PR Communications

Global PR Blog Week 5th Anniversary Starts Today

July 12, 2009 marks the fifth anniversary since the virtual conference called the Global PR blogging week, when PR bloggers and friends came together to write a series of blog posts about social media, PR and blogging. I've already given some reflections on the conference, and an update on the alumni. Bastien Beauchamp is working on a review of the themes from the conference.

Franklin Park Zoo PR Story Update

The Zoo is attempting to put pressure on the Governor and Legislature to continue funding the Zoo, after Massachusetts state budget negotiations reduced funding from $6.5 million to $2.5 million.

On Saturday the Zoo clarified that the Zoo will not put down animals but that the State might have too, this clarification is being read by the press and public that the Zoo will not have to put down any animals.

On Sunday, Governor Deval Patrick's office made a statement that no animals will die as a result of the budget measures.

"As a supporter of the zoo and a parent who has visited often, the governor is disappointed to learn that Zoo New England has responded to this difficult but unavoidable budget cut by spreading inaccurate and incendiary information," the governor's office said in a statement. "In the midst of an economic crisis like this one, when families and businesses alike are making sacrifices, we would all do well to remain level-headed and focused on solutions. The administration looks forward to working with Zoo New England and their supporters to find one."

While at first glance this is apparently good news for the animals, it is not good news for Zoo New England because without State funding the institution will not resemble the active, growing Zoo it is today. The Zoo's public relations strategy has been to shock the local community with the statement that the State might have to euthanize 20% of the animals at the Zoo. Given the volume of conversation in twitter, and how fast the story was picked up nationally, the strategy worked extremely well.

One issue I see here is that while many members of the public have called for fund raisers they have not coalesced around a campaign to call State Representatives and State Senators. I wrote in my earlier article about the zoo closure story, I support the zoo and but think the zoo should stress the Zoo’s economic impact in arguments for retaining funding.  Either way, if you are a Zoo supporter contact your state representatives and senators to let them know your opinion on funding for the zoo.

Zoo New England’s Funding Public Relations Strategies

Sometimes you don't realize the value of an institution until there's the possibility of losing that organization. Today I read Matt Viser's article in the Boston Globe that Zoo New England may close. I cannot say I attended the Franklin Park and Stone Zoos much before my son was born. But now that we have zoo membership it is probably my family’s most valued membership card. My son loves the Zoo, and as a family we regularly enjoy attending both the Stone & Franklin Park Zoos.

Boston Globe writer, Matt Viser, wrote that state funding for Zoo New England would be cut by $4m from $6.5 to $2.5. That's a large funding decrease and one not likely to be popular with voters if the comments on the Globe article are any indication.

The answer to the Zoo’s funding dilemma is either to ask the legislature to restore the funding, go back to the drawing board with negotiations as to the cuts, or close down the zoo. What do you think should happen? I know my preference is for Zoo New England to remain open, and as a result I will be contacting my state representatives and State Senators to let them know I think they should fund the Zoo.

If Zoo New England is going to keep its funding with the State Legislature, the Zoo and its supporters will have to make a public argument to the Massachusetts State Legislature to remain open; I think the institution has to explain its economic impact on the Boston area.

Other Zoos have gone through the same type of funding crises and demonstrated the value a Zoo can provide to a region economically, by providing politicians with economic reasons to fund the Zoo because the funding was cut for economic reasons, the Zoo has a greater chance of continuing to get support from the legislature.

Here are a few examples of Zoos demonstrating the economic impact their existence has on a region:

Zoo has significant economic impact

The Economic Contribution of Lowry Park Zoo to the Hillsborough County Economy

The economic impact of pandas and the Memphis Zoo

In addition, I found the recent news that the Bronx Zoo in New York recently secured city funding by making an economic case particularly interesting as I thought both the economic case made sense, and any time New York is mentioned here in Boston, Bostonians’ competitive spirit is raised. One of the rivalries I've enjoyed since moving here to Boston is the New York Yankee - Boston Red Sox competition, that New York rivalry might be another argument to draw public support for Zoo New England should raise a smile or two at the very least, "if New York can save its zoos, why can't Boston!"

