Bloggasm

When I lived in Richmond, Virginia and, right out of college, paid my dues as a staff reporter for a small string of weekly newspapers all jointly owned by the same media company, I received a phone call one day from an acquaintance of mine who worked at a Richmond PR firm called Madison and Main. I knew the person because I had written a piece about one of his clients, and as in most cases, the rep felt obligated to hold my hand through the entire interview process, an annoying tendency within the PR industry when it comes to working with journalists. At some point during our conversations I mentioned to him that I enjoyed blogging, and it was this topic to which I owed the pleasure of his call.

Madison Main Rep: How do you write a blog?

Me: What?

Madison Main Rep: Hold on, I’m going to email you a link.

I clicked on the link and it brought me to a post from a local political blog that was bashing one of the PR rep’s clients.

Madison Main Rep: So how do I write a blog on here?

It finally dawned on me what the guy was asking. He thought that the blogging medium worked so that anyone could post a blog post on any blog, and he was asking how he could post something countering what had been said about his political client. I explained to him that this was impossible because he didn’t have administrative access. He thanked me and hung up.

Later that week I was sitting with the guy with a group of other people at a bar and I brought up the blog incident. He said he took care of it, and the version of taking care of it that he described to me was that he basically astroturfed the comments section of the blog, not disclosing that he was working for a client.

The reason I’m retelling this story is because I have an exciting opportunity for you. I at some point got placed on Madison Main’s email list and occasionally get spammed by their promotions, and today I found out that you too can learn to write a blog for $249!

I usually don’t call out PR companies directly for their bullshit, but when I read this email and thought back to that ridiculous incident about two years ago, I couldn’t help myself. Every day I get incredibly badly targeted and poorly written pitches from “social media” arms of PR agencies, and from working in the industry for a little while I know exactly the obscene amount of money their poor, naive clients are getting charged for what amounts to little more than spam.

My suggestion is choose a new media consultant/PR firm like you choose a doctor or a mechanic. Obviously you don’t know the technical jargon, so you don’t know if they’re bullshitting you, but ask your friends and colleagues or other consultants in the field. We know plenty of reputable experts.