The Hypocrisy of PRweb
I suppose you can say I’m not the biggest fan of PRWeb. I don’t quite hate the company, and have sent quite a few of my clients their way spending the “big bucks” for top placement… I just don’t think they’re a terribly credible source to be offering information about effective Public Relations. Today I finally got around to reviewing the updated e-book by David Meerman Scott - The New Rules of PR, which is featured there. Frankly, it just cemented some of my more negative feelings on the company, including:
- They’ve become quite the hypocrites (saying one thing while promoting something contradictory).
- They apparently think you’re all idiots and too stupid to notice.
- They’ve completely lost touch with PR, in favor of whoring themselves out to Internet marketers under the guise of PR 2.0.
Let’s jump right into the “hypocrisy” I mentioned between the PRWeb site, and the latest “Rules of PR” thrown down by Meerman Scott and featured by PRWeb. You’re a bright bunch, so I’ll let you just read the quotes and then figure out the problems for yourself with minimal commentary from me:
On Having a Newsworthy Angle:
- From PRweb.com - “The purpose of a press release is to inform the world of your news item. Do not use your press release to try and make a sale. A good press release answers all of the “W” questions (who, what, where, when and why), providing the media with useful information about your organization, product, service or event. If your press release reads like an advertisement, rewrite it.”
- From The New Rules of PR - (under the heading of “Ye Old Press Release Rules” - and basically as a selling point for the “new rules”) “You had to have significant news before you were allowed to write a press release.” and “Drive people into the sales process with press releases.”
On Who a Press Release Should Target:
- From PRweb.com - “Write for the media.”
- From The New Rules of PR - “Instead of just targeting a handful of journalists, create press releases that appeal directly to your buyers.”
On Effective Writing / Keyword-Stuffing:
- From PRweb.com - “Use only enough words to tell your story. Avoid using unnecessary adjectives, flowery language, or redundant expressions such as “added bonus” or “first time ever”. If you can tell your story with fewer words, do it. Wordiness distracts from your story. Keep it concise. Make each word count.”
- From The New Rules of PR - “Write releases replete with keyword-rich copy.” (Yeah, because there’s nothing more redundant than overloaded, non-reader-friendly, keyword-stuffed copy.)
I’m sure you can figure out where I stand and what I consider complete garbage. Do most people agree with my general feelings about PRweb? Probably not. And frankly, I couldn’t care less if they do. But anyone with two brain cells to rub together (which is apparently becoming my favorite phrase) has to concede on a few basic points:
- Whether they come right out and say so or not, PRweb targets webmasters and online entrepreneurs. They suck them in with promises of backlinks and stats that make them feel big and “powerful” as though thousands of people actually care about what they’re saying (despite the fact that those stats are almost entirely useless). They basically take webmasters for fools… and the webmasters let them, and PRweb makes a pretty penny off their backs, so why not?
- PRweb is about as far from transparent as they can possibly be regarding their rates and services.
Not long ago, I’d been in a rather heated discussion in a webmaster community with someone essentially touting PRweb as some kind of PR “God” - the only advice they could spew was “Spend $200 at PRweb.” It was rather pathetic. Needless to say, this person had no PR background whatsoever… if you’d seen the discussions you’d have to assume they were somehow profiting from the site (they say they weren’t, and that’s good enough for me) with the way they got so ga-ga for PRweb. Anyway, shortly after that discussion, I’d received a voicemail message from a PRweb rep, saying he’d seen the discussion and wanted to chat about my thoughts. Unfortunately I never got around to shooting an email off, because I was swamped with work at the moment, and then it just slipped my mind. So for the record, here are a few of those delightful “thoughts,” and what I’d like, in a utopian world, to see PRweb do:
- Stop trying to be trendsetters at the expense of your core business. Your core business is press release distribution. Get that right first, before you start tossing more garbage out there like podcasts and pushing into other areas like social media releases and SEO services. If you want to do that, fine. But fix what’s broken first.
- Stop pretending that your target is about small business and corporate communication (I didn’t pull that out of my ass either… saw it somewhere today on the site). I don’t know about you, but how many Fortune 500 companies do you see using PRweb? Now how many webmasters and online entrepreneurs do you see using PRweb? Yeah… target’s clear. On any given day, you’ll run across more independents trying to whore their name out at any expense and webmasters who honestly believe PRweb is the best option.
- Either put together stats that have an ounce of credibility, or lose them altogether. Again, admit it or not, the company has a pretty large focus on online business owners. These webmasters live and die by stats, and have a tendency to monitor them obsessively. When your target market trusts your stats and you give them worthless crap, they’re going to eat it right up. It’s just something that gives them a false selling point over cheaper distribution sites. But newsflash: “reads” of a press release (basically the equivalent of “pageviews”) means diddly freaking squat. All that matters is how many actual pickups the release leads to. On that note, offering estimated pickups is even more worthless. Frankly, a guess is not a statistic. Even though you say this, not making it obvious is beyond dishonest in my book. You’re playing on the naivity of customers, and frankly, that’s disgusting.