Not compelling enough, how about the suggestion that the cut in funding may result in zoo animals being euthanized? Reading the Globe headline and the details of the article, we learn that zoo officials have suggested that if the zoo were to close at least 20% of the animals might have to be destroyed because homes might not be found for the animals.

Dramatic? Yes but probably the sort of news that will jolt many Commonwealth citizens into calling their state representatives and senators. Personally, I’m not sure if this is sensationalism on the part of Zoo officials to shock people into responding. So I'm more persuaded by argument that the loss of such a cultural and scientific institution would have a bad effect on the cultural education of the State's children, and after reading several of the Zoo impact reports above such a cut in funding might have an even worse economic impact on the state than continuing the funding.

Looking at some of the numbers for Zoo New England and the Zoos in New York*, I think we get a pretty good ROI here in Boston. $285 million in operations expenditure for New York, compared to about $11.3 million for Zoo New England, $6.5 million of the funding for Zoo New England is from the state. 4 million visitors attend New York Zoos, while about 500,000 visitors attend the Boston Zoos. I think we need an economist to look over the numbers, but my back of the envelope arithmetic seems to indicate Boston gets a really good ROI for its dollars spent compared to New York if we compare the expenditure to visitors ratio for both cities.

More details about the financial background to Zoo New England, or the Commonwealth Zoological Corporation.

list of IRS Form 990 Tax Returns for Exempt Organizations for Commonwealth Zoological Corporation for 1998 to 2005

Commonwealth Zoological Corporation financials for 2007

*WCS Thanks NYC for Restoring Funds for the Bronx Zoo, NY Aquarium, and Other City Cultural Institutions

Update On The Global PR Blogging Week Alumni

Nostalgia is something to be avoided, especially when you're 41, however, next week I'll have a case of reminiscence for the the Global PR Blog Week 1.0, 2004.

The event, a virtual conference organized between July 12-15 2004 featured thirty seven bloggers writing about PR, Marketing and social media. Next week will be the fifth anniversary. 

To the Alumni of the Global PR Blog Week, thanks for the memories, and the many continuing conversations. 

To celebrate the anniversary I took some time to track down all of the Alumni's Twitter addresses (If one exists) and to give an update from the final post, listing all of the participants during the virtual conference.

1. @ealbrycht  Elizabeth Albrycht, (CorporatePR) Update: Now a University lecturer in France.

2. Dave Austin (Intraware Blog) Update: SEM Manager, IGN Inc.Fox Interactive Media

3. Richard Bailey (PR Studies)

4. @cbasturea  Constantin Basturea (PR meets the WWW) Update: Director of New Media Strategies at Converseon.

5. @chrisbechtel Chris Bechtel (Internet PR News Blog) Update: At ipressroom.

6. @smallbiztrends Anita Campbell (Small Business Trends)

7. @johncass John Cass (PR Communications)

8. @TrevorCook Trevor Cook (Corporate Engagement)

9. @Don_Crowther Don Crowther (101PublicRelations.com) 

10. @PRBlog Kevin Dugan (Strategic PR)

11. @SallyFalkow Sally Falkow  (Web Strategies) Update: Now running the PRoactive report

12. Matias Fernandez Dutto (Comunidad Relaciones Pblicas Argentina) Update: Now at http://matiasdutto.com/

13. @heyangelo Angelo Fernando (Hoi Polloi) Update: Communications Manager @ Decision Theater, ASU

14. @DanForbush Dan Forbush  (ProfNet, Media Insider) Update: Blog at PR Newswire is now http://profnetpost.prnewswire.com/, Dan has moved back to education PR and is Executive Director of Communications at Skidmore College.

