Cision listings for bloggers
Hello Everyone,
I have seen a few posts (humorzo, PRSA Digital Impact, and NevilleHobson) around about this issue. And I thought as a semi-pr guy that I might be able to shed a little light on what this is and what is happening. I don’t work for Cision and I don’t even work in a PR department anymore, I used to do both and I think that I might be able to give an objective light to it.
Vocus and Cision are both list building services that PR people use. The big problem arises when PR people get lazy and build gigantic lists that they then use for Spray and Pray dissemination strategies. I read a lot of blogs slamming PR people for being lazy and spamming. Sadly, that is the case with a lot of traditional-only pr practitioners. Many are used to the old days and large print publication staffs. They are used to press releases being a trade secret that we could sell to clients. They are used to big media coverage being something that you could promise clients. To put it simply, those days are gone and the PR industry is in a world-shift of change from media-fragmentation to user-generated content to trying to pitch bloggers.
Here is a scenario of the problem in action. You take a PR person who has made their career by pitching big reporters and big, mass-audience publications. There is a very standard way of writing and talking in this world. Now you ask them to pitch a very personal, very niche blogger. Obviously, there is gonna be a huge disconnect. So, we have to retrain those people or get new kinds of PR people.
Sorry to be so honest, but it is sadly the truth. And I am a member of the PRSA.
Thanks, sorry for the downer post,
Will Flavell
Interesting post. I am the Electronic Media Director at Cision. The PR world is certainly going through changes right now and bloggers have spotlighted the need for these changes over the past few months. The traditional ways of doing PR aren’t as effective with bloggers, as you mentioned, and PR professionals are learning to navigate social media along with the rest of the world. At Cision, we constantly strive to assist our clients in understanding the best ways to engage their online communities outside of the traditional pitch/press release. I am participating in a Webinar later this month on how to engage the media and target the appropriate contacts in the right ways. If you’d like to know the details, please let me know.
Heidi Sullivan
July 3, 2008 at 3:27 pm