10 things they hate about us

I recently finished a project where I read and categorized all 560 tweets from journalists about PR pitches over the past three years.

COVID, cryptocurrency and cannabis – those were the most-criticized pitch topics in the study (you’ll be surprised where pumpkin spice ranked). They begged us to make it stop, and in many cases I don’t blame them.

But at the same time, I’m a little bugged.

Because I don’t like operating based on negativity. Too many PR pros will take a one-off journalist tweet and overreact by halting their outreach or eliminating a strategy that actually works. Too many of us are “running scared,” more worried about generating a Twitter rant than driving our media relations results forward.

Once I was able to get quantitative results, I could look past the emotional language of some of the viral tweets and identify the real trends that emerged from this rich trove of feedback.

And of course I’m gonna share them with you, because that’s what I do around here. 🙂

I partnered with the stellar publishing crew at Muck Rack to put the data and recommendations into a visual ebook. And I turned those findings into actionable pitching tips that I’m presenting via a webinar next week.

You can grab the ebook and register for the webinar here.