March 22, 2010 at 19:33PR vs. Media or PR feat media ?! Part 1
I was encouraged to write this material ... in general, a lot of things prompted me. But the main reason is the ineffective interaction of PR services of many companies and the media. Moreover, this applies not only to small home-grown LLCs that have just crawled into the world, but also to the Russian representative offices of some large western firms. However, the pillars of the domestic industry are also not sinless. Oh yes, it will be about IT companies, although much of what has been written can be fully attributed to almost any industry.
So, what am I going to broadcast here ?! First of all, about the mistakes made by PR-managers. You can consider this material a short guide on how NOT to do it. I will not mention any specific names or names, except in some cases. Everything is based on personal experience. Plus additions from fellow craftsmen, who in fact are co-authors of this material.
In general, let's go! (Caution, many letters!)
"[the journalist] only the marketer will surpass the stupidity × confidence coefficient" © Artemy Lebedev
And the PR specialists are just in the middle between a stupid crocodile and a stupid lion =) What is the main task of any PR department ?! To promote your product among as many people as possible, to make it popular and recognizable. Well and further on from any textbook on public relations. In any case, PR does not do without interaction with the media and journalists. Do you want your (undoubtedly valuable) information not to be lost in the avalanche of daily food? Then learn to work effectively with the press. Do you think that everything is on the ointment already ?! But to hell with you! Read what is written below and think about it.
E-mail
First, some statistics. According to the results of a small survey among colleagues, the following was found out. On average, about 50 letters are received per working mailbox per day (this is after passing antispam and other filters). Nearly a hundred drops to me occasionally, and the most sociable - as many as 200. About 1 to 4 gigabytes of incoming messages are typed per year. I got 1.5 gig. And this is after deleting all unnecessary messages. Volumes, on the one hand, are not the largest. On the other hand, they are not the smallest, and one person has to deal with them, for whom this is not at all the main occupation. And if you miss 1-2 days (sometimes it happens), then it can take quite a lot of time to parse mail. Why am I telling you this? And to the fact that many PR specialists still do not know how to work with such a simple thing as email.
Most of the inbox is made up of various press releases, newsletters, comments, and so on. So, dear PR managers, the 'Subject:' field was invented for a reason. No need to title the letter concise "Press Release" or "News." What release, what, why ?? Is it really so difficult to briefly describe what the letter will be about ?! For example, “The company presented such-and-such and such-and-such.” You should not go too far. A letter with the heading of the form “Company_so_announced_superiorly_powerful_composer_for_back_with_heated_and_air_ionizer_ air” will be more likely to be considered as spam than for useful information. A great example of an adequate headline: “Microsoft Newsletter No. 118.”
No need to send press releases for the slightest informational occasion. (Attention to all! Our CEO made himself a new intimate hairstyle! ) It is clear that a few-hundredth number indicating the number of releases sent will decorate any report and will delight the customer’s eye. The trouble is that only a very rare of very large companies in such quantities can issue noteworthy informational events. A journalist very quickly gets bored of a source where 10 interesting messages come from 1 interesting message from ... in general, you know how. Right by the time of the quarterly report, your address will be included in the spam filter for most recipients from the list.
The second point is the addresses. This is a complete finish! If you are writing not from your main working mailbox, but from some pr @ companyname.ru, then be sure to specify the contacts for feedback. The bigger, the better. And the name must be indicated, and the full position, and for which you are responsible. Even if the first time you met you described the details of how to contact you, and then left your business card three times. Journalists are lazy and disorganized bastards! Of course, they forgot (did not bother) to enter your contacts in the address book. Field 'From' or 'Name' must also be filled out. The faceless “pr”, “manager”, “surname” do not say anything at all. In this case, how do I know if I need this letter at all without opening it? Maybe it makes sense to at least indicate the name of the company, huh?
By the way, there are such useful things as mailing lists or, for example, blind copies. Some do not know about this and copy-paste a huge pool of addresses directly in the 'To' field. I have accumulated a voluminous collection of e-mails from such letters here. And in general, you need to watch what and to whom you send. Some suffer from an irresistible mania to send the same to all addresses that they find on the last page of the magazine, on the site, in search engines. A sort of massive salvo in all directions - maybe it will hit.
Any self-respecting company, from my point of view, should have its own domain and mail attached to it. Emails from addresses of free email services cause less trust than with @ companyname.ru. Unless, of course, it’s directly indicated that it was sent from a personal mailbox. ( Hmm, why would anyone send press releases from a personal mailbox ?! ) In the end, the same Google allows you to bind Gmail to any domain for free.
