I don't really know what PR people do - what is it that they can do for a small business?

[vacaloca]

I've just been reading a few posts from PR people and I realised I don't really understand what they do. Is it like marketing? Do they improve the look of your business or find you clients, or what?

ah, squeaver, x-posts. Thanks for your very helpful suggestions too. I'll definitely do that.

God, when I replied to vaca (just trying to be helpful) I didn't realise this post was going to carry on like this.

Vaca - I'm not an expert in travel but here's a few ideas - if you want to stand out from all the other similar kinds of businesses consider trying for an award, sponsoring something, seeing if you can come up with a good personal story related to the business that might interest a journalist, attend one of the Specialist Travel Agents conferences, think of a USP that could make your cottages a bit different from similar businesses (do you have an eco cottage? is one particularly unusual)

BTW Aitch, PRs aren't at fault if a lazy journalist prints a press releases as their own work. In fact it is evidence of the good stories we PRs produce that we get them published so often. As many say, we also act as facilitors getting our clients interviews with journalists, on the radio etc. What exactly is wrong with that? You can clean windows but you might still hire a window cleaner. You can pick up the phone but more than likely noone will be take your call. So someone with the right contacts takes the hassle and saves you time by making the phone calls for you. As I said before IT'S A SERVICE. You don't have to use it.

No, I'm glad you did. It's been quite interesting. I've been wanting to move into PR for a while now.

Goodluck TQS

Also, had another thought for you vaca. I guess much of your work would come from the web? If so you need to look closely at SEO (Search Engine Optimisation). There's a whole industry out there dedicated to SEO but essentially you want to have the right keywords in your website and lots of links into it so the likes of google pick you up when people search 'holiday cottages in northern Spain'. So get yourself on appropriate free directories, publish a blog or articles about the region (always remember to include your website address or the link won' be made), study your competitor sites.

re 'it's a service'... your point is? the OP asked what PRs do and your reply was that they write articles so that they can push their products fraudulently using someone else's byline. that's a hideous service, hardly comparable to the entirely honourable work of someone getting up a ladder to clean windows. what you describe is slimy and duplicitous and should outrage decent readers of newspapers and certainly decent journalists.
i'm just really, really interested in the fact that your first response to the question 'what can a PR do for a small business' was to highlight the worst aspects of your industry without a second thought. clearly you're inured to it, but what you described is actually pretty craven.

Actaully journalists fraudulently use our work to fill their space...and I've seen it in national papers and mags as well as local. All we do is try to promote honest, hardworking people's businesses by providing info to the media. No one twists their arms to use it. When did journalism ever become a noble profession???

ye gods. "Ringing a journalist will hardly ever get you in the papers, you need to write the article for them." will you take some responsibility for what you've written on this thread? you were the person who defined PR for the OP. none of the other PRs on here have presented such a craven approach to their job.

i've made it abundantly clear that i think that any journalist who'd let their byline be abused in this way is a disgrace to the profession. and there is a nobility to it, imo. let's say if i'm reviewing something i want to have tested it first myself, i owe that to the reader who has, after all, parted with their hard-earned cash for the paper. if i'm saying it's the best then i'll need to be damned sure it is the best i can find because people have come to have some trust in my name (judging by the letters i've received). for me to abuse that trust would be a matter of shame for me, but it seems to be a matter of pride for you that you are mis-using the appearance of impartiality, viz; 'the public are far more sceptical of an advert whereas press releases tend to appear under the byline of a journalist and so are viewed as impartial'. and the fact that you are 'hassling' me to put your copy on the page is just one of the irritations i'd have to put up with.

"will you take some responsibility for what you've written on this thread?" FGS is MN an exam now?

Aitch, you have indeed made your position abundantly clear. You are obviously very noble. But your experience is not the only one. Other journalists do different things. Evidently. You do not speak on behalf of all of them. And whether you think they're any good is another matter. But they do exist. And sell their publications. And people read them. And make their own opinions / take them with a pinch of salt / get opinions from other sources too. It's ok.

I'm really beginning to wonder if that telly stereotype is really entirely mythical.

what ARE you talking about?

Seems it is TQS. Apparently you have to defend your job and right to give what you thought was helpful info to an OP.

Interesting that I have a craven approach to my job.

Actually I primarily help local businesses get in local papers with a view to making money, expanding and employing more people. Yep, can't see how that contributes anything.

Maybe I should just watch TV and write about it.

can't be arsed anymore.

Me neither bye bye

it's not noble to want to do a professional job for the people who buy your newspaper, is it? that's what's wrong with pickup's attitude, tbh. that it's all a game and no-one's getting fucked over. the readers, they're getting fucked over by this behaviour and it's a disgrace. i've never once professed to speak for all journalists, by the way, just myself. i'm as shocked as the next person to find out that PRs think that it's cool and par for the course to write pieces for publication (for confirmation please see pickup's early posts). because it's not cool at all imo.

