PR vs. Media or PR feat media ?! Part 1
I was prompted to write this material ... well, a lot of things prompted me. But the main reason is the inefficiency of interaction between the PR services of many companies and the media. And this applies not only to small homegrown LLCs, which have just crawled into the light, but also to the Russian representative offices of some large Western firms. However, the pillars of the domestic industry is also not sinless. Oh yeah, it’s about IT companies, although much of what has been written can be fully attributed to almost any industry.
So, what am I going to talk about here at all ?! First of all, about the mistakes that make PR-managers. You can consider this material a brief guide on how to NOT do it. No specific names and titles will not be mentioned, 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! (Beware, many letters!)
')
"[journalist] only a marketer will surpass stupidity × confidence by coefficient" © Artemy Lebedev
And PR people are just in the middle between a blunt crocodile and an equally blunt lion =) The main task of any PR department is what ?! To promote your product among the largest possible number of people, to make it popular and recognizable. Well, further in the text from any textbook on public relations. In any case, PR cannot do without interaction with the media and journalists. Do you want your (undoubtedly valuable) information not to get lost in the avalanche of daily drinking? Then learn how to work effectively with the press. Do you think that you have everything on the ointment ?! But fuck 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 clarified. On average, about 50 emails arrive on a working box per day (this is after passing an antispam and other filters). I occasionally drop almost a hundred, and the most sociable - as many as 200. About 1 to 4 gigabytes of incoming users are recruited per year. I scored 1.5 gig. And this is after the removal of all unnecessary messages. Volumes, on the one hand, are not the largest. On the other hand, they are not the smallest, and only one person has to deal with them, for whom this is not at all the main occupation. And if you miss 1-2 days (it happens sometimes), then it can take quite a long time to parse the mail. Why am I telling this? And the fact that many PR people still do not know how to work with such a simple thing as e-mail.
Most of the incoming are various press releases, informational messages, comments, and so on. So, dear PR managers, the 'Subject:' field was not just invented. No need to headline the letter concise “Press Release” or “News”. What release, what, why ?? Is it really so difficult to describe briefly what the letter will cover? For example, “The company has presented such and such.” It is not worth bending too. A letter with the heading “Kompaniy_akaya-something_announced_superpupernuyu_powerful_Chesing_To_Spina_s_warming up_I_Ionizer_Air” would be taken as spam rather than useful information. A great example of an adequate headline: “Microsoft Newsletter # 118”
No need to send press releases on the slightest information about. ( Attention everyone! Our CEO has made himself an intimate hairstyle! ) It is clear that a few hundred numbers indicating the number of releases sent out will decorate any report and will please the customer's eye. The trouble is that only a very rare of very large companies can produce informational materials worth attention in such quantities. The journalist will very quickly get tired of the source, where for 1 interesting message there are 10 sucked out ... well, you know how. Exactly by the time of the quarterly report, your address will be entered into the spam filter with most of the recipients from the list.
The second point is the addresses. This is a complete finish! If you are writing not from your main workbox, but from some pr @ companyname.ru, then be sure to specify contacts for feedback. The bigger, the better. And the name must be specified, and the full position, and for what you are responsible. Even if at the first acquaintance you described in detail the methods of communication with you, and then left your business card three times. Journalists - lazy and unorganized bastards! Of course, they forgot (did not bother) to add your contacts to the address book. The field 'From' or 'Name' must also be filled. The faceless “pr”, “manager”, “last name” do not speak about anything at all. How, in this case, to find out whether I need this letter at all without opening it? Maybe it makes sense to even specify the name of the company, eh?
By the way, there are still such useful things as mailing lists or, for example, hidden copies. Some do not know about this and copy a huge pool of addresses right in the 'To' field. I have a large collection of e-mails from such letters. And in general, we must look at what and to whom you are sending. Some suffer irresistible mania to send the same to all the addresses that they find on the last page of the magazine, on the website, in search engines. A sort of massive salvo in all directions - maybe it will fall.
Any self-respecting company, from my point of view, should have its own domain and mail attached to it. Letters from addresses of free mail services are less credible than with @ companyname.ru. Unless, of course, it is explicitly stated what has been sent from the personal box. ( Hmm, why would anyone send press releases from a personal box ?! ) In the end, the same Google allows you to link Gmail to any domain for free.