Now let's go through the content of the notorious press releases. First, keep track of what you post. Some “talented” personalities send corrections and additions 10 times. It’s better to sit the extra 10-15 minutes and double-check everything. Secondly, the phrase "Details in the attachment" is very tired of it. Is it really so difficult to at least briefly describe the essence of the press release - a sort of squeeze, the very essence without unnecessary details. If the release is small (3-4k characters + a couple of pictures), then boldly shove it directly into the letter, without forgetting, of course, to attach the doc-file with it. Since they touched on the topic of file formats, here are a couple more tips. Send texts in doc, rtf or txt; clip art - jpeg, png. If you really want, then you can pdf. No docx, odt, tiff, bmp, eps and so on are needed. Please do not archive all this stuff! An exception can only be a set of any additional information (pictures, texts, etc.) on the topic. Again, you do not need to stuff everything that is possible and impossible into a letter. If its size fits into 250 kilobytes (with images) - this is just wonderful. A link to download photos of Internet and print quality is MANDATORY! (you can’t imagine how many products were selected from the sea of the same type of new products and got on the pages of the media just because their images were at hand ). Are there any interesting additional materials ?! Just say so and be prepared to provide them at your first request.
“Emergency message”, “For immediate publication”, “Urgent news”, “The most important event” - all these phrases in no way accelerate the appearance of information on the pages of the publication. Do you think everyone will drop everything and run to urgently publish your material ?! Yeah, now, now ... Now, if I’m offered to urgently come to the company’s office behind the keys to a brand new luxury sedan, which I decided to give, then yes, this is really important =) In general, there is such a parameter as “Importance”, which is calmly set in any modern email client. Why not use it if there is something really urgent? Just do not mark, as important, everything in a row. The first time you can forgive, the second time - be surprised, the third - get angry. But there will be no fourth time - you will safely receive a ban.
No need to ask, beg, demand a press release, news, message, comments, articles, notes! If you sent something very interesting, then do not worry - this will be published. And no need to ask menacingly after a while: “And why the fuck didn’t you post our archival material?” However, there are quite arrogant comrades who directly ask you to write an article about their “ingenious” creation. Sometimes quite inadequate people come across asking to post songs of praise about themselves. I don’t even know, try first to post an article about yourself on Wikipedia. If she lasts at least six months, then you can still talk about something.
Finally, a few more nuances. Carefully monitor what and where you are sending. Reading internal company correspondence can be very fun and entertaining. But it is better not to allow such cases. If you did not find the address of a specific person from the editorial office, then send a letter to the general box. Just remember to make a note. For example, “For the advertising department” or “For First Name Last Name”. You also need to follow the topics of the messages. For example, the IT publication doesn’t give a damn that Steel Plant No. 3 has mastered the production of pipes with a diameter of 30 and 40 centimeters. Finally, I cannot but mention such a sore subject as encoding and HTML letters. Headings like “% 26v154G% 26v1551% 26v1546% 26v1552% 26v1552.% 26v1551% 26v1546% 26v154C% 26v1549% 26v15481” never inspire reading! And what if in a letter are the same grunts ?! And one moment. Write please, in Russian or English. Some representatives of companies from the post-Soviet space are very fond of sticking out their national pride and agree to communicate only in their native language. Yes you go in the ass, if so proud! (-That I don’t bach in Russian –Pi * you dick, with * ka! )
As a bonus, I’ll tell you one story that makes you want to laugh and cry at the same time. Once a Russian developer wrote to us with a proposal to test a new thing (quite interesting, I must admit). Phoned, agreed, the courier arrived and gave us the device. Here it must be clarified that on its case there are no identification marks, and indeed there is no hint of a manufacturing company anywhere. In general, for some time, the device was waiting for its finest hour. Then it was successfully tested, an article was written on this subject, pictures were taken, well, and everything else. One problem - we do not remember the name of the device, nor the name of the manufacturer. They climbed into the mail with the hope that by searching for sure we would find that same letter and ... broke off. Nothing, absolutely no clues! It was possible, by chance, to delete a letter. Punching by keywords did not bring any results, googling was also unsuccessful (well, is it hell if the device is not even officially announced). In general, I do not know how it was possible to compose a letter that it is now impossible to find. The prospect of sorting through at least five hundred messages is somehow not happy. One hope that this is still our cant. Oh yes, the developer promised to pick up the device in a maximum of 3-4 weeks. Here are just a call from them, we are waiting for the second month. What is the result? But nothing good - everything has been tested and written for a long time, it remains to enter the name of the product and the company. Well, wait for the courier or at least one more letter or call. if the device is not officially announced yet). In general, I do not know how it was possible to