know when to get the lawyers in the room and when to keep them out. They seem to have that problem at the Associated Press.

Mark

P.S. - Just to boost their traffic a little, here’s a link to the AP site.

Today is a good day.

Got Part Deux published in Media Bullseye on my series about online reputation management. The cool part about having an interactive platform is that others can see and comment on it. More often than not, people make you smarter.

Kami Watson of Communications Overtones saw Part I of the series and noted that, when it comes to online reputation management, the best defense is a good offense, meaning that a strong Google page rank and presence will help provide a better base from which to communicate if and when the attacks come. Jason Falls also had some good thinking that I drew from for the article.

So thanks for your input, Kami. “Determining the Voices That Matter,” the article in today’s edition of Media Bullseye is Part II of my thinking on best practices for setting up an online reputation management program.

And since I don’t have my other blog any more, I HAVE to give a shout-out to Jon Lester of the Boston Red Sox for pitching a no-hitter last night.

Mark

There has been so much flying back and forth over the blogosphere over the last couple of weeks about bad pitches for bloggers, I don’t really have a lot to add.

I think that it’s a little ironic, however, that the “traditional media” got over this a long time ago, and for the most part, just ignore bad pitches.  I have pitched and I have been pitched.  Bad pitches happen.  I think it is a little our of bounds, however, to call people out in a public setting.  Most bad pitches that I have encountered have resulted either from an incredibly junior (read: inexperienced) doing the pitching, or an PR agency employee who is being pushed either by the agency or the client.  This past semester, one of my graduate students even told me that he was lambasted by the owner of the boutique firm for which he worked because he could not get his client in the Wall Street Journal.  There is a lot of pressure out there for earned media.

I really liked Jason’s Falls’ take on pitching bloggers.  He interviewed Allison Blass of MWW, but really did his homework before interviewing her, noting that, in addition to her job responsibilities, she has had her own blog since 2005.

Nice, balanced and well-researched post, Jason.

Mark