Comments on: Should Startups Hire PR Firms? Journalists at WebInno Say “No.”

By: Web Innovators Group » One Week after WebInno23 – Quick Recap

Web Innovators Group » One Week after WebInno23 – Quick Recap — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 00:00:59 +0000

[...] the role of PR. Lora Kratchounova, Bobbie Carleton, Jason Evanish, John Wall, Chuck Tanowitz, Nathan Burke, Kellye Crane all weighed in their thoughts, with panel moderator Mike Troiano and panelist Wade [...]

By: Bobbie Carlton

Bobbie Carlton — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 22:35:08 +0000

Hi Nathan, Great post. Thanks for commentary on my post. One thing I want to clarify is a miss-characterization of my question that has been perpetuated. I never asked if the panel “why PR firms weren’t represented on the panel.” I actually asked if they had “ever considered adding a PR person to the panel?”

I have long experience both in-house, in agencies (10+ years) and as a solo practitioner. I have always seen the services offered (and the price tag) as very different things. (In fact, many of my friends recall to me my vow to never darken the door of an agency ever again during a low period in the early 90s. We all know how well that worked out.) I am actually well known for my preference for building internal teams who get close to the company and products and build real expertise in the products and industry. I for example, at one point, could hold my own in deep conversations on technical subjects as varied as ADT, BI and MCAD, because I worked inside the companies.

Just like any skill, there are various delivery and business models around PR, and we shouldn’t say that just because we can’t afford a gold-plated agency experience, let’s just forgo using any PR people and giving up access to their expertise.

By: Nathan W. Burke

Nathan W. Burke — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 21:15:36 +0000

Chuck- Interesting. I am definitely only speaking from my experience, and I’ve only experienced situations where we knew that PR was much more than one tactic. I could be totally off base and an outlier here, but everyone I’ve worked with has been pretty PR-savvy. I think one thing is that media relations is one of the easiest things to see the tangible benefits from and because of that, people see press mentions as central to PR.

By: Chuck Tanowitz

Chuck Tanowitz — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 21:10:17 +0000

Hi Nathan,

Sorry, my eye must have skipped past the line just before Bobbie’s quote, though I was reacting more to the panel and much of the discussion I’ve seen, which centers on media.

I’m not so sure you’re right about entrepreneurs knowing that PR is more than media. Over the years it’s what they’ve been sold and it’s now what they tell you they don’t need when they say “I don’t need PR.”

Frankly, part of the problem lies with us. We’ve fed on the media relations trough for a very long time with agencies charging huge fees for phone calls. We have a lot of work to do.

By: Nathan W. Burke

Nathan W. Burke — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 21:02:34 +0000

Chuck- I don’t think I overlooked that when I said: “Looking at the posts defending PR for startups, the general theme is this: PR is not just media relations. ” and in my conclusion:
“In the end, it’s not that journalists flat-out despise PR, they just don’t want to be overwhelmed with lame pitches for boring products without an interesting story. It doesn’t matter if its a PR rep, the company’s CEO or a 4 foot rabbit…..if they’re pitching something the journalist doesn’t care about, they’re not going to waste their time”

I think that you’re right that the journalists are solely talking about media relations, but that’s what PR means to them, and that’s what I’m trying to convey in the post.

PR isn’t just media calling, and I may be wrong, but I think entrepreneurs out there know that.

By: Chuck Tanowitz

Chuck Tanowitz — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 20:48:27 +0000

Hey Nathan,

What keeps getting overlooked here, and core to both my point and Bobbie’s, is that the panel looked at one very small slice of what PR does and told the audience “stay away.”

If you’re a company and you hire a PR person, and all they do is call media, yes, you should question the bill. But PR is so much more than that. In fact, the journalists all had some stories about how executives screwed up, screw ups that could have been avoided if they had good PR counsel.

But more important is the content creation and relationship management that are now (or should be) part of PR.

I wrote about it all if you want to read more: http://mediametamorphosis.blogspot.com/2009/09/what-you-dont-know-about-pr-can-hurt.html