Getting Ink

Hey, idiot: just cos it's online, doesn't mean it's free.

Am pretty fired up this morning.

I spent a year or so working on a project for a particular company - retaining copyright of the content. This morning found that some moron has ripped off virtually the entire site. Have spent the last hour printing and saving copies of the site before they change it, and letting the lawyers know that I'm totally up for a fight.

Seriously, why do people think that just because something's online, they can just nick it? If I invest my time and expertise in creating something, you don't just get to take it. Well, you can but I'll be on to the lawyers before you can say "plagiarism".

Also found a useful site for those who think their copy might be ripped off by robbing idiots. Go to www.copyscape.com and enter a website address - the search engine then looks for pages on the Internet that have replicated or plagiarised your copy.

I love the smell of napalm in the morning

I just deleted 23,695 emails. I could swear my computer feels lighter already.

That's all.

Q: When is a blog post not a blog post?

A: When it's a temporary post, of course!

RSS feeds are great for many reasons, but especially when they tell you someone posted something which was later deleted. For example, Chris Green has been virtually slapping PR agencies that displease him again:

My RSS reader tells me a  post on his blog begins:  3 Monkeys, or should that be 3 Cowboys? It's been a very, very frustrating day - I've been trying for a while now to pull together some information on the new Skypephone (due for release in the next few days) and ideally get a review handset for IT PRO. Unfortunately, 3's PR company is giving me the runaround. 3 Monkeys - the PR company...

Click to read more, and it says the post no longer exists.

It's funny, because I've known Chris professionally for 10 years, he's a great guy and I don't think he's a bully. But deleting a critical blog post makes the journalist look as though he was using the blog to get attention and force the PR agency's hand, rather than to make a point to his readers. And I'm not sure whether this is fair - because in most cases, it's a one-sided fight, and the PR agency can't really defend itself.

Would it be better to leave the post up there and update it to say the issue has been resolved to everyone's satisfaction? Or should journalists not be allowed to bitch-slap? (Sidenote: I really liked Morgan McLintic's comment here about how journo blogs slating PRs are poor practice, but if all you have to hand is a hammer, every PR starts to look like a nail.) 

Sally gets a promotion

So it seems I'm a "social media maven" these days. Or at least, I am according to this post from Kare Anderson at MovingFromMetoWe.

I hope this doesn't mean I need to start using Plurk. Because from what I can tell at the moment, social media just means downloading more stuff that actually? DOES NOT WORK.

I seem to spend increasing amounts of time getting 'bad request' messages from the likes of Facebook, Friendfeed and the Filter. And let's just not even talk about Twitter and Twitterific. Hard to be maven-like when you can't even refresh without someone telling you the server's down.

Can you survive offline?

This week we've made some new additions to the:101 team as (plug coming up) we're launching a new phone pitching workshop to help PR teams refine pitches ahead of launching a new client or big story (plug over).

What's interesting is that I've been looking for journalists with experience in specific fields to help run workshops. My usual starting point is the papers - I'll spot a journalist's byline in a magazine or newspaper and want to approach them.

Bearing in mind I don't have access to a commercial media database (and even if I did, they seem to be wrong as often as they're right) what do I do? Last night I was looking to track down a feature writer for a tabloid who covers a particular industry.

I started by Googling her name. This turned up a couple of dozen articles with her byline in the Mail and Express, but no contact details. No website, no directory listings, nothing.

Next, I do a quick search of the various journalist directories I know of - the NUJ Freelance Directory, Sourcewire, Gorkana, Journalism.co.uk. Still no joy. So she doesn't advertise.

From here, I do a search on LinkedIn, to no avail. So I look on Facebook but there are 13 people sharing her name, six in the UK, and I've no way of knowing which one is her. There's someone with her name on Bebo, but this seems kind of unlikely.

So this morning I call an editor and track down the journalist. Turns out she isn't on Facebook or LinkedIn, doesn't have a website, doesn't blog, and has never got around to listing in any directories.

Increasingly, I wonder how journalists and PRs will survive if they're not interacting with the web. I don't buy into the hype that search owns the web, but it strikes me that any journalist who isn't locate-able online will need to pack up and go home in the next couple of years.

First, I might Google someone

Is email making us rude?

I'm increasingly confused by etiquette when it comes to online communication.

