Every day I immediately delete about 20 percent of the messages in my inbox. Historically, the emails I trashed were mostly relegated to Nigerian scams and requests for cash from someone “unable to access” his pending inheritance. Fortunately, Gmail spam filters have helped to abolish most of these. Unfortunately, these same filters can do nothing for the endless stream of PR pitches that assault my inbox that are often irrelevant, impersonal, and, dare I say it, lazy.
The laziness is especially damning in the age of social media. Never before have PR professionals had such an enormous opportunity to custom tailor pitches to journalists, bloggers, and content creators, who are most likely flocking to sharing sites online. With a few minutes of simple due diligence on a pitch recipient, which means dipping into Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, an email message is easily customizable to become more relevant and personal (i.e. PR professionals can suggest the media platform that might be a good fit for the story, and why the story is a good fit for the reporter).
For example, within minutes of browsing Fast Company reporter Austin Carr’s Twitter feed (@AustinCarr), I have a solid sense of what magazine he works for (Fast Company), what industries he covers (tech, tech, and more tech), and what approach he often takes. This effort takes less than five minutes, and yet you wouldn’t know it from the pitches he gets, a number of which have cited his work for “Fast Car” magazine and suggest stories in the automotive industry. (Or this gem from yesterday: “Dear Austin, As a long-time media expert and author, I can say firmly that President Obama is a great orator, but the worst president I’ve ever seen when it comes to explaining his plans and achievements. If you want to discuss this more fully, please let me know.” At least they got his name right?).
I would hope that a PR professional would take the time to search my social streams online, but it is the exception rather than the rule.
While social media does offer a PR professional a better opportunity to custom tailor a pitch, these same online tools can be the death of a pitch if the recipient deems that said pitch deserves a good dose of social ridicule. I’m not simply talking about the pitch making its way to a “bad pitch” blog, but instead winding its way through the social sphere.
Just recently, after deleting a slew of irrelevant pitches, I stared down the following message from a well-known public relations agency. While I didn’t want to call out the agency in question, the pitch was so impersonal that I couldn’t help but share it on Facebook.