Carefully Crafted on August 19

No PR Strategy Leads to Major Launch Fail

Many “how to” posts have been written with advice for startups and tech companies. In the startups space, some even advocate that founders should manage their own PR. Certainly, the founder knows the business inside and out, but that doesn’t mean s/he can translate that into verbiage that will resonate with media, analysts or customers. There’s something to be said for having that outside perspective to find clarity. Additionally, there’s more to PR than just asking media to share your news — a lot more — and some of it is nuanced, sensitive and delicate. It’s relatively easy to secure media coverage around a major product launch. But, that only creates a temporary spike in attention. The real work happens before and after that launch, creating sustained PR momentum that helps the company work toward it’s big picture goals.

Know what happens when startups manage their own PR or don’t take the time to contemplate or plan for potential negative situations? While last week was full of “tech companies behaving childishly‘,” one example was a direct result of a faulty PR launch strategy — or the absence of a real strategy.

Bustle logoHere’s a quick recap: Bryan Goldberg, who also founded BleacherReport.com, announced via blog post on Pando Daily that he’d secured $6.5 million in funding to launch a new media property, Bustle.com, which aims to “put world news and politics alongside beauty tips”  … “takes an introspective look at the celebrity world, while also having a lot of fun covering it” and “offer career advice and book reviews, while also reporting on fashion trends and popular memes.” In his announcement post, he made a number of assertions that people — particularly women — found tone-deaf, and in some cases, flat-out offensive. (Read critique posts here, here and here for a sampling of the backlash, which was so intense, Goldberg issued an apology.)

As the founder, he probably thought he scored a major win — announcing his funding and next venture on a tech blog. Sounds great, right? But, a blog post isn’t a PR strategy. A real PR launch strategy would have included layers of messaging testing and refinement, deployed through a variety of tactics — all of which would have helped Bustle explain its mission and goals, while forging positive connections with its target readers. But, that requires more than penning a few hundred words. In reality, a successful PR launch requires weeks (months in many cases) of work before anything is ever shared publicly. People love to poke fun at the PR industry, but when implemented correctly, it’s a vital part of a company’s success. And, when PR is implemented poorly, or ignored altogether? Just ask Bustle …

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