How Not to Suck at PR in 2010

It’s now officially 2010, and while many PR firms and companies are doing a great job; there are far too many companies that don’t. These firms don’t qualify for a post on the Bad Pitch Blog; but for one, or all, of the following reasons they suck at PR.

So please, I implore you, don’t suck at PR. With so many talented individuals in the arena and simple steps not to such, there’s really no reason to suck at PR.

Here are 3 ways not to suck at PR and to get bloggers to pay attention to what you are pitching.

1. Get Em-bed with the bloggers: No not in bed with them Embed, as in embeddable video. We aren’t print and big part of that is that we can deliver timely media rich content to our readers. Most often this is in the form of videos which are easily embedded in posts.

Many companies have great demo videos that I would love to share with my readers, but I can’t because you don’t offer an option to embed it. Why is immaterial, with YouTube available there is no logical reason not to let me share your video on my site. Don’t kid yourself that the video is worth visiting your site to watch — if it’s that good embedding it will drive even more customers. A second alternative is to let me download and embed it on my own, but again, no sense in doing this when you can create a corporate YouTube account or handle it yourself.

2. Image Not Found: Again, nothing is more frustrating to me personally than locked down or flash only product pages and images. If you are pitching a product I need to be able to easily share that image with my readers. This may be a screenshot or picture of your product; whatever it is make it easy for me to share.

3.Press Pages aren’t just for looks: Have a press page, even if that means a single page with one with a product shot, one embeddable product demo and an email address for more details. If you can’t do this, how do you expect to answer questions and more importantly for you complaints that press may be covering. On a side note, right or wrong, I judge the companies I cover and those I shop at based on whether they have a press page.

Bonus Round – Focused Concise Pitches: Press releases are great, they represent a carefully crafted product pitch; what’s better is a pitch that has a concise focused pitch to my readers.

Follow these 4 steps and soon, you too, won’t suck at PR.

image via smlp.co.uk on Flickr

Weezer – Pork and Beans – Geek Cred

Weezer released the video for Pork and Beans today and it is a hilarious video which takes a bunch of the hottest youtube videos and the associated stars to make a awesome final product.

If you missed any of the original ones you can check out the videos which  made the people in Pork and Beans famous on Weezer’s channel.

Keystone Cop – Border Patrol Edition

I couldn’t help myself, this is just the pickup I needed today. I think this guy needs backup ASAP. I almost want to say it is staged due to the number of people who appear form the Van but it seems to be genuine.

New Halo 3 Legendary Map Vidoc

Bungie released a new video which should provide some more insight into the maps and features which are part of the Legendary Map pack. The new map pack will be available on April 15th for 800 MS points.

Australian Easter Ducks, In Dresses

Apparently ‘Down Under’ they like to do things..uh..differently where it is an Easter tradition to dress up ducks like high fashion ladies and get them to prance about in front of a crowd.  The reporter shares that this spectacle is a celebration of “rural industries”.  I caught a version of the above video on the teaser for our local news show, thankfully Youtube spared me the agony of an hour of FOX news, though I was tricked into seeing the personal interest piece on a high school Sr. named Jordan Sparks, like the American Idol.

NWA Day- “help” tha Police

A father shares the wonders of NWA with his wife and son, with some selective self editing to keep mom happy.

Another Bender Ball Complaint Video

In the continuing Bender Ball coverage here I wanted to share this video with you as a warning regarding ordering the Bender Ball.

From the video description:

Very cheap simple Abdominal Exercise ball early AM TV infomercial. Call to buy is fully automated. The quantity question is ambiguous/confusing & you end up with two units. They dont repeat the # or price so you dont know you have been had until you receive it. They get $8 S&H each & won’t refund that plus you have to pay postage again to send one back, IF, you can get an RMA. DONT GET SCREWED! If you used a check card, cancel it since they are billing some monthly for stuff not ordered.

This consumer ended up ordering two balls as well as getting signed up for the continuity dvd program. Don’t order the Bender Ball. As some commenters have said a kids kickball is a good replacement, though users are still on the lookout for a dvd replacement. Anyone out there want to put together a Youtube series for the Bender Ball workout?

Star Wars Force Unleashed, Reason Enough to Invent a Time Machine

I just watched this clip on Gametrailers.com of the upcoming Star Wars Force unleashed which is due out later this summer. Truthfully I haven’t gotten into many of the recent Star Wars games but Force Unleashed has me longing for a means of moving through the time space continuum in order to enjoy the menage trois of game engines that makes up this incarnation of the Star Wars engine. The Force Unleashed makes use of the Havok physics engine, Euphoria which provides AI which utilizes second nature when your enemies are attacked and DMM which lets in game objects interact based on the molecular matter which makes up said item. These three engines all interact to immerse the player into the universe. The gameplay video above provides some stunning examples of these engines interacting.

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