15. Bernard Goldbach (Irish Eyes) 

16. @robbhecht Robb Hecht (PR Machine)

17. Jim Horton (Online PR)

18. @waynehurlbert Wayne Hurlbert (Blog Business World)

19. Hans Kullin (Media Culpa)

20. @Canuckflack Colin McKay (Canuckflack)

21. @mmanuel Mike Manuel (Media Guerrilla)

22. @PrestoVivace Alice Marshall (TechnoFlak) -

23. @MNPR Ryan May (Minnesota Public Relations Blog)

24. Montag (World of Spin)

25. John Mudd (Inside Real Estate Journal) 

26. @tpemurphy Tom Murphy (PR Opinions)

27. @whatsnext   B.L. Ochman (What's Next Blog)

28. Anthony V Parcero, (eKetchum Digital Media Group) -

29. @jspepper Jeremy Pepper (POP! Public Relations's Blog)

30. Evelyn Rodriguez (Crossroads Dispatches)

31. Todd Sattersten (A Penny For... and 800-CEO-READ Blog) 

32. Trudy Schuett (WOLves) 

33. @rtanglao Roland Tanglao (Streamline) Update: Founder of Bryght

34. @octaviorojas Octavio Rojas

35. @steverubel Steve Rubel (Micro Persuasion) Update: Now at Edelman.

36. @jeremywright Jeremy Wright (Ensight) Update: CEO at b5 Media

37. @mediations  Philip Young (Mediations)

   
Not to be out done, we held a follow up conference in 2005, the PR Blog Week 2.0 was September 19-23, 2005. Here are the Alumni from that event below. The anniversary for this virtual conference will be in September, here's the list of Alumni from the original participants at the second PR Blog week.

   1.  @ealbrycht  Elizabeth Albrycht, Blogging Planet, US, France. Update:  Now a University lecturer in France.

   2. @cbasturea  Constantin Basturea, US, Romania.  Update: Director of New Media Strategies at Converseon.

   3. @chrisbechtel Chris Bechtel, iPressroom, US.  Update: Still at ipressroom.

   4. Jesper Bindslev, E-mediators, Copenhagen Business School, Denmark, http://www.e-mediate.squarespace.com/  Update: Now Global Project Manager at Novo Nordisk Global Marketing

   5. @stuartbruce  Stuart Bruce, Bruce Marshall Associates, UK, http://www.20six.co.uk/stuartbruce  Update: Now founder and managing director of Wolfstar.

   6. Jorge Camara, http://theprinquisitor.blogspot.com/ Don't know.

   7. @smallbiztrends Anita Campbell, Small Business Trends, US, http://www.smallbusinesses.blogspot.com/

   8. @johncass John Cass, Backbone Media, Inc., US,  Update: Still writing PR Communications but no longer at Backbone.

   9. Joel Cere, Hill & Knowlton, UK, http://beyondpr.blogspot.com/

  10. @niallcook  Niall Cook, Hill & Knowlton, UK, http://blogs.hillandknowlton.com/blogs/niallcook/ Update: Now author of Enterprise 2.0

  11. Andrew C Corcoran, Lincoln Business School, UK, http://andycorc.blogspot.com/

  12. @tdefren Todd Defren, SHIFT Communications, US, http://pr-squared.blogspot.com/ Update: Still running Shift.

  13. @prblog  Kevin Dugan, FRCH Design Worldwide, US, http://prblog.typepad.com/ Update: Runs Strategic Public Relations and the Bad Pitch Blog

  14. @SallyFalkow Sally Falkow, Falkow, Inc., US, http://www.webstrategies.blogspot.com Update: Now running the PRoactive report

  15. Matias Fernandez Dutto, Argentina, http://relacionespublicas.blogspirit.com/ Update: Now at http://matiasdutto.com/

  16. @tifisch Tim Fischer, Germany, http://www.fischer-netze.de/ 

  17. @DanForbush Dan Forbush, ProfNet, PR Newswire, http://mediainsider.prnewswire.com/ Update:Blog at PR Newswire is now http://profnetpost.prnewswire.com/, Dan has moved back to education PR and is Executive Director of Communications at Skidmore College. 

