Using All the Tools

Submitted by Julie on Wed, 2005-01-26 23:12.

B. L. Ochman takes
issue with our announcement about Nooked,
one of our clients. Aside from disapproving of our release
headline (it's hardly Pulitzer material, but I've read and written worse),
she complains that:

Nothing is said in the release or on the site about how journos will be
enticed to read the press releases in the feeds...Of course Nooked couldn't
find a way to get this release to me via an RSS feed. Duh. The company has
a blog about RSS feeds, and if the publicist knew how to promote the blog,
its RSS feed could have made the announcement.

In our experience, we don't need to convince journalists to use RSS. They're
already adopting it to monitor their beats. Every technology reporter I talk
to uses it, and many journalists from other sectors are getting on board. Perhaps
Ms. Ochman's experience has been different, but we don't think that's a battle
that needs to be fought.

At Capulet, we're pretty familiar with blogs. The company
has one, Darren
has one, as do several
of our
clients. As this
Technorati search demonstrates, we've been talking about Nooked with a number
of bloggers. In theory, we could only pitch the story to the mainstream press
and let it trickle down to the bloggers, but that's not how we work.

Yes, Nooked has a blog and an RSS feed, and yes, the media release is on it.
Any number of savvy bloggers will discover the story through PubSub
subscriptions and Technorati
searches. Still, RSS is just a tool. Email is a tool, too, and a ubiquitous
one (I note, for example, that you can sign up on Ms. Ochman's site to receive
new blog posts via email). As PR professionals, we're using all the tools at
our disposal. We're not about to abandon our most popular and tested communications
medium just yet. That would be a disservice to our clients, don't you think?

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Using All the Tools
Submitted by David Parmet (not verified) on Thu, 2005-01-27 04:05.

I for one thought her comments were a bit much. How's she supposed to find out about Nooked through RSS if she's not aware of the feed? I guess some people like to take slaps at PR people because they are .. PR people.

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Using All the Tools
Submitted by B.L. Ochman (not verified) on Thu, 2005-01-27 16:17.

Your release quotes Dan Gillmor saying, "Sending marketing messages and newsletters via email has become a fool's errand; the obvious work-around is RSS. I'd much prefer to get public relations materials this way," and then you use email to make your announcement.

Yes, you can sign up for email on my blog and I publish What's Next Online, an email newsletter. There are a lot of people who still LIKE to get information via email.

What I take issue with is that you chose to announce an RSS feed service for publicists via email, and in the same release you note that it's a fool's errand.

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