How to pulverise your PR with one simple ‘requirement’

Greg Simpson, the winner of this year’s East Midlands Business Masters award in the Creative and Media category knows a thing or two about working with TheBusinessDesk and in PR – he was a journalist before he stepped into that murky world after all!

A published book and two decades later, he has a couple of top tips to stay on the right side of the press, including our own Sam Metcalf.

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I have made a point of late about being pretty blunt with advice in terms of asking for it and then sharing it. So in drafting this, I thought I’d ask Sam what gets his goat with us PR folk.

Then I ducked.

The first was “press releases being sent as PDFs” – quite why anyone would do that is beyond me. If it is to get your logo on there all nice and neatly, trust me, the media won’t pay any attention to it.

Stop it.

His second gripe was “18MB photo files”.

So “think on” as Mr Metcalf would say.

However, when I mentioned something I’d spotted on LinkedIn from a major national writer,  I could almost hear the phone being gripped extra tight…

This post has (at time of writing) 1645 reactions, 702 comments and 82 reposts. Including mine.

It happened when a digital PR “expert” attempted to make demands on her AFTER she had given them major coverage both online and in print.

Titled “How NOT to get coverage” Jane Hamilton, who runs the Sun’s employment section shared the following:

“This week I wrote a piece on a relatively unknown company, it’s in print and online on The Sun, so decent exposure for them. However their agency has sent me this today (see screenshot).

“As journos we don’t decide who gets backlinks – that’s down to the online production team. If they don’t link, that’s their prerogative and it’s often because of the impact on our own site’s SEO.

“The upshot? I’ve now asked to be removed from the agency’s entire mailing list as I can’t guarantee a link and certainly don’t have time to be diving into Ts and Cs buried on a link at the bottom of their press releases. Result? No more coverage for any of their clients in any form from me.

I absolutely understand that there is pressure from clients for links, but wider exposure and brand building matter too.

“Relationships between PRs and Journos matter also – and this is not how you build them.

PR friends, is demanding links with legal undertone a thing now?”

I won’t share the screenshot but here’s the copy:

“Just an FYI” All our emails, including press releases and comments, are covered under a Creative Commons license. As per the terms of the license, appropriate credit requires not only the mention of a name but also a direct link to the source. You can find further details on the requirement here.

“The below features are great but the online article doesn’t link to our client. We require that the comment in question be amended to include an appropriate credit or that the article be removed.”

I read this open-mouthed.

The sheer short-sightedness of this!

ASK for a link by all means but don’t EXPECT it, don’t require it or don’t expect it NOT to ruin your entire campaign and media relations if you persist.

PS this happens to Sam, I know. He told me. Think on!