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PR

Pat Robertson, Haiti, and the Devil

This is not a post about Pat Robertson, the Devil or Haiti. This is a post about Public Relations and Press Releases in 2010. The news and lots of Internet folks reports Pat Roberton implied that the Devil caused Haiti’s Earthquake. It’s reported as well in the Mainstream media.

Allegedly, he didn’t, according to the Christian Broadcasting Network website:
Statement Regarding Pat Robertson’s Comments on Haiti

If you watch the entire video segment, Dr. Robertson’s compassion for the people of Haiti is clear. He called for prayer for them. His humanitarian arm has been working to help thousands of people in Haiti over the last year, and they are currently launching a major relief and recovery effort to help the victims of this disaster.

Pat, it’s 2010. If you’re going to say “if you watch the entire video segment,” then you should put up the video segment. You own the program, right? It’s your network. Put up the video. 

It didn’t take me long to find the actual video. Here’s a link to a clip. http://www.breitbart.tv/they-have-been-cursed-pat-robertson-says-haiti-swore-a-pact-to-the-devil/

If you’re going to try to change people’s opinion and tell them to watch the clip, put up the clip. The only reason not to put up the clip would be if it were “damning evidence.”

Oh, and if you are looking for a way to help, my friend and non-profit consultant Tom Watson, who I trust completely on this issue, says “I trust @globalgiving to get $$ to Haiti quickly and effectively – please give now! http://bit.ly/5ScGkB .” Global Giving is quite transparent about how they work, so you will know how your money is used.

Categories
blogging business development marketing PR

Some useful links for 8/27

You may have already seen Go Big Always – 10 Fantastic ways to f*ck it up as an example of communications practices to avoid. Or maybe you missed it. Read this.

Were you paying attention when Chris Brogan gave 100 Personal Branding Tactics Using Social Media?

Do you promote your blog to offline audiences? Maybe you should?

More as I dig out from a week away.

Categories
blogging marketing PR social capital exchange social media socialmedia

Meme of the week – Blacklisting Bloggers and bad PR pitches

What seems to have come to a head over the last few days is the concept of Bloggers “blacklisting” PR firms that pitch them in a way they don’t want to be pitched. Gina Trapani of LifeHacker published a wiki listing PR firms that have spammed her with pitches. Suddenly, everyone’s taking sides over how to properly pitch bloggers.

Sidenote: the history of blacklists is much more serious and a heavier topic than is being given credit in all this banter about them. They’re an attempt at keeping people from acting in a certain way due to social and societal pressure, and they’re against the spirit of what I see as social media. Blacklisting spammers is, to me, appropriate, because they’re clearly flaunting law and culture. What I see many bloggers and PR professionals ranting about it not blacklisting but a lack of transparency and accountability.

Geoff Livingston seems do be quite reasonable in his analysis of the situation.

Nasty actions like publicly outing PR professionals and firms hurt real people. Bloggers (and some reporters) often act without professional ethics or thinking about how these acts affect others. I got one thing to say back to you: Take responsibility for your words and stop harming people.

Jeremy Pepper clarifies the whole Gina Trapani story, noting it was her personal email address being spammed. He also notes that junior staff at PR firms aren’t being trained and supervised not to make these mistakes. And, in typical Jeremy humor, he has a plan worth reading.

Jason Falls of Social Media Club Louisville notes that the bloggers themsevles need to be blacklisted –

I am saying that a journalist (or a blogger for that matter) who publicly humiliates someone just trying to do their job – even poorly – or goes a step further by declaring that person’s employer on a permanent banned list is performing the adult (though not mature) equivalent of Chris Hargensen ordering up buckets of pigs blood to be dumped on Carrie White at prom.

Jason makes a very good point. Not everyone at the firm that spammed you is an outright idiot. But just as we, as bloggers shouldn’t blindly blacklist PR firms, PR firms shouldn’t blacklist journalists.

Of course, Aaron Brazell is happy to be on a blacklist, because he doesn’t want to be pitched, unless a PR pro has created “some kind of professional rapport” with him. He also notes a possible solution:

I think it’s high time that the PR community finance the creation and support of a third party broker that would maintain the authenticity, privacy, trust and relationship with the blogging comunity. I’m talking about an OpenID sort of trust-based system that includes the trust-relationship management as well as a CRM tool/plugin-in for sending communications in a standardized way. This tool would provide the recipient a means of “opt out” as well as trust-based ratings, reviews, advocacy and management.

Aaron’s solution is interesting and thought-provoking. I’d like to hear more.

Jason Kintzler over at PitchEngine discusses some ways that PR professionals can more effectively get the word out including Social Media/New Media Releases, and remembering that news distribution can be effectively done via the wire services. Pitching to people requires a different tact.

Again, I go back to transparency and accountability. Sending an email to lots of people pitching something irrelevant is timewasting and is potentially asking for someone to ‘out’ your pitch. Contacting people in the way the provide for you, being clear about who and what you represent is clearly a way to get some respect.

Finally, I’ll publically state that I’m happy to hear a PR or Blogging professional’s pitch, via my email, or via the huge “Call Me” button I keep handy on the side of my website, as long as said professional has looked at my blog enough to know what interests me. I’m also on Twitter if you want to hit me that way.

UPDATE: Seems I missed something that helped start this whole thing, in which someone from Brian Solis’ team did something wrong, and Brian made an apology and some distinctions that are quite relevant.

Categories
blogging marketing PR social media socialmedia

Marvel Comics pisses off core audience

Who is the core audience of “Iron Man” the movie? Geeks. Computer hugging, email sending, twittering geeks. Geeks with big Mac Book Pros who have money to spend.
And the pied piper of the Web 2.0 geeks, Mike Arrington of TechCrunch, had invited geeks to a special pre-screening of the movie. And Mike got the theater to pre-screen by CALLING THEIR GROUP SALES LINE! And TechCrunch is really, really well read in the Web 2.0 community and even by analysts and Wall Street types. (According to Alexa.com, it’s the 1700th most read site on the net – nothing to sneeze at, and rumors have it they’re making 6 figures a month in ad revenue).

So, seeing as an influencer has decided to lead core audience into a screening of their product, which would likely have generated an additional PR storm of good pr (assuming the movie is good), Marvel has gone and shut the whole thing down. They’ve sent a cease-and-desist to Mike (a lawyer himself) telling him not to do this.Mike posted this story about 6pm pacific, about 15 minutes ago as I write this. There are already over 70 comments against Marvel on his site.

PR People – Call your Lawyers and stop the bleeding now! This is stupid. You can’t control the message anymore. Let the people see your movie when they’re scheduled to see it, and salvage what you get. You’re already looking at newspaper headlines – “Marvel tells SF Fans to wait”, “Marvel alienates core geek audience” – instead of “Iron Man gets first weekend boost from SF Twitters and bloggers gushing about movie.” Really.

Update from TechCrunch: Seems it was all just a big misunderstanding, and partly Oracle’s fault.