Pitching Bloggers, and the State of PR

When it comes to dealing with the changes confronting the PR profession, some are bombastic and
many are blissfully unaware, going about business as usual.

I try to take a realistic approach and not get too religious about these changes.   At the same time,  one of the missions of this blog is to help chart the evolving arc of the profession, and join or even sometimes hopefully lead the chorus of those calling for the updating of our skills and approach.

In reality, not all PR people across all segments are equally affected by the growing importance of online and social media.  Those working in complex and information-rich areas like IT and high tech are most affected – techies have naturally gravitated online for some time.

Ironically, some information-rich sectors have been laggards. E.g., scientists and researchers – the very types who who founded, traditionally relied on and led the early development of the Internet – have shied away from utilizing social media channels, although this is now changing, according to a recent survey by the 2Collab social applications group at Dutch publishing giant Elsevier (disclosure – a client), as reported on their blog.

It would seem that in other areas where mainstream media holds significant sway – consumery things, and celebrity publicity for example – online channels are increasingly important, but perhaps less front and center.

There have been a couple of very compelling posts over the past couple of days on related topics.

In Righting the Ship in the PR Industry,  Jason  Falls makes some excellent suggestions for change, using pitch spam as a frame for what is wrong with PR today.  He says:

In my opinion, the way the public relations industry responds to the problem of PR spam over the course of the next six to 12 months could make or break our profession for the next decade. Why are our professional organizations not prioritizing this?

He outlines steps such as rallying organizations like IABC and PRSA to lead the charge, giving  journalists and bloggers ways to opt out of media contact tracking databases, and a list of "back to basics" tips.

These are a start, but in my opinion, the issue is systemic, and pitch spam is a symptom amongst other challenges PR faces.  As long as agencies load up on recent grads and put them out there with minimal training – and emphasize quantities of calls, email pitches, briefings and coverage rather than true and measurable business results and outcomes – we will have a pitch spam problem. 

In one of his tips, Jason said: Recognize that new media is essentially no different from old media.
The traditional folks just haven’t complained as loudly about your
shortcomings.

True, in some ways everything is the same, but then, everything is different now – there are fewer rules (see below) and the ability and inclination for people to vent publicly takes off the PR Emperor’s clothes, so to speak.

I also saw what looks to be a new blog about building personal brands, and a cool post by Dan Schawbel there about using the same in the context of blogger pitching tips.   The post included some useful links and this handy list of tips

1. Know your blogger
2. There are no rules
3. Lead with your brand
4. Become a participant
5. Content is King
6. Social Media Release
7. Be passionate/creative
8. Relationships are key

I especially like Rule number 2: there are no rules (sounds like Fight Club)!

I am not sure I agree that content is still king – yes, many bloggers need to fill white space, and we can help as content providers –  but content is a commodity these days.  And some bloggers say they don’t like ready made angles and fully formed stories (see my previous post on this), indeed that is the rationale for "just the facts" nature of social media releases.

If content is no longer king, what is?  I will be writing more about this tomorrow.