compose a letter that it is now impossible to find. The prospect of sorting through at least five hundred messages is somehow not happy. One hope that this is still our cant. Oh yes, the developer promised to pick up the device in a maximum of 3-4 weeks. Here are just a call from them, we are waiting for the second month. What is the result? But nothing good - everything has been tested and written for a long time, it remains to enter the name of the product and the company. Well, wait for the courier or at least one more letter or call. if the device is not officially announced yet). In general, I do not know how it was possible to compose a letter that it is now impossible to find. The prospect of sorting through at least five hundred messages is somehow not happy. One hope that this is still our cant. Oh yes, the developer promised to pick up the device in a maximum of 3-4 weeks. Here are just a call from them, we are waiting for the second month. What is the result? But nothing good - everything has been tested and written for a long time, it remains to enter the name of the product and the company. Well, wait for the courier or at least one more letter or call. Here are just a call from them, we are waiting for the second month. What is the result? But nothing good - everything has been tested and written for a long time, it remains to enter the name of the product and the company. Well, wait for the courier or at least one more letter or call. Here are just a call from them, we are waiting for the second month. What is the result? But nothing good - everything has been tested and written for a long time, it remains to enter the name of the product and the company. Well, wait for the courier or at least one more letter or call.
Last on the list, but far from the last in importance. Comrades dear friends, answer letters on time! If you can’t immediately give full information on the question asked, then at least let us know that you will not provide it now, but after a while. If you do not, then they will simply beat you. Are you going on vacation, sick, gone binge ?! Set up an email answering machine! Tell us the approximate deadlines for returning to the workplace, as well as the full contacts of the person who will perform your duties all this time. This will greatly simplify the life of yourself and journalists.
PS: if you have questions, then you can ask me or amdotaxe
PPS: if the topic turns out to be interesting, then ready (s) to continue the debriefing
So, what am I going to broadcast here ?! First of all, about the mistakes made by PR-managers. You can consider this material a short guide on how NOT to do it. I will not mention any specific names or names, except in some cases. Everything is based on personal experience. Plus additions from fellow craftsmen, who in fact are co-authors of this material.
In general, let's go! (Caution, many letters!)
Intro
"[the journalist] only the marketer will surpass the stupidity × confidence coefficient" © Artemy Lebedev
And the PR specialists are just in the middle between a stupid crocodile and a stupid lion =) What is the main task of any PR department ?! To promote your product among as many people as possible, to make it popular and recognizable. Well and further on from any textbook on public relations. In any case, PR does not do without interaction with the media and journalists. Do you want your (undoubtedly valuable) information not to be lost in the avalanche of daily food? Then learn to work effectively with the press. Do you think that everything is on the ointment already ?! But to hell with you! Read what is written below and think about it.
First, some statistics. According to the results of a small survey among colleagues, the following was found out. On average, about 50 letters are received per working mailbox per day (this is after passing antispam and other filters). Nearly a hundred drops to me occasionally, and the most sociable - as many as 200. About 1 to 4 gigabytes of incoming messages are typed per year. I got 1.5 gig. And this is after deleting all unnecessary messages. Volumes, on the one hand, are not the largest. On the other hand, they are not the smallest, and one person has to deal with them, for whom this is not at all the main occupation. And if you miss 1-2 days (sometimes it happens), then it can take quite a lot of time to parse mail. Why am I telling you this? And to the fact that many PR specialists still do not know how to work with such a simple thing as email.
Most of the inbox is made up of various press releases, newsletters, comments, and so on. So, dear PR managers, the 'Subject:' field was invented for a reason. No need to title the letter concise "Press Release" or "News." What release, what, why ?? Is it really so difficult to briefly describe what the letter will be about ?! For example, “The company presented such-and-such and such-and-such.” You should not go too far. A letter with the heading of the form “Company_so_announced_superiorly_powerful_composer_for_back_with_heated_and_air_ionizer_ air” will be more likely to be considered as spam than for useful information. A great example of an adequate headline: “Microsoft Newsletter No. 118.”
No need to send press releases for the slightest informational occasion. (Attention to all! Our CEO made himself a new intimate hairstyle! ) It is clear that a few-hundredth number indicating the number of releases sent will decorate any report and will delight the customer’s eye. The trouble is that only a very rare of very large companies in such quantities can issue noteworthy informational events. A journalist very quickly gets bored of a source where 10 interesting messages come from 1 interesting message from ... in general, you know how. Right by the time of the quarterly report, your address will be included in the spam filter for most recipients from the list.