Now let's go through the content of the notorious press releases. First, be careful what you send. Some “talented” individuals send corrections and additions 10 times. It is better to sit extra 10-15 minutes and double-check everything. Secondly, the phrases “Details in the attachment” are very annoying. Is it really so difficult to at least briefly describe the essence of a 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 push it directly into the letter, without forgetting, of course, attach the doc-file with it. Since we touched on the topic of file formats, here are a couple of tips. Texts send in doc, rtf or txt; Pictures - jpeg, png. If you really want, then you can pdf. No docx, odt, tiff, bmp, eps and so on. Please do not pack all this stuff into archives! The only exception may be a set of any additional information (pictures, texts, etc.) on the topic. Again, do not push everything into the letter that is possible and impossible. If its size fits into 250 kilobytes (with images) - this is just great. Link to download photos of online and print quality MANDATORY! ( you have no idea how many products were selected from the sea of ​​similar new products and got into the media pages only because their images were at hand ). Are there any interesting additional materials ?! Just say so and be ready to provide them at the first request.
“Specials”, “For immediate publication”, “Urgent news”, “Most important event” - all these phrases will in no way speed up the appearance of information on the pages of the publication. Do you think everyone will give up everything and run to urgently publish your material? Yeah, right now ... Now, if they offer me to urgently come to the company office for the keys to the new luxury sedan that I was given to donate, then yes, it is really important =) In general, there is such a parameter as “Importance”, which is quietly set in any modern mail client. Why not use it if there is something really urgent? Just do not mark as important, everything. The first time you can forgive, the second time - to be surprised, at the third - get angry. But the fourth time will not be - you safely get a ban.
No need to ask, beg, demand to place a press release, news, message, comments, articles, notes! If you sent something very interesting, then do not worry - it will be published. And it is not necessary after some time to menacingly inquire: “But why x @ I’m so-and-such you haven’t posted our archival material?” However, there are quite arrogant comrades who directly ask to write an article about their “ingenious” creation. Sometimes there are some very inadequate people who ask to place songs of praise about themselves. I don’t even know, try to post a Wikipedia article about yourself. If it lasts at least six months, then you can still talk about something.
Finally, a few more nuances. Carefully keep track of what and where you are sending. Read the internal correspondence of companies can be very fun and entertaining. But it is better not to allow such cases. If you did not find the address of a particular person from the editorial office, then send a letter to the general box. Just do not forget to make a mark. For example, “For the advertising department” or “For First Name Last Name”. Also need to follow the subject of messages. The IT edition, for example, does not care at all that the Steel Plant No. 3 has mastered the production of pipes with a diameter of 30 and 40 centimeters. Finally, I can not fail to mention such a sore subject as encoding and HTML letters. Headers of the form “% 26v154G% 26v1551% 26v1546% 26v1552% 26v1552.% 26v1551% 26v1546% 26v154C% 26v1549% 26v15481” never inspire reading! And what if the same kryakozybly in the letter ?! And one moment. Please write in Russian or English. Some representatives of companies from the former Soviet Union are very fond of pushing national pride and agree to communicate only in their own language. Yes, you go to hell, if you are so proud! ( -Tha I do not bachu in Russian –Pi * di, c * ka! )
As a bonus, I will tell one story, from which I want to laugh and cry at the same time. Somehow, 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 is necessary to clarify that there are no identifying marks on its case, and in general there is no hint of the 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 about this, photos were taken, and everything else. One problem - we do not remember the name of the device, nor the name of the manufacturer. We climbed into the mail with the hope that by searching we’d find the exact letter and ... broken off. Nothing, absolutely no clues! It was possible to delete the letter unless by a big accident. Punching for keywords did not bring results, googling was also unsuccessful (well, is it a damn if the device is not even officially announced). In general, I do not know how it was possible to make a letter that now it is impossible to find it. The prospect of going through at least five hundred messages is somehow not encouraging. One hope that this is still our joint. Oh yeah, 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? And nothing good - everything has been tested and written long ago, 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 in the list, but not the least important aspect. Comrades, answer the letters on time! If you can not immediately give full information on a given question, then at least inform that you will provide it not now, but after a while. If you do not, then you just score. Do you go on vacation, get sick, go off to a hard drinking ?! Set up a mail answering machine! Give us an approximate timeframe for returning to the workplace, as well as full contacts of the person who will perform your duties all this time. This way you greatly simplify the life of yourself and the journalists.
PS: if you have questions, you can ask them or amdotaxe
PPS: if the topic turns out to be interesting, then I’m ready (s) to continue my debriefing
So, what am I going to talk about here at all ?! First of all, about the mistakes that make PR-managers. You can consider this material a brief guide on how to NOT do it. No specific names and titles will not be mentioned, 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! (Beware, many letters!)