- Stop being “enablers” for crap scraper sites by hyping up your backlink potential. The fact of the matter is that one or two high quality backlinks from highly-ranked, relevant, authority news sites is much more effective in the long run than the hundreds of low-quality, irrelevant, and often temporary backlinks press release distribution sites like PRweb will bring. It doesn’t matter if you get 1000 scraper sites to pick up your feeds, and claim those are quality backlinks. Apparently, you’ve got a good business model though, because plenty of people are stupid enough to fork over hundreds of dollars for that sole reason with no intention of targeting media coverage. PR isn’t about direct traffic from a hoard of crap links. It’s about image and exposure… which, if done right, will lead more more (and better quality) backlinks in the first place.
- You’re a PR-Oriented Company - So Where’s the Transparency?? Being transparent with your audience is a pretty basic PR concept. Let’s try using that, shall we? I’ve already mentioned that you’re not transparent enough about the uselessness of your stats, especially considering your stats-focused audience. Here’s another one - Stop hiding your prices and package features until after registration. I can’t tell you how tired I get of client after client asking me about your packages. Just make the damn things open to the public! There are times when I feel like I ought to bill PRweb for all of my wasted time in explaining their packages before someone will consider them, because they feel a need to be secretive. Also, do a bit more to make it clear to customers that, no, they don’t have to spend a minimum of $80 to send a press release - an extremely common misconception I see thrown around at least a few times per week. You’ve got your nice little text box below your packages starting at $40 (cleverly tucked below the fold of course - wanna milk the suckers for all they’re worth after all). If you have a minimum, LIST IT!!! If not, then SAY SO!!! It’s not hard people. Enter a different amount. Click the little button. Ooooh, it’s like magic!
Seriously… will you pretty pretty please get your act together? I’m not a total hater. I used to love PRweb. As I’ve said, I do send clients there when it’s the best fit for their needs (which is something I determine with the client on a case by case basis). But honestly, every time I log into a client’s account to submit their release on PRweb, I feel “dirty” and want to run to the shower to scrub the filth off just thinking about the fact that yet again I’m convincing a client to throw money their way in spite of the hypocrisy and misinformation that I normally work so hard to get my clients around. PRweb has a lot of potential. They’ve obviously got a nice reach in the markets they’re targeting. Good for them. Now PRweb, do something good for the rest of us… get yourselves back on track. Be a valuable asset to the PR community, and not some blood-sucking leech trying to milk the webmaster community for all it’s worth. My mind, my clients, and even my shower will thank you.
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Comments
[…] I finally found time, I decided instead to address some of my issues with PRWeb here on this blog (read the post) - I think that may have actually been the first of the now-typical rant posts […]
The “New Rules of PR” was actually written by David Meerman Scott. David authored this on his own. He has no affiliation with PRWeb. He has written a few books to date on online copywriting and is a freelance journalist for CNET I think.
Although I see how the mistake could have been made, it would be inappropriate for me to take credit for his work. Attributing David Meerman Scott’s work to me makes for a more interesting blog post I assume, but it is inaccurate.
For that matter, I don’t think that PRWeb even received as much as a mention in the published book version of the “New Rules of PR”.
I would love to address each of the 5 points you make in your post but simply cannot right now for a couple of reasons. I am no longer employed by PRWeb and I have mounds of other work to get through.
You’re absolutely right and I apologize. I thought it looked odd today (especially since I just critiqued something in Meerman Scott’s book) when I was looking at this old post because of its relation to the latest on the blog (which ironically talks briefly about pointing out errors to bloggers). ;) The correction was noted and made in the post, so thank you. And fortunately it doesn’t really affect the overall nature of the post at all (saying one thing and promoting something completely contradictory to that). As for the points, this post is old, and I do know a few things have changed for the better (which I also noted in the most recent post), such as packages finally being viewable publicly without registration - thank you PRWeb. :)
[…] Another thing with social media in PR is the idea that you should give journalists links to more information to make their lives supposedly easier. There are some major flaws with that concept: For starters, journalists are busy. Your job is to give them all of the information they’ll need, and let them contact you if they need more (hell, the idea is to get yourself contacted and quoted if you do your job right). They shouldn’t be directed all over the Web to sources just because you think they’re valuable, where they’ll have to do even more reading to pull out relevant details. Your attempt to save them time just potentially added hours to their workload - now throw that on top of all of the other “social media press releases” they’re wading through. Again, if you’re too damn lazy to do your job in writing a proper news release, then find other ways of promoting your company rather than becoming a thorn in someone’s side. Another problem is that many people utilizing press releases aren’t working through PR pros (anyone owning a website these days can throw together a crap press release and post it to PRweb or similar sites). Who are they to know what sources are considered credible for journalistic purposes in the first place? Chances are, they don’t have a clue. So in many cases those links are worthless and going to leave the journalist with more work to do if they want to cover the story. Again, sure way to have your release scrapped. Let’s hit on one more (and potentially the biggest) problem with this idea of directing the journalist to various sources. The more research outside of your company and your press release a journalist has to do, the more likely they’ll bump into your competition in the process. And frankly, if they look like they might be a better source of information or that they might make for a better story (especially since your competitor didn’t piss them off by sending them on a wild Web goose chase), the journalist won’t be bothering with you. Score some points for your competition. Yay for social media press releases! […]