The second point is the addresses. This is a complete finish! If you are writing not from your main working mailbox, but from some pr @ companyname.ru, then be sure to specify the contacts for feedback. The bigger, the better. And the name must be indicated, and the full position, and for which you are responsible. Even if the first time you met you described the details of how to contact you, and then left your business card three times. Journalists are lazy and disorganized bastards! Of course, they forgot (did not bother) to enter your contacts in the address book. Field 'From' or 'Name' must also be filled out. The faceless “pr”, “manager”, “surname” do not say anything at all. In this case, how do I know if I need this letter at all without opening it? Maybe it makes sense to at least indicate the name of the company, huh?
By the way, there are such useful things as mailing lists or, for example, blind copies. Some do not know about this and copy-paste a huge pool of addresses directly in the 'To' field. I have accumulated a voluminous collection of e-mails from such letters here. And in general, you need to watch what and to whom you send. Some suffer from an irresistible mania to send the same to all addresses that they find on the last page of the magazine, on the site, in search engines. A sort of massive salvo in all directions - maybe it will hit.
A real release that came to almost all the email addresses of the magazine about home computers and digital gadgets: "Zvezdokuisky pulp and dehydrolysis plant mastered the production of moonshine on the chassis of an excavator." Since then, news about the labor exploits of the glorious enterprise has come to editors with enviable regularity. The sender's address showed that the source of the super-relevant information is the PR agency, which, in addition to the Zvezdokuy moonshine builders, by absurd coincidence, also promotes an IT company. But their mailing address seems to be the same for all occasions. Either this is a technical error, or extreme dullness, or the desire to show a larger number in the report (no 1674 addresses are sent! This is not Khuhra-Muhra!)
Any self-respecting company, from my point of view, should have its own domain and mail attached to it. Emails from addresses of free email services cause less trust than with @ companyname.ru. Unless, of course, it’s directly indicated that it was sent from a personal mailbox. ( Hmm, why would anyone send press releases from a personal mailbox ?! ) In the end, the same Google allows you to bind Gmail to any domain for free.
Now let's go through the content of the notorious press releases. First, keep track of what you post. Some “talented” personalities send corrections and additions 10 times. It’s better to sit the extra 10-15 minutes and double-check everything. Secondly, the phrase "Details in the attachment" is very tired of it. Is it really so difficult to at least briefly describe the essence of the press release - a sort of squeeze, the very essence without unnecessary details. If the release is small (3-4k characters + a couple of pictures), then boldly shove it directly into the letter, without forgetting, of course, to attach the doc-file with it. Since they touched on the topic of file formats, here are a couple more tips. Send texts in doc, rtf or txt; clip art - jpeg, png. If you really want, then you can pdf. No docx, odt, tiff, bmp, eps and so on are needed. Please do not archive all this stuff! An exception can only be a set of any additional information (pictures, texts, etc.) on the topic. Again, you do not need to stuff everything that is possible and impossible into a letter. If its size fits into 250 kilobytes (with images) - this is just wonderful. A link to download photos of Internet and print quality is MANDATORY! (you can’t imagine how many products were selected from the sea of the same type of new products and got on the pages of the media just because their images were at hand ). Are there any interesting additional materials ?! Just say so and be prepared to provide them at your first request.
“Emergency message”, “For immediate publication”, “Urgent news”, “The most important event” - all these phrases in no way accelerate the appearance of information on the pages of the publication. Do you think everyone will drop everything and run to urgently publish your material ?! Yeah, now, now ... Now, if I’m offered to urgently come to the company’s office behind the keys to a brand new luxury sedan, which I decided to give, then yes, this is really important =) In general, there is such a parameter as “Importance”, which is calmly set in any modern email client. Why not use it if there is something really urgent? Just do not mark, as important, everything in a row. The first time you can forgive, the second time - be surprised, the third - get angry. But there will be no fourth time - you will safely receive a ban.
No need to ask, beg, demand a press release, news, message, comments, articles, notes! If you sent something very interesting, then do not worry - this will be published. And no need to ask menacingly after a while: “And why the fuck didn’t you post our archival material?” However, there are quite arrogant comrades who directly ask you to write an article about their “ingenious” creation. Sometimes quite inadequate people come across asking to post songs of praise about themselves. I don’t even know, try first to post an article about yourself on Wikipedia. If she lasts at least six months, then you can still talk about something.
