Public Relations, the name alone is enough to give people nightmares, the incessant droning of public relations flyer’s in the e-mail system. Unsolicited, and in many cases unwanted flyer’s over the latest shiny new toy. Now a bunch of bloggers are whining about the whole thing, and while I am sympathetic to the issue, one nagging question keeps on cropping up.
At some point the system that is in place today worked, worked well enough that it became a defacto way of doing business on the PR side of the house.
Why are you whining about this now?
After reading long rambling apologist blog entries like this one, an then reading rebuttal wiki’s like this one, and after going through all the wired, and other folks who are prominent bloggers who simply black list people who violate the rules of conduct and engagement, time to put everyone into “time out” for 5 minutes.
There are real consequences for not truly engaging with people one-on-one with a real sense of purpose. The differences, and the answers, are discoverable by reading the work of bloggers and reporters before you reach out instead of simply aligning them with particular topics or industries. This is about building relationships and rising above the fray. If you’re not interested in the industry, product, or service you represent, or what the most influential voices have to say about the subject, then do us all a favor and pursue your dreams elsewhere. Source: Brian Solis
Image from Megan Casey
Personal PR, about those things we want to discuss. On my problog at ITToolbox, I never get any requests to view anything, and I would be so open to discussing and using any security product on the planet. I would personally welcome them, the catch, I want a copy of the product to work with, not a PR flyer. The humorous part, in more than two years of blogging there, only two products, and two very good security products have offered me hands on, and both got glowing reviews because they worked as advertised. If you want a security product evaluated, go to ITToolbox and contact Tim.
Here though I am more interested in web 2.0, and sure PR flyer’s come across the screen, embargoed until X date, if you send them a week early, I won’t remember that anyone sent a flyer for an X date embargoed shiny new toy. Plus the same rule applies, I want to touch it, use it, and see if there is something compelling in the product. I won’t always write a shiny review, like the one earlier on Disqus, if I can see a compelling reason, then I won’t say that it is great.
This is where the big blogs become in some ways a shill for PR, few if any will write a negative review, its all gushing wonderfulness on the latest new Product X. Write one negative review, and I would put good money on the idea that those annoying PR spam, bacon, tofu, one on one conversations would suddenly vaporize overnight.
Frankly, not interested in the PR flyer, if you want something reviewed, give me a copy of it, sign me up for a beta (which some of them have been outstanding like Sprout or PopFly) others not so good like Mr. Wong (who I never hear from anymore).
Sure build your black list, publicly shame the PR people, it would be so much better to write a negative review.
Tags: negative review, spam, bacon, tofu, public relations, marketing, PR, product, hands on, wtf
