Hotel Blogs rants about PR

Since the opening of this blog in 2006, managing my email in box is becoming more and more challenging. On average, I may receive about 30 emails per day. Don't get me wrong, I like reading and responding to emails. After all, this is also part of the conversation. Some people wouldn't leave a comment on the site but will exchange with us via email. Which is perfectly fine.

But - there is always a "but" - there is unfortunately a lot of junk mail that succeed to pass by my spam filter. I couldn't believe when I saw all the crap I get on my gmail spam folder. Most of it is irrelevant to hotels and a majority of it is not personalised.

Above all, I receive all press releases of this world that most other bloggers probably get as well (ie. Travolution, Travel Rants, Les Explorers, Happy Hotelier or Alex Bainbridge and more). I am sure PR companies and Communication departments at companies must share some bloggers email list somewhere on their PC.

Interesting enough, Travolution is trying out  for 2 weeks the publication of plain and simple  - copy paste - of all relevant press releases they receive. They just mention "press release" on the headline. We all could do the same and take the risk of being spammers or sploggers by Google God because content is duplicated on too many sites and their search engine mysterious X files algorithm would declassify our blog. So I don't believe the practise would do us any favour.

Some PR companies use another tool in their box. They write to blog editors and ask them if they can pay them to publish articles about their client. Proposition like the one below sounds like a good deal but ethically, is it what a blog is about? I have heard before (mostly from traditional media) that bloggers have limited integrity and code of conduct and therefore cannot be associated with journalists.

Well, let me shout this to you once again: I would not publish an article that is paid and pushed by a PR company (or by companies directly) like PR Precision. Note that the company says "you would have a say in what content is placed on your site...". I bet I have a say because this is my website so I do what I want with it.

That being said, I am offering sponsorship opportunities like banners and direct links (please visit my sponsors on the upper right hand side of the site).

I believe in human curiosity and this is what drives me to write with passion more and more posts on Hotel Blogs. I discover new ventures, new products, new hotels, new people by exchanging with people. I also have to make a choice about what's interesting or not in these pages. For example, writing about the fact the 5*  XXX hotel in London has refurbished their rooms by providing 30inch plasma screen in each room seems to me artificial and uninspiring. But writing about Travelodge UK decision to remove adult TV channels in their rooms is much more refreshing and an interesting story to develop.

There is a lot of ranking in the blogosphere (Technorati, Wikio...) that classify blogs. I am the first culprit when I was doing the travel blogosphere ranking every month. Maybe I should create a ranking of PR companies who send me the most emails in the last 12 months.

#1 M Silver Associates (44 emails...I couldn't believe that one!)

#2 Flagship Consulting (8)

#3 Formula PR (5)

#4 Allison Taylor (4)

#5 McNeil Wilson Communications (3 4...just received another PR while I was posting this article)

#6 Fleishman (3)

#7 Networks Frontiers (3)

and more companies that I can't be bothered to mention

Mr PR (wo)man, please consider what you need to communicate to us before you press the "Send" button. If the subject of your press release is not relevant to the content of the blog, you know what to do...send your PR elsewhere.

Mille mercis!

Comments

[Claude]

Guilllaume,

Thanks for this great post.

I agree with you, 90 % of PR guys doesn't understand bloggers and Web 2.0 World

But some are smart, maybe we can make a post about the best PR guys or girls, will be more positive stuff !

have a good day

Claude

[Kevin May]

Very good post, Guillaume. and brave of you to name-and-shame the PR companies and also reproduce their pitch.

As for our experiment, we have changed enough elements in each press release we produce to ensure that it is slightly different and the Google Police do not frown on us unnecessarily.

The feedback we have received from the industry to this idea has been overwhelmingly positive. Many are fed up with the cut-and-paste machines of some other media providers who are passing off press releases as "news". it isn't.

therefore our idea is to reproduce press releases in full, and they are clearly marked as such, while the interesting follow-ups and analysis are where we can concentrate our efforts as journalists.

[Darren Cronian]

Guillaume, I think my rants are rubbing off on you! :)

It's quite simple in my eyes - PR companies think that bloggers are easy targets because we'll write about any old crap. They do not realise that we have a niche. If they took just five minutes to read our blog and learn our name and our niche and send PR accordingly then they would get a more welcome reception.

I personally don't mind receiving PR emails, I have a filter which picks them up in Outlook and puts them in a folder, then once a week or a month, I will go through quickly and see if any of them are interesting enough to mention.

99% of the time I bin them.

[Nathan Midgley]

Kevin recently sent me a post on how 'tech blogging has failed you' by Robert Scoble. One of its points was that PR companies are now hitting bloggers and news sites with the same press releases - with the result, in Scoble's eyes, that the ground between established media and independent blogs in the tech space had narrowed.

It would be a shame if something similar happened in travel, so good to see independent blogs rejecting it. To be honest we 'proper media' bloggers are in a similar situation - if I relied on the press releases I get I'd become indistiguishable from Travel Weekly's news pages.

The PR Precision thing is a horrible idea - IMO it comes from marketing depts who want a piece of blogging, but are a) unable to look beyond the paid advertising model and b) haven't clocked that most bloggers aren't money motivated.

[Joe]

I'm work in PR for a hotel company and I was surprised to hear about your offer from PR Precision. We would never asked a blogger, or any other media outlet for that matter, for paid coverage. At that point one could argue that it's not even publicity anymore but rather advertising. These large high-end PR firms don't operate like the rest of us so don't rule out the whole batch based on a few bad apples.

[Happy Hotelier]

Guillaume:

First of all: are you in on the WTM Bloggers meet up?

Secondly: Yes I get a lot of the same PR spam from a couple of nitwits that I use to file vertically (ie delete it)

[hotel motel furniture]

I would just keep blogging and not worry about PR companies. Blogging is a very good way to become an authority in your industry.

[Darren Cronian]

@ Guido

There's 11 confirmed and 17 maybe's so far on the Facebook event, plus six maybe's via email. I've noticed Nathan and Guillaume haven't confirmed either way yet! ;) I'm going to update the Facebook event this weekend.

So far we have three companies interested in sponsoring the meet-up, which is great!

[Guillaume]

Thanks to all for your comments. I knew this post will create a bit of controversy in the community!

@Claude - sometimes you have to be more negative than positive. Not sure I will list the best PR companies. But I know some good PR individuals.

@Kevin - Good call for Travolution. And happy to hear the trade like this new approach. Maybe you should create a RSS feed for only Press Releases.

@Darren - thanks for the tip. Need to configure that in my Outlook.

@Nathan - Yes I read this post as well from Scoble. Great and brave article from him. I also heard that famous bloggers in France want to be declassified from TOP100 most read blogs because they are fed up with spam and irrelevant comments.

@Joe - you absolutely right. I am not putting every PR company in the same basket. I know some good PR companies with talented individuals.

@Happy Hotelier - 1/ yes, I need to register to WTM though. 2/ ditto here.

@ Hotel Motel Furniture - thanks for the tip

@ Darren - will confirm later this week

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[Nico]

I've had people asking me to write articles for their own blog/web site for no money at all...

I'm not surprised by this approach. I'm glad that you fight for the integrity of your blog.

[Tamara]

Hi Guillaume
I have only just found your site - I found it on Travel Rants which I am a fan of.
As a company that does send out press releases (but only ever personalised ones to our contacts) it's interesting to hear your views.
We have an in-house small PR team of two and I would hate to see them sending out releases that were not relevant to the people who receive them.

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[kabonfootprint]

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[100ice Community]

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i agree with that
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