Well, that’s what I always tell PRs when I run training sessions. Why? Because I find it impossible to explain to twitter newbies exactly how and when it *might* be OK to do so. But am I too hardline?

Maybe.

I mean when I run training sessions most people are new to Twitter full stop, forget the marketing applications (ick) of the service. But could PRs have an authentic and relevant conversation about a client on Twitter? Hmmm…

Willing to accept I am not the Social Media equivalent of a Delphi Priestess I instead asked some of my on- and offline writing contacts to “B*tch about the Twitter Pitch”. Over to them……

The majority said:
“Not at all” or “Not unless I know you”“

However some pointed out that if you know eachother, you already know how they prefer to be pitched, and would have their email/phone contacts to do so.

Of those who were fine with it (and I’m not listing their names to avoid them getting inundated) they advised:

• DM’s preferable
• Further to the above, ONE DM ONLY, preferably with a link to further info
• Once you’ve said it,  then leave it with them, don’t pester
• Relevancy is still important! Don’t just pitch them because they have a lot of followers…
• Works best if you can see they’re online and having a relevant conversation, otherwise email would be better

In general Twitter feels quite personal to people, they would prefer for you not to try and start a “business” conversation with them unless they open themselves up to it, for example with a request for information via Twitter.

Oh, and most said the personal nature of Twitter went double for Facebook. So don’t switch your pitch to there.

Good luck out there.

I’ve lost count of the times I’ve heard “PR is incompetent”. The reality is that you do your best, working on behalf of a number of people’s interests, and always having to put on a happy face.

You can’t exactly say

“sorry, my client thinks you’re Tier Three press and hates your reviews”

likewise to the client

“The journalist didn’t even want to include your cr*ppy product in their feature.”

Despite the amount of un-niceness there is working in public relations, the role implys you can actually relate to the public. Which is why this story about a PR rep telling a blogger that images of them wearning  the designer’s clothes were bad publicity had me astounded.

Is it so hard to be nice? It doesn’t matter if you’re a blogger, write for Vogue or just someone posting pics to your Facebook profile. Surely this is not an example of bad practice in blogger relations it’s an example of just bad relating.

Unfortunately when it comes to bloggers there is still an ingrained attitude of agression from PRs. Could we all be a little nicer to eachother?

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RYLsyNBnE5M]

Event Essential: The Goody Bag

Following on from  How not to run a social media conference in London I saw this from Gemma Cartwright praising The Body Shop for a recent bloggers event and explaining why it worked. [Organisers Headstream should take a bow for this]

If you’re collecting advice then back in the day I also wrote on the Shiny Red blog  top tips pitching to the UK’s top tech bloggers following a panel discussion.

Another day, another event, another load of griping online. If you’re planning a social media conference in London here’s some common complaints distilled into tips for doing it well.

1. WIFI, wifi, wifi: if people are talking about the Web they’ll probably want to go online (and while you’re at it a power socket or two would also be useful)

2. KNOWLEDGE levels vary: it’s frustrating attending a session where half the room want to talk about realtime social web and the other half are asking “so, Twitter, what exactly is it?” Is there a way you can create different learning tracks at your conference or indicate if sessions are 101

3. COLLATE the online conversation: you can bring it into the room on the day and provide resource which extends beyond the event

4. COSTS should be free or very low. There’s too much good stuff  already happening for free in London these days, charging £300 a ticket is not going to work

5. SPONSORS: Further to the above, don’t try and recoup costs by approaching as many sponsors as possible and cramming in a gazillion exhibitor stands. Fewer, more relevant sponsors will provide greater ROI anyway and ensure sponsors are queuing up for slots at future events

6. GOOD SPEAKERS: should be just that and not just “good brand names” or “good budgets” for conference sponsorship…which leads me to my final point

7. PANEL SESSIONS

These can be either hit or miss and 99% of the time they are just dire. As with good speakers, good panellists are often mistakenly picked from sponsors with smaller budgets than individual speakers.

