At a working dinner (like an awards banquet or evening panel discussion), don’t seat all the journalists together. You’ll get more coverage if you actually put us in proximity to the people we get paid to talk to.
That said, the good journalists will ignore or hack the seating plans anyway. So, never mind.
Filed under Meetings, Relationships
Steve Jobs to bloggers: Shut it down, we need your WiFi. Credit: James Martin/CNET
Our reporters just got back from the WWDC Stevenote. They say that when Steve Jobs said, “All you bloggers need to turn off your notebooks,” to free up WiFi bandwidth, Apple PR reps aggressively demanded that reporters comply.
This is not how the press works, people. You don’t get to shut us down to make your demos work better.
And not like it should play a part in this conversation, but I’ll say it anyway: No reporter worth his or her paycheck relies on either public WiFi nor AT&T’s pathetic data network to cover events that matter. We have EVDO (Verizon or Sprint) for that. You don’t own those. And you don’t own us.
See CNET Reporter Erica Ogg’s story, Even Steve Jobs has demo hiccups.
Filed under Common sense
Many journalists change their “beats,” or topic areas, frequently. It’s more frequent now than ever, with newsrooms shrinking. Editors have to constantly shuffle staff around.
So when you’re pitching, do one last check to make sure the person to whom you’re pitching is still covering your category. You certainly do not score points when you pitch a writer in a topic area they last covered “three beats ago.”
Filed under Common sense
As a friendly reminder, I point my readers towards Pro PR Tip #13, Don’t drink and brand. Today’s Bad Company Name award goes to… well, I’ll let you read the email.
Goober Networks, a leading Unified Communications (UC) solution provider, plans to announce the next version of its UC solution on Tuesday, May 11…
Seriously, people. You’re not make making novelty candy products here. Grow up.
Don’t try to get me to agree with you about how awesome you think your product is during a meeting about new features. (Courtesy of Josh)
It’s OK to be excited about your product. Even passionate. But the writer needs time to form his own opinion. Forcing the issue is likely to have the opposite effect of the one desired.
Your job, when sending an e-mail pitch to a journalist, is to promote your client. So if you must put silly award logos in your e-mail sig, they should be your client’s, not yours.
You don't need no stinking badges.
Filed under Email
There will be a mistake. A bad one. Customers will be inconvenienced, damaged, frightened, perturbed, and angry.
Say you’re sorry. Then say what happened. Then say you’re sorry again. Save the soul-searching “This has been a bad day,” stuff for your spouse — because it’s been a worse day for many of your customers.
Do not try to publicly minimize the inconvenience your company’s foul-up has caused its customers. You don’t know what it’s like for them. Also, blogs will skewer you.
Over-apologize, over-compensate, over-fix. Do you want to be Toyota?
Check out these apologies. Both help a bit, but they have flaws that could easily have been avoided. Can you see them?
Filed under Common sense
Before you send me an email asking, “Are you familiar with…” the CEO you’re representing, and definitely before you tell me how smart he is as if I’ve never heard of him, you might want to make sure that I haven’t recently produced and published an in-depth face-to-face video interview with him.
Filed under Relationships
This was sent to one our reporters here. Here being CNET News, a technology news site. Emphasis to make sure we’re clear about that. We are? Good.
I wanted to get you to Save the Date of April 30. Norelco is holding an body grooming event with Carmen Electra that day. Location and other details forthcoming…
Bad email list management is one of the quickest routes to a reporter’s spam filter. Shave your lists, please.
Filed under Common sense, Email
If you bring a fancy new smartphone to a press event to show it off, be prepared to let us film it. Even if, as you say, “The ballroom doesn’t match the company aesthetic.”
Or come up with a better excuse.
Thanks, Kent.
Filed under Lies
Like the blog? Get the book!
Order yours today!
Rafe
Pro PR Tips 