Posted on April 22, 2008
The RSS Feed as the Ultimate PR Pitch Tool
BY JAMES CLARK
Marshall Kirkpatrick of RWW posted Five Wrong Ways to Pitch RWW and One Great Way . The list of don'ts:
- Email the wrong email address
- Phone calls
- Twitter, espcially DM
- IM
Now that you know, don't do it. But let me call attention to the one DO:
- RSS Feeds
"PR people, please send us the RSS feeds of your clients' blogs and news releases"
Oh baby, how we love it when our ideas and concepts get affirmation like this, especially from someone like Marshall. I'm not going to go into the past two years of actively prophesying this approach, but instead focus on:
- What a great RSS feed management program looks like and....
- Why corporate communications teams and public relations agencies need to invest in a robust RSS system.
Many communications and PR professionals struggle to understand RSS feeds. Most media rooms are absent of RSS feeds, and other tools that offer online media rooms are lacking any RSS managementso the media room itself gets one RSS feed.
We've worked with a few PR firms on an active client strategy for RSS feeds. So the what this looks like is easy:
What you see on Catapult PR/IR Client RSS Feed Page are a list of client RSS feeds the agency actively and independently manages on behalf of the client. So the agency avoids the technology void of working with its clients web team to get an RSS feed on the company's news room, and more importantly trying to get someone to actively update the feed.
Why a Robust RSS Platform?
Because PR needs to move at the speed of conversational requirements.
Think about what RWW is asking for. A direct line of communication to all content updates from your client. They want to track it, see what activity is coming out of the organization, and probably, from my perspective to see if you have any new media communications competency at all.
The sign at the door reads: No Shirts, No Shoes, No RSS Feed, No Coverage.
Now, if PR and communications are reading this there is a rush for an RSS feed on the media room. But that just won't do. How about a RSS feed dedicated just for RWW, giving you the ability to directly update and communicate with the RWW team about your products, updates and other pertinent announcements.
Any good PR person knows that mass outreach tactics (press releases, form emails) don't work. You better know what the journalist is writing, blogging or podcasting about and be able to tie your story into the trends and readerships they are addressing. So a single RSS feed that is giving mass updates is a step in the right directlon, but take it one step further.
Set up a RWW RSS feed, create a custom video to embed in the feed and have your spokesperson send a personal message with what they are trying to achieve with RWW coverage.
Of course to set up that RSS feed, you'll need to be able to set up and manage your own RSS feeds: Post Zinger
