For Virtual Assistants and the Internet Marketers who love them! If you'd like to be added to this Fwicki, email fwicki@atypicalva.com - I'd love to see more Internet Marketers utilizing Virtual Assistants on this Fwicki! ...
My friend Rick Calvert of Blogworld Expo posted a note last night asking Should bloggers blacklist PR firms? His starting point for his article is an earlier note by Stowe Boyd, The Growing Backlash against PR, Spam and the Rationale for MicroPR . He in turn points to Gina Trapani, who has created a PR Spammers Wiki , where "she and others can publicly 'out' PR firms that are spamming bloggers or using other unsavory spammish practices."
I find this entire sequence of vigilante justice, as embodied in the concept of "outing" being applied to this situation, ridiculous. On the one hand, I constantly hear bloggers and other so-called new media journalists complaining that corporations and public relations firms aren't taking them seriously and then we get this sort of daft misbegotten idea where if a PR firm doesn't meet the ideal of interaction with a blogger, they can be digitally tarred and feathered.
I also get a lot of email from PR agencies, some of which is lame and poorly targeted, but much of which is interesting and worth receiving. When I get something I don't like, I send a one line note akin to "Not my beat, please drop me from this list" and it's done, no problem, no foul, no tar, no feathers.
When I get a query that attracts my attention, I appreciate the ability to type in a quick reply without having to dig up a contact person (they've already sent the message) and engage in a dialog with the pr agent o ...
Anytime