18. @RDFrench Robert French, Auburn University, US, http://www.auburnmedia.com/wordpress/ Update: Robert's still at Auburn University teaching commuications. He became a founding Fellow with the Society for New Communications Research, and started PROpenMic.org a Ning social community for PR students, acedemics and professionals.

  19. @Froda Jon Froda, E-mediators, Copenhagen Business School, Denmark, http://www.e-mediate.squarespace.com/ Update: Co-founder / partner. Product development at Hoist.

  20. @Hyku Josh Hallett, hyku, llc, US, http://hyku.com/blog/ Update: New Media Strategist at Voce Communications, and Fellow/Board Member of the Society of New Communications Research.

  21. @jshardison Jeff Hardison, McClenahan Bruer Communications, US, http://www.mcbrublog.com/

  22. Christopher Hannegan, Edelman, US, http://www.edelman.com/speak_up/empeng/ Update:  23. @robbhecht Robb Hecht, IMC Strategies.Principal at Booz & Company. 

  24. @PeterHimler Peter Himler, the Publicity Club of New York, http://theflack.blogspot.com. Update: Founder and Principal of Flatiron Communications LLC

  25. @jangles Neville Hobson, UK, The Nederlands, http://www.nevon.net/ Update: Resides in the UK, runs FIR Podcast with Shel Holtz. Founding Senior Research Fellow and Advisory Board member of the Society for New Communications Research.

  26. @shel Shel Holtz, HC+T, US, http://blog.holtz.com. Update: Shel runs the FIR Podcast with Neville Hobson, Founding Senior Research Fellow and Advisory Board member of the Society for New Communications Research.

  27. @waynehurlbert Wayne Hurlbert, Blog Business World, US, http://www.blogbusinessworld.blogspot.com/

  28. Timothy Johnson, Voce Communications, US, http://www.vocecomm.com/ Update: Principal at White Spinnaker Partners.

  29. @trevr Trevor Jonas, Bite Communications, http://blog.bitepr.com/ Update: Director of Social Media at Access Communications

  30. @mmanuel Mike Manuel, Voce Communications, US, http://mmanuel.typepad.com/media_guerrilla/ Update: New blog url http://www.mike-manuel.com/blog/

  31. @PrestoVivace Alice Marshall, Presto Vivace, Inc., US, http://technoflak.blogspot.com/

  32. @MNPR Ryan May, BAE Systems, US, http://mnpr.blogspot.com/

  33. @Canuckflack Colin McKay, Canada, http://www.canuckflack.com/

  34. @tpemurphy Tom Murphy, Cape Clear Software, Ireland, http://www.natterjackpr.com/ Update: http://tpemurphy.com/blog/ Works in PR for Microsoft in Washington State, since March 2009.

  35. @michaelocc Michael O'Connor Clarke, Canada, http://michaelocc.com Update:  Vice President Thornley Fallis Communications.Vice President

  36. @whatsnext   BL Ochman, Whatsnextonline.com, US, http://www.whatsnextblog.com/ 

  37. @prjobs Lindsay Olson, Paradigm Staffing Solutions, US, http://www.paradigmstaffing.com/pp.asp  Update: blog http://lindsayolson.com/

  38. Anthony V Parcero, http://www.anthurian.com 

  39. @jspepper Jeremy Pepper, POP! Public Relations, US, http://pop-pr.blogspot.com/ 

  40. @tp_da Thomas Pleil, Darmstadt University of Applied Sciences, Germany, http://mars.sdi.fh-darmstadt.de/wordpress/ 

  41. @podboy Matthew Podboy, Voce Communications, US, http://podboy.typepad.com/techvoice/

  42. @vailvoice Dee Rambeau, DVCO Technology, US, http://adventures-in-business-communications.blogsite.com/public Update: Founder of The Fuel Team

  43. @giorodriguez Giovanni Rodriguez, Eastwick Communications, US, http://eastwikkers.typepad.com/eastwikkers_/ Update: Co-founder and managing partner at The Conversation Group

  44. @octaviorojas Octavio Rojas, Weber Shandwick, Spain, http://octaviorojas.blogspot.com/

