Mandy Collins & Associates

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Why it’s a good idea to let the dogs do the barking

If you’ve hired a PR consultant and you’re not getting the coverage you want, have you considered that you might be the problem?

I write content for a variety of PR practitioners, and I see it over and over again – a really good release ruined by the client’s input. Because clients don’t understand the media, or what constitutes news, or what’s realistic to expect when effectively, you’re asking journalists to give you free advertising.

This is presumably why they hired the PR consultant in the first place – because that is their area of expertise. It’s the old “hiring a dog and telling it how to bark” problem.

Even more importantly, you might be missing the boat because your internal approvals process isn’t agile enough. News is about speed, about beating the competition, about getting the word out first. Today’s newspapers line tomorrow’s budgie cage, and news broadcasts quickly get overtaken by the Next Big Thing. You have to respond immediately – or you’ll miss hitching a ride on that hot news topic, which will be only a vague memory by tomorrow.

So if you’re not getting any traction with your content, apart from publishing it on those platforms that will take anything, really, maybe it’s time to step back. Maybe it’s time to trust that consultant you hired – the one you chose because they have a good track record.

And maybe – just maybe – you should let them do what you’re paying them to do, and stop overriding their advice.

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