{"id":403,"date":"2010-10-12T13:49:59","date_gmt":"2010-10-12T09:49:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/?p=403"},"modified":"2010-11-08T12:42:15","modified_gmt":"2010-11-08T08:42:15","slug":"prs-blogging-and-not-understanding-your-audience","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/technology-in-the-middle-east\/middle-east-social-media-news-views-analysis\/prs-blogging-and-not-understanding-your-audience\/","title":{"rendered":"PRs, Blogging, and (Not) Understanding Your Audience"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Look, ‘doing’ social media does not consist of sending invitations to bloggers to attend media events.\u00a0 Many bloggers I know have day jobs and any with media experience would rather force a prickly pear up their right\u00a0 nostril than go to a press event.<\/p>\n

There’s a department in hell that consists of press events. It’s for really, really bad people for whom an eternity in blistering flames being tormented by devils is just too good.<\/p>\n

In particular, if you send me invitations to attend media events, I will feel perfectly free in future to hold you up to public ridicule. I am not interested in your product launch. I am not interested in your initiative. I might give the coverage, however it is derived or appears, a passing glance if it engages me – but I am not about to invest a couple of hours in some drab hotel being fed tired food while suited executives cluster around and whisper, glancing at me before approaching me with wolfy smiles and ‘So, you’re a blogger!’<\/p>\n

If this blog was that of a dedicated follower of fashion<\/a>, I’d likely go to a preview or launch event if it was big. Likewise, if I had a geeky weather blog<\/a> and the airport met office contacted me to arrange a tour of their facilities, I’d likely be interested.<\/p>\n

But a deranged marmoset with a frontal lobotomy could surely work out that my blog, Fake Plastic Souks<\/a>,\u00a0 is merely commentary, of personal experience, news and a few tatty half-thoughts. Which brings us back to the single greatest complaint that journalists have about PRs and in-house communicators that attempt to engage with them – that these people simply haven’t taken the time out to understand their publication\/medium and its target audience.<\/p>\n

Anyone that wants me to go to a launch announcement ‘as a blogger’ has similarly not invested the time to work out that not only do I not care, I actively do not care. I vocally and negatively do not care. I will respond well (but negatively) to appropriate invitations from known social contacts. I really don’t like getting press invitations. I’m not press and I won’t act in lieu of a compliant media and slavishly convey your product information for you.<\/p>\n

That my name is now presumably on someone’s list of ‘social media’ contacts is a worry. This, then, is a cease and desist order. Next time, I’ll take it public.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Anyone that wants me to go to a launch announcement ‘as a blogger’ has similarly not invested the time to work out that not only do I not care, I actively do not care. I vocally and negatively do not care.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":404,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[63],"tags":[143,1996],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/403"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=403"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/403\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/404"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=403"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=403"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=403"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}