What Not To Do As A Public Relations Representative

I’ve been unsure about writing this post for awhile – going in between “ah, just let it go” to “maybe someone will learn something from this”, so, as you can see.. I’m going for the “Maybe someone will learn something from this” approach.

One of the most important things for any brand in the world is good public relations. According to Wikipedia Public Relations is:

…the management of internal and external communication of an organization to create and maintain a positive image. Public relations involves popularizing successes, downplaying failures, announcing changes, and many other activities.

Any comapny big or small should realize the importance of public relations, and thus, those who make up the public relations department should always be well versed on what they are talking about and most importantly be plesant to deal with – even if its a touchy subject, at the least they should be polite.

While writing this blog I’ve come into contact with a number of public relations representatives from a number of different companies – development firms, hotel companies, and just other comapnies I have mentioned throughout the blog. Some have complimented my work, and thanked me for writing positively about who they represent, others have written to offer clarification on an issue, and some have pointed out some blatent mistakes on my part. As has always been my policy, if anyone – a pr representative or a normal reader of my blog writes to me about a factual error, I have absoultely no issue with correcting the error, making note that its been corrected at the top of the post and the moving on. The last thing I want is to be discredited because of incorrect information, and then be stubborn enough to not acknowledge my mistake.

A few weeks back I was contacted by a member of the PR team of one of the major hotel firms (its one of the following: IHG, Marriott, Hilton, Wyndham, Hyatt, I wont say which one because I really really dislike being negative in this blog) and I was instantly taken back by what they said.

The email subject started out with the word “Wrong” – instant negative word, and a horrible way to start off an email, because the reader will instantly be on the defensive. Then the subject of the email proceeded to tell me about a fact I stated in one of my blog posts was incorrect, and pointed me to a website where I would see my mistake. The problem? My blog post wasnt wrong, and the website they pointed me to for the correct information said the exact same thing I said in the blog post!

I was livid that a member of this worldwide hotel firm would correct me on something when if they actually read my post, they would realize it was correct. Not only that, but the tonality they used was absolutely rude. I dont know if its due to the fact that I’m a lowly blog poster who they feel they dont need to respect, vs the New York Times, or if the company made a mistake hiring this person.

I was going to write a nasty email back, but then i said, nope, let me kill them with kindness.

So responded back with:

“Hey [redacted]! Thanks so much for the email! Can you tell me how I am wrong, since the link you emailed me says the same as my blog post!”

Within two minutes I recieved a response:

“I thought you construed [redacted] wrong. Mistake”

Wow. Talk about short, and rude. I’m probably making a big deal about nothing – but I hope that at least someone out who reads this takes this into consideration the next time they send an email out. Never begin an email subject line in a negative tone, make sure that you are correct before you accuse someone of something, and last, but defintely not least. A PR team is supposed to put out fires and/or prevent them – not create them, and leave a bad taste in someones mouth like this one did..

andrew@alconic-inc.com

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Category: Hotels, marketing, me, this blog