This link is a great example of every PR person’s worst nightmare: a journalist (or blogger in this case) makes fun of your pitch, shoots you back a snarky response, and it doesn’t end there as you continue to make more mistakes and they continue to broadcast it to their followers! Have you had this happen to you?  Do you never want to be on the receiving end of being called out online? Below are a few very easy ways to avoid this situation – even for the greenest PR person out there.

  • Do not send out your client news to anyone and everyone – really know your media outlet, know what it reports on, know its tone, know its past stories. This sounds really simple but I know so many PR People who pitch a good story to the wrong place – wasting everyone’s time and energy (and their reputation for the future).
  • Listen for media-feedback, and then incorporate that into your pitch moving forward—or perhaps even your current pitch. The writers, bloggers, and producers out there know what they want to write about –and know what their bosses what to see printed or on air.
  • Determine if no means not now – or no means “NEVER” This is subtle—but a PR person who actually speaks with his or her intended target will get a sense of whether he or she should stop sending this person pitches forever—or keep them on a list.
  • If No means never, don’t keep trying them with different angles of the same story. They could just be a media person who does not want any noise (or news even) from PR people. That’s THEIR problem. Leave them alone!

This brings me to my last but also very important point. Person to person contact is very important in communicating news. That, I hope, will never change. Really good, actually NEW information is difficult to obtain by Editors and Bloggers.  Public relations can help get the word out about a little brand that is trying to break into a bigger category or a company that is sharing industry news which can ultimately generate new ideas and then stories for the media.  Clever, well-thought out Public Relations campaigns are designed to inform and deliver news so please do follow the above points and make yourself (and the PR industry) an invaluable part of the news cycle!

Photo via Top Rank Blog