08.24
You’ve gotta love Facebook status updates. As I scrolled voyeuristically through my network’s personal “news” today, I spotted the following from a former editorial colleague:
“Things I don’t have time for: press releases unrelated to my magazine; follow-up calls from PR folks 2 minutes after they sent a press release; 45 gig press releases that fill up my Outlook storage capacity … Accckkk!”
Three other editors gave it a thumb’s up. Within minutes, several of my other former colleagues responded:
“Wow! You just nailed all my pet-peeves!”
“If PR people do get me on the phone I tell them how much I hate getting phone calls. Want your press release to get lost? Pester me and see what happens.”
“… [Name removed] was by far, the most obnoxiously persistent person I’ve ever dealt with. He literally called me 5 times a day for a week a while back. I had to stop answering my phone!”
The laundry list of PR crimes continued to grow until an ad rep chimed in.
“Hey, when PR people don’t call, that’s a bigger problem. It means you are no longer relevant.”
The banter stopped immediately.
Don’t get it twisted. As PR professionals, we should know better than to instantaneously follow up on over-sized HTML press releases that were targeted to the wrong audience. There’s no excuse for that. In fact, when I was an editor that was a prime reason for me to enact my “Three Strikes and It’s into the Circular File with You” rule.
But our friendly ad rep has a point that I can now vouch for from the PR side. When an editor stops covering an industry for whatever reason, they’re likely to get a drop-off in PR calls. Why? It’s certainly not because they haven’t found a way around the editor’s no PR call policy. Those PR reps will venture over to competitive media to spread around their message — and potentially their client’s ad dollars.
With so many publications folding in the current economy, I’d like to think editors would be happy to hear from PR teams. It’s an indicator that people in the industry want to take part in that publication and think it’s an important news source. Plus, without those press releases, editors would be doing their own legwork, scouring the Internet for trends, and corporate and new product news on which to report.
At the same time, PR pros need to keep in mind that dwindling ad spends are decreasing magazine page counts. So it’s more important than ever to write strong, targeted pitches. We need to think like editors and determine what their audiences want to hear in order to secure premium editorial space
The squabble over whose practices generate the most ire — editors’ or PR execs’ — may stand the test of time. But remember, if we didn’t have each other, our jobs would be a lot more difficult. Can’t we all just get along?
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About the author:
Debra Yemenijian joined Schubert as a Sr. Social Media & PR Executive after six years as a medical editor and writer. She is a Penn State graduate and currently is pursuing her MBA. Debra is also a ballet teacher and dabbles in community theater and jewelry design on the side.
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