')
Intro
"[journalist] only a marketer will surpass stupidity × confidence by coefficient" © Artemy Lebedev
And PR people are just in the middle between a blunt crocodile and an equally blunt lion =) The main task of any PR department is what ?! To promote your product among the largest possible number of people, to make it popular and recognizable. Well, further in the text from any textbook on public relations. In any case, PR cannot do without interaction with the media and journalists. Do you want your (undoubtedly valuable) information not to get lost in the avalanche of daily drinking? Then learn how to work effectively with the press. Do you think that you have everything on the ointment ?! But fuck 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 clarified. On average, about 50 emails arrive on a working box per day (this is after passing an antispam and other filters). I occasionally drop almost a hundred, and the most sociable - as many as 200. About 1 to 4 gigabytes of incoming users are recruited per year. I scored 1.5 gig. And this is after the removal of all unnecessary messages. Volumes, on the one hand, are not the largest. On the other hand, they are not the smallest, and only one person has to deal with them, for whom this is not at all the main occupation. And if you miss 1-2 days (it happens sometimes), then it can take quite a long time to parse the mail. Why am I telling this? And the fact that many PR people still do not know how to work with such a simple thing as e-mail.
Most of the incoming are various press releases, informational messages, comments, and so on. So, dear PR managers, the 'Subject:' field was not just invented. No need to headline the letter concise “Press Release” or “News”. What release, what, why ?? Is it really so difficult to describe briefly what the letter will cover? For example, “The company has presented such and such.” It is not worth bending too. A letter with the heading “Kompaniy_akaya-something_announced_superpupernuyu_powerful_Chesing_To_Spina_s_warming up_I_Ionizer_Air” would be taken as spam rather than useful information. A great example of an adequate headline: “Microsoft Newsletter # 118”
No need to send press releases on the slightest information about. ( Attention everyone! Our CEO has made himself an intimate hairstyle! ) It is clear that a few hundred numbers indicating the number of releases sent out will decorate any report and will please the customer's eye. The trouble is that only a very rare of very large companies can produce informational materials worth attention in such quantities. The journalist will very quickly get tired of the source, where for 1 interesting message there are 10 sucked out ... well, you know how. Exactly by the time of the quarterly report, your address will be entered into the spam filter with most of the recipients from the list.
The second point is the addresses. This is a complete finish! If you are writing not from your main workbox, but from some pr @ companyname.ru, then be sure to specify contacts for feedback. The bigger, the better. And the name must be specified, and the full position, and for what you are responsible. Even if at the first acquaintance you described in detail the methods of communication with you, and then left your business card three times. Journalists - lazy and unorganized bastards! Of course, they forgot (did not bother) to add your contacts to the address book. The field 'From' or 'Name' must also be filled. The faceless “pr”, “manager”, “last name” do not speak about anything at all. How, in this case, to find out whether I need this letter at all without opening it? Maybe it makes sense to even specify the name of the company, eh?
By the way, there are still such useful things as mailing lists or, for example, hidden copies. Some do not know about this and copy a huge pool of addresses right in the 'To' field. I have a large collection of e-mails from such letters. And in general, we must look at what and to whom you are sending. Some suffer irresistible mania to send the same to all the addresses that they find on the last page of the magazine, on the website, in search engines. A sort of massive salvo in all directions - maybe it will fall.
The real release, which came to almost all the email addresses of the magazine about home computers and digital gadgets: “Zvezdokuysky pulp and dehydrolysis plant has mastered the production of moonshine on the chassis of an excavator”. Since then, news about the feats of labor of the glorious company came to editors with enviable regularity. The sender's address showed that the source of the most up-to-date information is a PR-agency, which, besides star-ka'm samogonostroiteley, by an absurd coincidence, also promotes an IT-company. But the address of the mailing list they seem to have one for all occasions. Either this is a technical error, or extreme stupidity, or the desire to show a bigger number in the report (not 1674 addresses are sent out! This is not a nice thing!)
Any self-respecting company, from my point of view, should have its own domain and mail attached to it. Letters from addresses of free mail services are less credible than with @ companyname.ru. Unless, of course, it is explicitly stated what has been sent from the personal box. ( Hmm, why would anyone send press releases from a personal box ?! ) In the end, the same Google allows you to link Gmail to any domain for free.