The topic needs to be engaging and clearly defined with panellists prepared ahead of time and hey, what about generating a little debate? Often panels have everyone sharing the same opinions on the same things, essentially negating a panel in the first place.

The moderator is a key role. They must know the topic (it’s amazing how many don’t) and what are key issues. They should ask clear questions, demand an opinion instead of fence sitting and cut panellists short the minute they start to waffle (tough but essential).

Check out this useful video from RealWire (formerly webitpr, I love the new name). Perfect intro to Social Media and word-of-mouth, I’ll be including in training sessions for newbies definitely. 

Personally I like the fact that even as she’s about to hit the big time she does all the MySpace / YouTube / blog stuff herself. It allows her intelligence and sense of humour to come across, and you can’t help warming to her. Of course if she really makes it that’ll all be handed over to a lackey, but at this point it’s an example of how pop stars can use “social media” to promote themselves beyond just bunging a few tracks onto their MySpace. Or making videos that make them look like dicks.

Is it all pointless once marketers get involved ‘helping’ maintain social media platforms on behalf of artists? Or, is this just something we need to stop being precious about, much in the same way we accept stars have been media trained and not every autographed pic will be signed personally. What do you think?

[How to promote your music via social media]

At this rate I may never have to think of an original thought again!

Both new and established creatives are lucky; they don’t need to wait for help from fancy agents or publicists and can take hold of their online self-promotion today with these masters sharing their best tips.

This is a follow up post to How to promote your book via Social Media. In that post I mentioned a chidren’s book called The Mousehunter.

Now you can read the author, Alex Milway, explaining what he’d recommend for self-promotion in his own words (which, you know, is probably better than me trying to paraphrase here because he’s like a proper writer and stuff).

[Using the web to promote children's book]

I’ve been a bit of a dweeb this year reading books about Lifestyle (like Tim Ferriss’ 4 Hour Work Week), Business (like The Beermat Entrepreneur), and Design (like John Maeda’s The Laws of Simplicity).

Now I’ve found a concept which plays to my need to obsess on theories *AND* teaches me about my inability to be even remotely cool – The Cool Curve.

The Cool Curve is a presentation honed at Tuttle, introduced to me by one of my favourite web people (sizemore), and created by Creative Coffee Club guru Toby Moore AKA sleepydog.

Enjoy.

Get ready to sign-up to every new web thing going

This perfectly observed post from Jon Silk gives tips to journalists looking to make it in PR and, as I couldn’t leave a comment for some reason, I felt inspired to do a quick list of my own on making it from PR to the social media side of murky online marketing and stuff.

1. Don’t commit to calling yourself anything. At any moment you could be in new media / social media / conversational or word-of-mouth marketing. It’s not like your friends or family ever understood what your job was anyway
2. Have a ready response to “have you tried latest hot new thing everyone’s talking about yet?” I find “No. i’m too busy on [made up name] it’s a closed alpha invite only community currently, but when it opens up to the rest of you next year it’ll blow your mind”
3. Don’t succumb to Firefox pressure. How will you break your start-up client’s web platform/application/whatever unless you’re using IE? People will say you’re un-cool. Just go to their website/download their app & break it. Send screengrabs
5. Come up with an intelligent password system. You’re, sadly, going to sign-up for every new online service going. You’re never going to remember the passwords. Best one I’ve heard of? The name of the website plus a set number = changes the password every time, while you only have to remember one thing. Genius
6. Join networking groups and turn up to the meet-ups. It’s fun and people are nice. Oh yeah, and it might be useful one day
7. Don’t try and keep up with everything. You never will
8. Don’t ever feel bad if you can’t understand what some new social media thing does. Tell yourself if they can’t explain or show it simply, then that’s their problem
9. Only say “What’s the point?” in private. One day you may regret being the person who blogged “So… YouTube, rubbish home videos. Not going anywhere” and they could be your next client
10. Join LinkedIn. I just really like it
11. Everything will be documented. Alternative names are the only way forward