An example of savagery and rudeness: some kind of stupid release from a company I don’t remember.
Title: “Company XXX made a revolution in the field of YYY!”
Text: some uninteresting near-computer crap.
Comment of the sending sender: When publishing, the original title must be retained.
Conclusion: dude is coming!
Finally, a few more nuances. Carefully monitor what and where you are sending. Reading internal company correspondence can be very fun and entertaining. But it is better not to allow such cases. If you did not find the address of a specific person from the editorial office, then send a letter to the general box. Just remember to make a note. For example, “For the advertising department” or “For First Name Last Name”. You also need to follow the topics of the messages. For example, the IT publication doesn’t give a damn that Steel Plant No. 3 has mastered the production of pipes with a diameter of 30 and 40 centimeters. Finally, I cannot but mention such a sore subject as encoding and HTML letters. Headings like “% 26v154G% 26v1551% 26v1546% 26v1552% 26v1552.% 26v1551% 26v1546% 26v154C% 26v1549% 26v15481” never inspire reading! And what if in a letter are the same grunts ?! And one moment. Write please, in Russian or English. Some representatives of companies from the post-Soviet space are very fond of sticking out their national pride and agree to communicate only in their native language. Yes you go in the ass, if so proud! (-That I don’t bach in Russian –Pi * you dick, with * ka! )
As a bonus, I’ll tell you one story that makes you want to laugh and cry at the same time. Once a Russian developer wrote to us with a proposal to test a new thing (quite interesting, I must admit). Phoned, agreed, the courier arrived and gave us the device. Here it must be clarified that on its case there are no identification marks, and indeed there is no hint of a manufacturing company anywhere. In general, for some time, the device was waiting for its finest hour. Then it was successfully tested, an article was written on this subject, pictures were taken, well, and everything else. One problem - we do not remember the name of the device, nor the name of the manufacturer. They climbed into the mail with the hope that by searching for sure we would find that same letter and ... broke off. Nothing, absolutely no clues! It was possible, by chance, to delete a letter. Punching by keywords did not bring any results, googling was also unsuccessful (well, is it hell if the device is not even officially announced). In general, I do not know how it was possible to compose a letter that it is now impossible to find. The prospect of sorting through at least five hundred messages is somehow not happy. One hope that this is still our cant. Oh yes, the developer promised to pick up the device in a maximum of 3-4 weeks. Here are just a call from them, we are waiting for the second month. What is the result? But nothing good - everything has been tested and written for a long time, it remains to enter the name of the product and the company. Well, wait for the courier or at least one more letter or call. if the device is not officially announced yet). In general, I do not know how it was possible to compose a letter that it is now impossible to find. The prospect of sorting through at least five hundred messages is somehow not happy. One hope that this is still our cant. Oh yes, the developer promised to pick up the device in a maximum of 3-4 weeks. Here are just a call from them, we are waiting for the second month. What is the result? But nothing good - everything has been tested and written for a long time, it remains to enter the name of the product and the company. Well, wait for the courier or at least one more letter or call. if the device is not officially announced yet). In general, I do not know how it was possible to compose a letter that it is now impossible to find. The prospect of sorting through at least five hundred messages is somehow not happy. One hope that this is still our cant. Oh yes, the developer promised to pick up the device in a maximum of 3-4 weeks. Here are just a call from them, we are waiting for the second month. What is the result? But nothing good - everything has been tested and written for a long time, it remains to enter the name of the product and the company. Well, wait for the courier or at least one more letter or call. Here are just a call from them, we are waiting for the second month. What is the result? But nothing good - everything has been tested and written for a long time, it remains to enter the name of the product and the company. Well, wait for the courier or at least one more letter or call. Here are just a call from them, we are waiting for the second month. What is the result? But nothing good - everything has been tested and written for a long time, it remains to enter the name of the product and the company. Well, wait for the courier or at least one more letter or call.
Last on the list, but far from the last in importance. Comrades dear friends, answer letters on time! If you can’t immediately give full information on the question asked, then at least let us know that you will not provide it now, but after a while. If you do not, then they will simply beat you. Are you going on vacation, sick, gone binge ?! Set up an email answering machine! Tell us the approximate deadlines for returning to the workplace, as well as the full contacts of the person who will perform your duties all this time. This will greatly simplify the life of yourself and journalists.
In general, gentlemen, PR specialists, finally, master such an important tool as email!
PS: if you have questions, then you can ask me or amdotaxe
PPS: if the topic turns out to be interesting, then ready (s) to continue the debriefing