Image by Melvin Schlubman We all know how bad the state of media/blogger relations is: Bad pitches abound! But there are some pitches that are worse than others, and as a blogger for the past six years, my in box has become littered with them. Here are three that all too common, and some suggestions to improve them another: 1) The XXX Blogger Already Wrote About It Pitch This one is really annoying. It usually comes from someone you know in a passing manner, or is a cold pitch from a PR person. It goes something like this: “Hey Geoff. I was hoping you would write about xxxx. Joe Schmo (or Mary Doe) already wrote about it here: (INSERT URL). …

This post is co-written by G Squared (Gini Dietrich and Geoff Livingston). Guess what?!? We finally get to talk about our new book! We joked, early on, that it’s not nice to tell prolific bloggers they can’t write about what they’re writing about. It’s been a challenge, that’s for sure. It’s time to let the cat out of the bag with our book now listed on Amazon and Barnes & Noble. Special congratulations again to Gini, who is making her first appearance as a published author. Her post today on Spin Sucks discusses some of the feeling that comes with that. Generally, Gini’s ability to market has been eye opening. She is stellar, and deserves to be one of the …

Image by John Petrick The social media influence bubble finds its basis in measurement of inaccurate barometers. While one can use glittering generalities in defining influence — such as the ability “to cause desirable and measurable actions and outcomes” — in reality, those desirable actions are vapid benchmarks. Specifically, PR 2.0 measurements are participation oriented: retweets, impressions, follower counts, blog rankings, and other public measures of “conversation.” Responsibility for the resulting social media bubble and the increasing demand for impact belongs to the PR industry in its 2.0 incarnation. It’s the same industry that during the 1.0 era relied on similar metrics, such as number of press clippings, impressions (sound familiar?), and the winner of all metrics, ad equivalency. Current …

When I woke up this morning the following pitch was waiting for me in my email… Hi Geoff – I hope all is well. I’m a fan of your writing and share the same area of focus. I started Pinkdingo.com, which we launched in Beta form in March and are now overhauling with a very specific focus that will differentiate us (and our value-add for charities) quite substantially in a pretty crowded field (online fundraising). Also, it looks like we have the same taste in motorcycles (see below)…. Anyway, I’d love to chat with you sometime soon about what we’re up to and planning, and online giving in general, if you’re game to do so. I am particularly interested because …

Rhode Island farmers pitch in to help the Gulf It’s been three days since my last post on the Deep Horizon oil crisis, and what a 72 hours it has been. Let’s take a look at what’s happened in the now very apparent Obama Administration vs. BP spin war: DoJ announces a criminal investigation of the incidents leading up to the oil spill. Attorney General Holder claims that anyone who broke the law will be held accountable. BP announces the hire of Dick Cheney’s former press secretary Anne Womack-Colton. Obama PR machine spins about how mad he is (in a very Spock like manner) and how he is gritting his teeth. Democratic Senators demand that BP surrender its dividends. Wow! …

Episode 33 of the El Showfeatured guest host Rich Becker who filled in for a sick Richard Laermer. We discussed the Deep Horizon oil spill crisis, the collective communications mess that has ensued, and the ethical issues presented. Here’s a breakdown of Episode 33: Introducing Rich Becker and his Fresh Content Initiative Breaking down the oil spill problem into a series of sub-crisis, from the culpability aspect, to fixing the oil spill, the different clean up issues, and the PR behind BP’s role? Rich says that they simply need to fix the oil leak and stop dismissing environmental damage. Is it a question of leadership: BP is running the entire show, and it’s not realistic. We analyze the BP (Haliburton …