ROFL at you sustaining the economy, pickup. and nice low dig about watching telly, by the way. just as i'd expect, though, judging by your evidently low opinion of my profession (one that you feed off, by the way, which makes you what, exactly?)

pickupthismess - you have been very helpful. I just read your suggestions - thank you very much.

I don't know much about PR or journalism (although I have made contact with some people on local publications in order to publicise events for the charity I volunteer for and it's just worked because we click. I don't like it when I have typos put into what I send them though!) but I really hate reading what I feel are 'product placement' stories.

The first/worst/most notable example I remember of this was when there was initially a lot of interest in 'grey import' cars. The Times/Sunday Times ran a full page (pretty muhc) on some company that was importing cars and mentioned their website. When I went there it was a 'coming soon - please give us your email address for more info' site. Like someone had just stuck it there at the last minute.

More recently (Times again - online, I don't read a paper copy) there was an article about someone setting up a social networking site for kids. When you go to the website, it's obviously a start-up rather than something successful and so the overwhelming feeling is that 'I've been advertised to'.

actually sue, that's interesting you say that. i've most definitely had PRs present companies to me as long-standing and solid etc and you have to do a bit of background checking before you find out that they've only just started up and it's all a lot of hot air.

also irritating imo is when they try to cross-promote clients without you noticing, so they tell you their 'personality' client has requested to be interviewed and have shots taken at a particular location because it's their favourite and you think 'fair enough, i can get some colour for the piece out of it if it's a place they love'.

when you get there it turns out they've never been there in their lives and you've been conned into promoting a restaurant they're representing. one time i slagged off the food (as it was vile) and got a call from an irate PR about it as apparently i should have 'played the game'. some nice game.

Couple of points I want to pick up on here:

On the issue of companies being portrayed as long-standing/solid etc when actually they're new: in my experience, journalists are always looking for something 'new' so that they can scoop their competitors. They want something that hasn't been covered before, something just about to launch that no-one knows about yet. So in those instances, I'm not too sure how they can be anything other than 'new' and they can't possibly be long-standing as they're just starting up. So Sue, the examples you're quoting might well fall into that category.

This argument between PR people and journalists is so old and tired and it's one of the reasons I actually don't enjoy what I do. I am sick to death of journalists saying that PR people are all rubbish and nothing more than glorified underlings to make the lives of the uber-journalist gods easier. Equally, I'm sick of PR people thinking that without them, the world might grind to a halt. They take drink too much of the cool-aid.

PR when done well is invaluable (ask Microsoft). Journalism when done well is invaluable. Both can be done incredibly poorly. Both have obnoxious people in the profession who think what they do is right.

How about a little bit of mutual respect?

your first point is true, joshandjamie, about the looking for the new so you might be right about that. although as i say i've been mis-sold start-ups in the past.

like i said, i count some PRs amongst my best friends, having met them through work, but they are the good ones. what i have most objected to on this thread is the idea that PR means writing articles for journalists to put out and con readers. that's a bollocks industry and nothing to be proud of. it's not just a question of a lazy journalist, from what the first PR said it's specifically writing articles for publication.

getting quotes, getting people to the right place at the right time, helping people to present themselves well (without getting in the way of an honest interview), being a facilitator, that's a decent job of work imo.

Hmm. I have to admit that asking PRs exactly what the basis is for the study they're 'quoting', and how many people were surveyed, and what the evidence is, and how does this Miracle Health Product actually work is, er, rather good fun when I am feeling particularly mean.

Whereas, I should add, being rung by a really good press officer about a report that's out on a health topic that interests me, is quite marvellous and I'll knock myself out to squeeze it in.

there's a PR firm in your sector (or rather the one you were just covering), MI, run by jocks up at tower bridge, who i ADORE. such clever women, and efficient. i'd do anything for them.

Sling me over the details, sweetie, am back in that sector again!

I have to say, I actually think it is a pointless waste of everyone's time contacting a journalist trying to "sell" them something you know in your heart of hearts isn't going to interest them and is really a pile of tosh - you are surely going to get found out and then that journalist will never take your call again. I refuse to do it because it effects my professional credibility - but then I have the luxury of working for myself and picking and choosing the clients I work for. I know that there are probably a lot of junior PRs out there who get given a list of journalists to call just to put a name down on the report to justify the cost to the client and I think that is appalling tbh and I can see why it pisses the journalist off. I have turned down work on a number of occasions because I just don't think there is enough to warrant a PR campaign.

UQD - what do you write about out of interest? I too find it dreadful when a paper just regurgitates a press release under the guise of a "review". What is the point?

MI - and that is what I was talking about when I said a mutually beneficially relationship. That PR is likely to then come back to you first next time they have something you will find interesting because you have worked together well in the past and everyone is a winner.

It really needn't be so fraught if everyone does their job properly?

Aitch - out of interest, what kind of stories do you cover (apart from the telly )?