  45. @markrose Mark Rose, Comm|Tech, Inc., US, http://www.commtech.us/prfuture.html Update:Influence Consulting Director of Internet PR Strategies   46. @ericschwartzman Eric Schwartzman, Schwartzman & Associates, US, http://spinfluencer.blogspot.com/ Update: Founder and president of iPressroom,

  47. @jeneane Jeneane Sessum, The Content Factor, US, http://www.contentfactor.com, and http://allied.blogspot.com/

  48. @SKYDIVER Peter Shankman, The Geek Factory, US, http://prdifferently.typepad.com/my_weblog/ Update: Founder and CEO of The Geek Factory, Inc and founder of HARO

  49. @Davetaylor Dave Taylor, Intuitive Systems, US, http://www.intuitive.com/blog/

  50. @michaelterpin Michael Terpin, Terpin, Communications Group, US, http://www.uncorporatecommunications.com/ Update: Founder of Terpin Communications, Inc.

  51. @italovignoli Italo Vignoli, Quorum PR, Italy, http://www.italovignoli.com/

  52. @mediations  Philip Young, University of Sunderland, http://publicsphere.typepad.com/mediations/

  53. @bobwyman Bob Wyman, PubSub, US, http://bobwyman.pubsub.com/Update: At Google.

Following The Global PR Alumni

If you'd like to follow all of the PR Global Blogging week alumni who are on twitter, you can use Twitterator, a tool for following a group of people at once on twitter.

ealbrycht
cbasturea
chrisbechtel
stuartbruce
smallbiztrends
johncass
niallcook
tdefren
prblog
SallyFalkow
tifisch
DanForbush
RDFrench
Froda
Hyku
jshardison
robbhecht
PeterHimler
jangles
shel
waynehurlbert
trevr
mmanuel
PrestoVivace
MNPR
Canuckflack
tpemurphy
michaelocc
whatsnext
prjobs
jspepper
tp_da
podboy
vailvoice
giorodriguez
octaviorojas
markrose
ericschwartzman
jeneane
SKYDIVER
Davetaylor
michaelterpin
italovignoli
mediations
bobwyman

FIR Live Blogger Relations Show About Gary Varynerchuk Pitch Email

Today I was on a panel discussion at the For Immediate Release BlogTalkRadio Live program with Shel Holtz, Neville Hobson, Gary Varynerchuk, Connie Reech, Connie Bensen and Kaitlyn Wilkins discussing Gary Varynerchuk's email about his new upcoming book. I'd written a post describing the email as a bad pitch, and Gary had responded.

At the beginning of the discussion, I gave an overview of how I saw the pitch email, here's the overview.

1) Did not know Gary before I received the pitch email, though had seen him in social media. No comments or other connections between us.

2) If you are going to pitch someone it pays to read blogger’s or journalist's stuff before contacting them. You can personalize the email.

3) The email pitch did not even talk about the contents of the book, the email seemed to be pitching traffic rather than the book. I may have been interested in getting a review copy if I'm been asked, but I wasn't.

Crisis Communications - Gary's Good Engagement Strategy

1) Engaged all of the people who commented on the post. That's good.

2) Apologized for the email, I very much appreciated that effort.

Aftermath

1) I heard reports of other bloggers getting the same or very similar emails. So while engagement was good, no change in behavior. I will continue to provide constructive criticism of Gary.

Lastly, I Recommended The Following

a) Use media relations tactics that are much more likely to work.

b) Don't ruin your reputation in the world of blogging and social media.

c) Don't ruin your credibility in providing social media branding advice.

Gary followed up with his thoughts about the pitch. I thought he did a great job of explaining why he thought his pitch could have been better, and he would not have recommended this strategy to companies. He also explained that he wanted to get the word out about his book, and connect with as many people as possible. But that he did not have a lot of time because he is very busy. While I can sympathize with Gary about being busy, any parent will understand the trials of juggling so much in their life I still think companies should attempt to personalize their posts by reading each blogger or journalist's material. Gary suggested that most public relations people only spend a short time doing this. While that's a good point, I think taking that extra step can help to alleviate bad pitches. I brought up the issue of large companies having to do pitches and hiring the staff to conduct outreach.

