2009 March, 9th

Liliana Dumitru-Steffens

PR – not Google PageRank, but public relations – can be subject of poor management, poor relations with the public, poor many things. The general misconception is that only big companies need good PR – the small firms remain still reserved when it comes to invest money in a PR campaign. Sometimes little companies fail victim to another kind of problem: they don’t shy to invest in PR, but the service they get is inferior. So where do you go when poor PR happens?

I am not here to call names, but many big PR players fail to deliver what the customer expects and deserves – not because they don’t want to, but because big PR firms are often victims of habit, especially when the management is “old school.”

Recently I had to manage a campaign where the first two weeks were spent in “picking up the pieces” of what a bigger competitor couldn’t manage to deliver. Why? Because, although they speak about the Web and social media, they think success is numbered in Twitter followers, or even worse: in just signing up for Facebook. This company led for the customer a campaign that pretty much followed the slogan: “if you build it, they will come.” – which, if you have the slightest knowledge about how the Web works, you know it never happens.

For about $50000 per month, the company in case built a few Twitter, Facebook, StumbleUpon, YouTube and MySpace profiles, wrote and submitted some press releases and conducted a “blog spam” campaign (sending unsolicited emails to bloggers). The strategy didn’t work for this customer – and it took us a lot of persuasive talent to convince them that Pamil Visions will actually deliver what he wanted: more customers, funding, new partners.

So far you accomplished two of the three: a lot more customers and new partners. About the funding: we are negotiating with interested parties. We will not consider the deal done till the money is in the bank.

So the answer to “where to go when you deal with poor PR” is quite simple: go to a company that has some proof that it can deliver what you need. There are many situations when the big PR companies fail to deliver results because they do not understand the need of a smaller company. You have to know that the big PR players are sometimes “good on paper” and they could, indeed bring a lot of traditional buzz if that’s something you need. But online, you need a company specialized in new media. They are not hard to find – we list many at Everything PR already – go to PR Notables and you’ll find enough examples of excellent PR companies that could work for you.

• 2010/02/03 -- Valentine’s Day PR Madness in Motion
• 2010/03/05 -- Corder Philips Chosen by Park Sterling
• 2010/03/03 -- Phoenix Multisport Hires GroundFloor Media
• 2010/02/24 -- Sync Yourself to Control Your Brand’s Reputation
• 2010/02/23 -- Virtusa Hires Greenough Communications
• 2010/02/20 -- VTech Signs On with Ogilvy
• 2010/02/02 -- Larry’s Beans Hires PRStreet

About the Author

Liliana Dumitru-Steffens is public relations consultant for Pamil Visions PR. She writes for Everything PR since January 2009. Previously she worked for My-tronic GmbH and Unilever Romania. Email Liliana at lsteffens [at] pamil-visions [dot] net.

See All Posts by This Author