I got approached by a company a couple of months ago that was looking to fill a writing job. I replied with details of my experience and said I wasn't interested in a full-time office job, but that I might consider flexible or part-time arrangements.

After a month or two, I still hadn't received any reply. Being a paranoid sort of person, I wondered if I'd offended the company in the past (possible), had acquired a reputation for stealing office stationery (likely), or perhaps made an embarrassing spelling mistake in my email (virtual certainty).

Canvassing fellow hacks, I was told it's not unusual for a company not to acknowledge this sort of communication. Er, pardon? How is this considered okay?

I know there are (far) worse offences in the business world, but to my mind, if someone sends you a message that is written specifically to you, it's good form to respond, even if it's to say "no thanks". Imagine that person was on the other end of the phone or opposite your desk? Would you ignore them then? So what's different about email? Are we forgetting our friend Mister Manners*?

* as I found myself saying to my two-year-old in the supermarket yesterday

Eewwww.

Thanks to Response Source, this popped into the inboxes of dozens of journo friends and colleagues today:

Message sent from: XXX
Email address: XXX
Job title: Producer/Director
Publication: Channel 4 Television
Message:

We're looking for a female journalist who is a mother (preferably to a
baby or to young children) who will present an immersive documentary for
Channel 4 about other people's breast milk. You'll need to be available for
15 days filming including a week in the States during the second week of
June.

Please contact: xxx@itv.com  

Immersed in what, do you suppose?

I'm Linked In. What now?

After months of thinking about it, I signed up to Linked In on Wednesday, and now have 71 connections - a mixture of 101 clients, PR contacts, editors, bloggers and other freelance journos.

I posted a nice profile with my website and my University details, and I even included details of my previous jobs.

Er, now what?

I'm really interested in what people actually use LinkedIn for on a professional basis. I like the idea of keeping Facebook mostly for friends, and LinkedIn for business (as Danny advised me to do) but what do we do on there? Any good ideas? Should I be doing more?

Would you like to be my Friend?

There’s a saying I use from time to time in 101 training courses: “on email, everyone is a Katie”. 

In other words, I have loads of PR execs in my address book and I don’t really know who most of them are. There are 20 or more people called Kate/Katie/Katy, all pretty indistinguishable to me. They send me press releases, they send me pitches, I haven’t spoken to them in years, probably.

Our Journo:101 course looks at how PR execs can take those contacts and turn them into working relationships – ideally ending up in a situation where hacks return your calls, read your pitches and even (shock) call you sometimes to ask for help with a story.

There are loads of tips and tricks (come to the course to learn ‘em) but I’m going to update the course next time around. In recent months, it’s become apparent to me that the web is changing how hacks and PR execs build relationships – and the good news is that it makes it easier. Three top tips:

1. Does your PR agency have a blog, or could you set one up? Do so, then write blog posts that refer to posts or articles by key journalists. Chances are they’ll be tracking mentions of their name online, and will look up your blog – I’ve picked up mentions from the likes of Carrot, Strive and Rainier in recent weeks.
2. Remember to also comment on reporters’ blogs. I know that PR execs like Sherilynne at Strive, Sean at Clarity and Dom from Hill & Knowlton have all commented here recently – and if they were to pitch me, they have a head start because they have established a relationship with me through the blog. To an extent they have credibility because I assume they “get” what I do.
3. Finally, consider whether it’s appropriate to join online groups and communities set up by journalists – there are Facebook groups for technology PRs and journalists, for example, and I know that PR execs like Brendan Cooper, Katy Howell and Wadds have really good Twitter feeds that alert me to articles online that I might not find otherwise. Some PRs and journalists are friends on social networking sites, and use the platforms for work-related chit-chat. They’re building credibility with journalists by showing they understand our industry and what’s happening to it (probably better than me in most cases).

Use these tools and journalists WILL remember who you are. Or do you just want to be another Katie? 

The personal side of social media

We often rabbit on about the B2B benefits of social media, or how to use bloggers to push clients' products and the like.

I'm reassured by seeing how quickly the social media network - via blogs and Twitter - has rallied around marketing blogger Todd Andrlik, who runs the Todd And blog. Todd's sister has been diagnosed with a particularly nasty form of breast cancer, and Todd has posted on his family's story, and asked for donations.

The comments of support, sharing of information and offers of donations are incredibly touching, and show another side to the social media landscape. Anyone who'd like to know more or make a donation can visit the 4Tricia site, set up by Todd.