My impression after talking with Gary directly over the telephone is someone who is very passionate about what they do, so much so that they sometimes take a tumble in the world of social media through a misstep but someone who will be right back at connecting with people again tomorrow.

Connie Bensen gave her perspective on her comment and thoughts about the follow up from Gary. Connie had a few concerns about some aspects of the pitch, but on the whole she thought it was good because the pitch offered to help her.

Kaitlyn Wilkins was appearing for John Bell (John was stuck on an airplane) she discussed the blogger relations approach of Ogilvy with their blogger relations strategy from two years ago. Kaitlyn would not have recommended the approach Gary's colleague used. She recommended that Gary use a video in the future.

Connie Reech also could not recommend Gary's approach, and suggested Gary use some alternative tactics.

While Neville Hobson strongly recommended Gary and people not use this approach.

Several people called in, including Krishna De from Ireland and Paull Young from New York.

Krishna provided some perspective about the pitch. She looked at the intent of the pitch rather than the execution. Krishna also wrote a great follow up post, one that you should review as she provided some good advice about blogger outreach strategies.

Paull Young can in with another perspective, he recommends to clients to reduce their traditional outreach strategies, and rather use dialogue and good content as a blogger relations strategy. Shel Holtz and I discussed the issue of blogger relations three years ago in relations to a Click.TV pitch on my old blogsurvey blog at Backbone Media, where Shel and I discussed the definition of blogger relations, I’d suggested blogger relations was not media relations. However, that discussion got me off my curmudgeon horse to accept the reality that there are two definitions for blogger relations.

This discussion reminded me of my attempts at blogger relations with the Corporate Blogging Survey 2005, where the outreach program to ask people to participate in the survey resulted in a snafu on our part, here’s a post “Connecting With Bloggers To Review Your Product,” about the incident with links to more posts on blogger relations.

The show was a great conversation, my thanks to all the participants and especially Neville Hobson and Shel Holtz for continuing to host a great discussion about public relations.

Read Before You Pitch

B.L. Ochman republishes her 2007 article, "PR people please take this quiz before pitching another blogger."

 I thought points one and two were good.

 1. Has the print, online or broadcast reporter you are pitching ever covered this topic?

 2. Why Would this pitch or release elicit a response from people who read it?

 Basically, you have to read the blogger's stuff before pitching them.

Another Gary Vaynerchuck Bad Pitch Letter Sighting

Intriguing new development on the Gary Vaynerchuk bad pitch letter story, Bryan Person, Founder of the Social Media Breakfast, tweets he received the same letter I received, except he received the letter at 11:56 a.m. Central Time today, this is several days after I wrote my original post, but also after Gary had been engaging me in the comment section on this blog. I’m now thinking that Gary has never actually said he thought the content of the email was a bad idea, he just regretted that I and other people did not like the wording of the email. I’m at a loss for words…

Anyway, mistakes do happen, so we will have to ask Gary if this was a mistake or another intentional email.

Meeting An Old Social Media Friend For The First Time

Busy day today, running around preparing for the internet retailer show here in Boston. The exhibit opened at 4 p.m. with cocktails on the trade show floor.  While at the show, I met Paull Young, anti-astroturfing whizz and social media expert at SEO firm Converseon.

Paull and I have connected via social media for a few years now, I think we connected initially around his anti-astroturfing campaign, I even helped out on the New PR Wiki at the time, but we've never met. This often happens in the social media space you share discussions with colleagues and friend in social media land for years before meeting them. It was great to meet Paull and I hope to meet up again during the show.

In between organizing for the show, I followed the continuing fallout from my post about Gary Vaynerchuk’s pitch letter; Gary continues to do a great job of engaging people here on my blog. And as a follow up, in preparation for an email I am sending out in the next week at ideaLaunch, I also wrote a blog post over on the ideaLaunch blog about my recent discussion with Gary about his pitch letter last week, “Two Passions Collide Over Marketing & Wine.” The post explains my response to Gary’s original pitch letter in more detail.