Now let's go through the content of the notorious press releases. First, be careful what you send. Some “talented” individuals send corrections and additions 10 times. It is better to sit extra 10-15 minutes and double-check everything. Secondly, the phrases “Details in the attachment” are very annoying. Is it really so difficult to at least briefly describe the essence of a 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 push it directly into the letter, without forgetting, of course, attach the doc-file with it. Since we touched on the topic of file formats, here are a couple of tips. Texts send in doc, rtf or txt; Pictures - jpeg, png. If you really want, then you can pdf. No docx, odt, tiff, bmp, eps and so on. Please do not pack all this stuff into archives! The only exception may be a set of any additional information (pictures, texts, etc.) on the topic. Again, do not push everything into the letter that is possible and impossible. If its size fits into 250 kilobytes (with images) - this is just great. Link to download photos of online and print quality MANDATORY! ( you have no idea how many products were selected from the sea of ​​similar new products and got into the media pages only because their images were at hand ). Are there any interesting additional materials ?! Just say so and be ready to provide them at the first request.
“Specials”, “For immediate publication”, “Urgent news”, “Most important event” - all these phrases will in no way speed up the appearance of information on the pages of the publication. Do you think everyone will give up everything and run to urgently publish your material? Yeah, right now ... Now, if they offer me to urgently come to the company office for the keys to the new luxury sedan that I was given to donate, then yes, it is really important =) In general, there is such a parameter as “Importance”, which is quietly set in any modern mail client. Why not use it if there is something really urgent? Just do not mark as important, everything. The first time you can forgive, the second time - to be surprised, at the third - get angry. But the fourth time will not be - you safely get a ban.
No need to ask, beg, demand to place a press release, news, message, comments, articles, notes! If you sent something very interesting, then do not worry - it will be published. And it is not necessary after some time to menacingly inquire: “But why x @ I’m so-and-such you haven’t posted our archival material?” However, there are quite arrogant comrades who directly ask to write an article about their “ingenious” creation. Sometimes there are some very inadequate people who ask to place songs of praise about themselves. I don’t even know, try to post a Wikipedia article about yourself. If it 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.
Title: "Company XXX has made a revolution in the field of YYY!"
Text: some uninteresting near-computer crap.
Pirastasta sender kamment: When publishing it is necessary to keep the original title.
Conclusion: dude goes to aaaaakui!
Finally, a few more nuances. Carefully keep track of what and where you are sending. Read the internal correspondence of companies can be very fun and entertaining. But it is better not to allow such cases. If you did not find the address of a particular person from the editorial office, then send a letter to the general box. Just do not forget to make a mark. For example, “For the advertising department” or “For First Name Last Name”. Also need to follow the subject of messages. The IT edition, for example, does not care at all that the Steel Plant No. 3 has mastered the production of pipes with a diameter of 30 and 40 centimeters. Finally, I can not fail to mention such a sore subject as encoding and HTML letters. Headers of the form “% 26v154G% 26v1551% 26v1546% 26v1552% 26v1552.% 26v1551% 26v1546% 26v154C% 26v1549% 26v15481” never inspire reading! And what if the same kryakozybly in the letter ?! And one moment. Please write in Russian or English. Some representatives of companies from the former Soviet Union are very fond of pushing national pride and agree to communicate only in their own language. Yes, you go to hell, if you are so proud! ( -Tha I do not bachu in Russian –Pi * di, c * ka! )
As a bonus, I will tell one story, from which I want to laugh and cry at the same time. Somehow, 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 is necessary to clarify that there are no identifying marks on its case, and in general there is no hint of the 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 about this, photos were taken, and everything else. One problem - we do not remember the name of the device, nor the name of the manufacturer. We climbed into the mail with the hope that by searching we’d find the exact letter and ... broken off. Nothing, absolutely no clues! It was possible to delete the letter unless by a big accident. Punching for keywords did not bring results, googling was also unsuccessful (well, is it a damn if the device is not even officially announced). In general, I do not know how it was possible to make a letter that now it is impossible to find it. The prospect of going through at least five hundred messages is somehow not encouraging. One hope that this is still our joint. Oh yeah, 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? And nothing good - everything has been tested and written long ago, 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 in the list, but not the least important aspect. Comrades, answer the letters on time! If you can not immediately give full information on a given question, then at least inform that you will provide it not now, but after a while. If you do not, then you just score. Do you go on vacation, get sick, go off to a hard drinking ?! Set up a mail answering machine! Give us an approximate timeframe for returning to the workplace, as well as full contacts of the person who will perform your duties all this time. This way you greatly simplify the life of yourself and the journalists.
In general, PR gentlemen, master, finally, such an important tool as e-mail!
PS: if you have questions, you can ask them or amdotaxe
PPS: if the topic turns out to be interesting, then I’m ready (s) to continue my debriefing
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/80079/
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