August 24th, 2007 by Wendy McAuliffe
Tom Coates, author of Plasticbag.org, has reignited the blogger relations debate with an attack on PRs who consider “(him) an outlet to push their marketing messages.”
The discussion has sparked passionate reaction with Ben Ayers at ITV, and Drew B, to name just a couple. I won’t attempt to reconstruct their sides of the argument here - please go and have a read as the conversation gets to the crux of the contentious relationship between PR and bloggers.
I find myself pulled in several different directions, as I’m a former digital journalist, PR and blogger. I have the utmost respect for Tom Coates’ side of the argument, and it’s a shame that he feels PRs have soured his enjoyment of blogging…but I don’t feel his argument is a fair representation of the entire blogosphere.
Blogging is by its nature an open communications forum. Those who include the facility for readers to provide comments are posting an open invitation for others to contribute to their views and editorial, and there is no reason why PRs shouldn’t be able to contribute in just as an intelligent and useful way as anyone else. Although I have done the unspeakable and crossed over to the dark side, I haven’t lost my sense of judgement or understanding in the process!
I totally agree with Ben Ayers’ argument that there is nothing wrong with blogger relations, so long as it is done well. If a PR decides to communicate with a blogger, it is because they respect the quality of their writing, and consider their authority on a subject to be equal or better to that of a journalist. The communication might be unwanted, but it should equally be taken as a compliment. Tell us once that you don’t want to be contacted again, and that should be the end of it.
The PR industry as a whole has a lot to learn about how to communicate with social networks important to their clients, but no one has the right to exclude us from doing this in the right way. The good PRs among us have a lot of knowledge and insight to offer to any conversation within their expertise, and have access to people who really know what’s going on. So long as our communication is well-researched and targeted, there should be no one holding us back.
Furthermore, it’s our job to make sure that our clients are listening to what’s being written about them online, to learn what’s important to their network. We can help the evolution of social media-led conversations if you let us!
August 25th, 2007 at 9:22 am
I started off by responding to PR companies saying I didn’t want to be on their lists, but there are a lot of PR companies and I just kept getting sent more. That’s like unsubscribing from spam. It just doesn’t work.
After that, you have to ask what the PR person wants to gain from the whole enterprise. I know this is an unpopular view, but they want to push the agenda of their client, surely? And in that, how precisely are they different from spammers?
And building a relationship with someone is almost worse! I mean, how cynical a move is is to foster a relationship with someone purely to further someone else’s publicity goals?
I’m afraid I view being targetted by a PR person as a vehicle for their messaging—however nicely it is attempted—a deeply troubling and creepy thing. I appreciate that there’s a contract in place between journalists and PR people based on a relationship of mutual need, but that doesn’t exist between bloggers and PR (and even many journalists would be a bit uncomfortable with it). PR people have little or nothing to offer me, and even if they did I’m not for sale! I don’t understand why that’s such a hard thing to understand.