To the PR Agencies, From Your Dear Blogger

By Rohan Naravane | Updated: 9 June 2015 13:48 IST

I've been writing about technology since 2007. In these years of being a tech blogger, I've had regular interactions with PR companies, who are a communication and coordination layer between companies and the press.

Among the many things they do, such as building relationships with the media and guiding communications, they're also responsible for organising press conferences. These events are opportunities for the media to check out products the company has been working on and to interact with the people behind the product and share our feedback.

While it may sound like attending conferences is a very exciting experience, there are many recurring annoyances that have spoiled the experience for me. It certainly must not be easy for PR companies to pull off these events, but I speak not just for myself but for many people within our close-knit community, who end up cringing at the following wrongdoings. I'm not the first person who's said this, and in all probability I won't be the last. I'm not telling PR companies how to do their job; I'm just putting this out there with hopes that they get to know how we feel.

Don't Send Only Banners for Press Conference Invites
Tech conferences tend to happen at different locations in many cities. It is pointless for PR companies to send flashy invite graphics over email and not have the when, where, and whom to contact, in plain text. This is crazy because you can't copy-paste the address into Google Maps, or the phone number into a dialler, requiring you to make use of that temporary cache in your brain, as you juggle and struggle between apps.

Another reason to have plain text - many modern email clients use natural language processing to read those details, and let you create a one-click calendar entry.

Please Start Events on Time
It is becoming common knowledge that tech press-conferences in India start half-an-hour to an hour after the time they are scheduled for, because PR companies wait for a reasonable number of seats to be occupied. There's no point now in trying to know if the media is to be blamed for arriving fashionably late to an event, or if it because PR companies automatically assume that people will not be punctual, and thus start later than the committed time. Whatever the case, it is certainly not fair for the people who do take the effort to make it by the said time.

I hope PR companies can break this vicious circle, by starting the events at the time they said it would.

No Need for Flashy Entertainment
I've had the opportunity to witness a variety of dance performances thanks to press conferences. And every time it happens, that same cringy, face-palmy feeling follows. You call the media so we will know more about your product, and anything other than that only ends up being something unnecessary, and I am left waiting for it to end. I recall a product launch I was at recently where, thanks to it not starting on time and the presence of some famous personalities, the product manager was asked to rush through his boring presentation, to make sure the time of those "personalities" is respected.

Please save your money and the trouble that you go through to arrange for this unwanted entertainment. Most of us would appreciate spending that time hearing what you have to say about your product instead.

Don't Attach Photos on Email, Send Cloud Links Instead
PR companies diligently send press releases over email after the launch of a product. They include press shots of the product, the images of which are typically in high resolution. They end up being an unnecessary filler of our inbox capacity. For example, 40 percent of inbox capacity on my official email account is already full, and there's a very good chance this is mainly due to the sheer amount of press releases I receive. And I doubt if I've needed to use more than 5 percent of any of those images.

Sending a link to a cloud storage service that has all the high resolution photos will eliminate this unnecessary duplication and wastage of bandwidth and cloud storage.

We Hate Calls
This is last but certainly the most irritating issue. After launching a product and sending across a press release, from time to time I've received phone calls asking if I "received an email about the new product we've released", nudging if my publication will carry the news.

If we feel the press release you've sent us is interesting to our audience, we'd publish it anyway. Send a follow-up email if you like. But this kind of calling is downright disturbing and is only going to leave us with a bad taste in the mouth.

Guest article written by Rohan Naravane, Head of Content and Product Experience at PriceBaba.com.

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