PR man, our relationship isn’t working..

I get quite a lot of requests from PR people these days.

I can’t really work out why.

If anything I post less frequently and the quality might have taken a slight dip *cough* due to lack of talent but perhaps I’m on some sort of ‘hit ’em up’ list and there are at least two or three in my inbox each morning with a request for something or other.

The clever ones address me by my psuedonym, Mothership, and say something specific about my blog to show they’ve actually read it, and then put in a polite request to see if I am interested in something like a paid post or commercial link.  I always respond to these quickly and politely. I don’t often accept them. In fact I never have to date as there hasn’t been anything I’ve been particularly interested in but I live in hope that Native Instruments will ask me to test out some music software (not v. likely on a parent blog, but you never know?)

The not-so-clever ones clearly send out the same email to everyone on their giant list which is not what I would do, but perhaps this blanket approach works for them, I don’t know. However, I do know that bloggers are a community, built on people, trust and relationships so I would have thought they’d be more successful with a bit more care.

I have been known to be rather sharp-tongued with fools. It’s true I do not suffer them gladly.

However, one cannot accuse me of rudely not writing back.

Here is a gem I received this morning, plus my reply. I just had to share:

Hi,

I’m emailing from the PR agency for ChitChat Bingo about some research that they have recently done in to small talk. I have a release here with some interesting statistics, for example the research revealed that Mums are considered the best in the family at telling stories. The release also has some information on why we engage in small talk, who we do it with, where we do it etc. Is this something that you think you would like to hear more about? If so I could send you through the release.
I look forward to hearing your thoughts.

Thanks,
James

Dear James,

Thank you for reaching out. I appreciate this is part of your job.

However, this research sounds not only mind-numbingly boring to me, but also highly dubious in its scientific premise. I find it difficult to believe that the questions or results have not been manipulated (as it is so easy to do) to show that ‘small talk’ is in some way important and linked to our innate parenting ability – that would be the attempt to flatter me and my readers with the ‘revelation’ that Mums are considered the best in the family at telling stories.

What discredits it further is that the ‘research’ has been nobly funded by a company who has a vested interested in getting people to spend time and money indulging in ‘small talk’ online in order to fuel what I suspect are huge profits.

So, I’m going to have to say no. Not interested.

Regards,
Mothership

P.S. I respond very politely to most P.R. queries. This one just offended me.