Sales, Social and Tech

Those working in traditional media and was invited to attend IFA by Samsung were in for a rude shock at IFA when Samsung staff barred them from entering the Samsung SMART lounge. Only bloggers and digital celebrities were allowed into the lounge. Wrote Christian Post, "The Samsung SMART Lounge is an exclusive lounge for bloggers and digital celebrities. All bloggers have to do is register at the entrance. Complimentary coffee, free Wi-Fi, comfortable seats and neat tables with power will be provided. You can connect with the many bloggers in town from around the world, refuel yourself and blog away while charging your devices." Read more at http://global.christianpost.com/news/ifa-2012-berlin-live-watch-online-live-stream-of-samsung-galaxy-note-2-unveiling-80788/#YCFWQu3ySprQpmwG.99 Samsung's treatment of traditional media as second class citizens to an event like this would not go down well in the near future. One journalist was overhead saying "it'...

If you, dear PR, think sending journalists a write-up from Wikipedia is so social, do think twice as doing so will only harm the journalist instead of aiding in the story. A IT journalist recently received a description of a product, but before he even decided to put it as a story his spider sense alerted him to Google the description, only to find it was a similar copy from Wikipedia. Wrote this IT journalist, "Say for example, I requested for information from PR. PR sends to me a reply, and I use it by paraphrasing it in my story, and the story gets printed. The next thing I know, the reply was actually taken from Wiki, and it gets noticed by readers and I get accused of plagiarism, because I used a PR's reply to my question as the basis for a portion of my story, which as it turns out, was bloody lifted from Wiki." Wikified?

(PS: A journalist shared a tip on the 5Ws and 1H to pitch and referred to WHEN. The worst time to call a journalist is when it is on the offstone day or week and at end of work day.  "That's like calling a restaurant at peak hour on a weekend and asking for a table," said this journalist. Knowing WHEN the best time to pitch would make your "anyhow" pitch sound good.) Trying to pitch a dead story to a journalist is one thing. Trying the patience of a journalist with a meaningless pitch of a story so as to enter "media relations - 5 mins spent" on the timesheet is not media relations. And it could end up with your agency being the laughing Facebook status update of the day, even if it was done in coded shorthand. A journalist was overheard by another complaining about a PR executive pitching a non-story and who sounded like he/she was unprepared to make the pitch. This resulted in jokes on a popular social network to about the agency should be re...