Top 3 Online PR Mistakes B-to-B High Tech Companies Often Make

We first heard of online PR expert Peter Shankman last fall when
his firm, The Geek Factory, Inc. offered reporters and clients the
chance to jump out of an airplane. Despite the fact that we get
more than 100 PR pitches a day here at B-to-B MarketingBiz, the
airplane story was unforgettable. So, we listened up when
Shankman spoke passionately at a recent trade show on the subject
of what high tech companies should NOT do with their online PR.
Here in Shankman's own words are three BIG mistakes we in the
press see constantly (do you make them?):

1) Email is NOT your best friend. It never will be. Just because
you have a media list with every reporter's email address from
New York to Washington State, does NOT mean to blast your press
release on your new transmogrifier out to everyone on it. Why
would the agriculture reporter have any desire to read about your
new high-tech b2b gadget or service? The answer simply is, "He or
she wouldn't."

Make sure that when you email your press release to the media,
you're targeting ONLY the specific media who are interested in
EXACTLY what you're talking about - otherwise, you've just made
an enemy for life, and will never get any press out of that media
outlet.

2) Yeah, like a journalist is going to waste ten minutes of his
or her life searching your site for your latest press release.
Not.

If you don't have a link from the very first page (and on every
subsequent page) that says "Press," then you might as well not
have a press section at all. And don't make it fancy. Don't bog
it down with flash, or java, or any other multimedia experience
you can think of. Simply have your press releases in a clear,
concise format, that's easy to understand, and simple to navigate

(Note: Reporters don't want to sit there and watch an animation
of a pen. That's just pointless. To quote an old newspaper man,
"They're just looking for the facts, and nothing else." If you
can't give it to them, they're going to get it from someplace
else. Probably a competitor.)

3) Attachments suck. More than one journalist I know disables all
incoming attachments - meaning that if you send your new press
release as a Microsoft Word document, it's going to wind up in
his or her trash before he or she even knew it came in. The
reporter's computer doesn't know the difference between your
latest press release, and the new Anna Kournikova virus. All
it knows is that it's supposed to delete all attachments before
they download. And that's what it'll do. Best bet: Body of the
email. Simple as that.

Reporters will read your press releases, and they will write
about you. The easier you make it to do their jobs, the more
likely you are to get the "ink" you so furiously desire.