Gary Vaynerchuk's Bad Pitch Letter

Just received this rather bizarre pitch email from Gary Vaynerchuk's publicist:

"Hey John,

My name’s XXX, I work at the brand consulting agency, XXX.  Over the next four months I’m working specifically with Gary Vaynerchuk.  Gary has found success in branding himself through the use of social media.  Due to this success he’s signed a ten book deal with Harper Collins; you can read more about it in this WSJ article.  The first book is slated to come out this October, it’s called Crush It: Why Now Is the Time to Cash In on Your Passion. 

Basically, I’m e-mailing you because Gary’s trying to get together a promotional bonanza around the release.  We’re getting requests for interviews and stuff like that but we decided it would be better to be proactive and contact all the business and marketing blogs and see what we can do for them.  He’d love to do book giveaway contests, interviews, Q&A sessions, an interpretive dance summarizing a chapter, really anything that you think your readers would like to see. 

On your side, anything you do with him is going to get an influx of readers to your blog due to his massive and loyal following.  If you’ve got anything specific as to what you want to do or if you just want to start bouncing some ideas around shoot me an e-mail.  Also, I’m sending this e-mail out to a lot of people and I know a lot of you know Gary, so if you’re in that club, feel free to shoot him an e-mail personally about this."

To me the email seemed like a form letter, especially when the email was addressed to me, but latter on in the third paragraph the publicist writes, "Also, I’m sending this e-mail out to a lot of people and I know a lot of you know Gary, so if you’re in that club, feel free to shoot him an e-mail personally about this."

Basically, the publicist just told me that he sent out the same email to a large number of people. He's telling me he just sent me a form pitch letter! And the reason it's okay to do that is because Gary's famous, and he might be able to send me some traffic.

I did not think this email was personalized and also breaks some of the basic guidelines in pitching either a journalist or blogger, read my blog. I usually write about corporate blogging, marketing, social media, and interactive marketing. As a media relations person, I would have asked myself this question; Why would John Cass want to write about Gary's book in light of his past writings?

The only reason given appears to be the potential of traffic. Well, traffic is not really a compelling enough reason for me, as I'm not really looking for traffic, at least not traffic for the sake of traffic, I'd much rather have people who want to engage in a diaglogue with me, where that diaglogue results in me learning something I can use as material for my blog, ideas for my work, or building relationships that convert into into customers. In my case, buying my book Strategies and Tools for Corporate Blogging, asking me to present at a conference, or maybe hiring my company, ideaLaunch.

Traffic doesn't pay the bills, dialogue and engagement does...

Impacting PR Digitally With The PRSA

Today I am at the PRSA's Digital Impact Conference in New York. I am excited about being here because many of my colleagues in PR, marketing and social media are here at the conference.

Rob Key, Founder and CEO, Converseon
Lee Odden, CEO TopRank Online Marketing
Elizabth Albrycht, Conference Chair, co-founder, New Communications Forum
Eric Schwartzman, Conference co-chair, founder and chairman, iPressroom
Francois Gossieaux, Partner, Beeline Labs
Peter Himler, founder Flatiron Communications LLC

I'm particularly excited to see Elizabth Albrycht, an American Marketing and PR professional, but she lives in Paris with her family. I think she has one of the best PR blogs in the industry.

In addition to speaking on online communities tomorrow, I’m also recording podcasts for the PRSA for WebMasterRadio.fm.  It’s good to be at this PRSA event because I’ve been a PRSA member in the past. In fact in 2001, when I lived in Seattle, I was an event volunteer for the technology section. But now I spend most of my time with the AMA, especially here in Boston with the local chapter.

If you’ve a speaker or attendee and would like to do an interview, ping me here, or at @johncass on twitter and we can do an interview for the PRSA show.

By the way, the conference hashtag is #PRSAdi.

The conference looks really great, good speakers, good wifi, lots and lots of power cords!