PR Is Everywhere: How Good Information Finds Its Way Online

Patrick Schmidt to Robin
Customer Service Account Manager
Adify.com

Jun 8 (13 hours ago)

Hi Robin,

Wow! Thanks for the fantastic article Robin! I sent the link around the office and everyone was ecstatic! We are really glad to hear that you believe in our product!

But I am dying to know: How did you find out about us?

Photo credit: Sean Nell

Wouldn't anyone CEO of a new start-up want to be in the same position as Patrick?

But Adify's CEO hasn't contacted me, he hasn't launched officially his site yet, hasn't done a press release announcing the availability of his brand new ad management service. Notwithstanding I, somewhere, somehow, have found out about his new interesting online service and noticing that no-one was yet covering and reporting about the specifics of it I jumped on it like a kid into her mom arms.

But really, how did I found out?

Truth is that coincidence, fortuitousness, someone's else email accident mixed in with my innate unrelenting curiosity made me step on something I wasn't supposed to see just yet.

Photo credit: Marc Dietrich

Yesterday - 10:00am

Jennifer Gazin
to robin.good
Jun 7 (1 day ago)

Dear Robin,

You may have just seen an email from me in your inbox with the subject line "Newspapers and Technology."

I accidentally sent this your way and I hope this has not caused you any inconvenience. This email was by no means intended for public view and through my confusion, was accidentally sent to you. I just pressed the wrong button at the wrong time, and I'm very, very sorry.

Please accept my sincerest apology for taking up your time.

Thank you,
Jennifer

Jennifer Gazin | LaunchSquad | 415.625.8xxx | www.launchsquad.com

Photo credit: Jennifer Gazin of Launchsquad

Fact is that in that email, I had indeed received the day before there was no secret URL, no mention of Adify, and nothing else to stimulate the avid appetite of a new media reporter like me... or almost so.

Since the email Jennifer had sent out was part of an internal discussion and it didn't contain any reference or citation of the previous exchanges I could gather very little of the overall topic covered. but was struck immediately by the fact that the email mentioned in its text my name (Robin).

"...were closely entwined and that blogs and RSS in the publishing sector are inseparable, but he declined. I also believe that Robin mentioned the partnership during this call (I have to verify the date of the briefing to see if that was possible)..."

Not knowing that I had gotten that email not by choice but by an accidental error on the sender part, I was still trying to make sense of what Jennifer and this extended group were trying to comunicate to me. So I wanted to dig and understand better, whether it was really me that I was being talked about and why.

I recalled related contacts and other instances of communicating with Jennifer in recent times, but the more I thought of it, the less I could make sense of what she was trying to supposedly say about me.

Suddenly, I gave up. I decided to switch my lateral thinking brain booster, and took of to a side road. I scrolled to the end of the email and let my eyes run through the information until they bumped into the name of a company that, I must honestly say, has found a pretty effective name for what they do: Launchsquad. (Though Jennifer was in my short memory bank, for having contacted me previously to introduce me to new products, I really had not memorized at all for what company she was working for.)

Right. I thought. "That must be Jennifer's company"...

I clicked on the link. Then landed on a visually captivating home page. This one:

Once there I started to search find more useful hints and info. On the right column of the home page I immediately noticed a couple of news boxes and went and clicked on the first one that I thought could provide a little more insight into Launchsquad work.

I found a press release dating back a couple of months in which Launchsquad was announcing the names of the latest three companies it had added to its list of official customers.

Here it is:

I am always interested in studying new market directions, new tools and services providing significant advantages for those that want to be online publishers and authors of some kind, and so my eyes fell right away on the short list of the three new companies that Launchsquad was announcing.

The name Adify was not even a link, but I decided to go out and explore the site and service without even knowing if a web site was already accessible.

The rest is all written in yesterday review of Adify.

Morale of the story:

a) Good reporters are always on the lookout. Online publishers: Unless you too have this craving for searching and going beyond the obvious you may have tough competition to beat on the Internet.

b) Curiosity is a powerful asset, using it in a channeled, restrained way, but do use it.

c) The name of a company can make all of the difference in the world.
Not so anymore for the availability of a link next to it. (people will just Google or .comify that name and go at it without hesitation)

d) A press release can also make all the difference in the world.... if I can find it.

e) An email signature is a fundamental component of any effective online marketing, PR and communication campaign.

f) Prompt kind apologies after having made an error are always effective. Acknowledging errors is not only a sign of intelligence and true willingness to improve but is also a message saying, "whatever wrong thing I did, I care that you do not think I (or my company) am a sloppy person.

And, however irrational that may appear to you, if today a friend met me on the street and asked me if I knew any PR company out there to launch his new start-up I would have only one name on top of my memory: guess which.