YouBundle

Bootstrapping the PR

August seems to be the month of PR bashing in the Blogsphere with every blogger and their uncle talking about why they like or don’t like the traditional PR model and how it is slowly being replaced by a more direct and social way of getting the news out.

Quite pertinently one of our power bundlers has made a few comprehensive bundles on the current state of the PR industry - particularly spinning it to Bootstrapping PR with Social Media.   (need to have invite to view)

This is particaully good timing for YouBundle as our  initial public release will be coming sometime within the next moon and as we are very bootstrapped - we don’t have much of a budget for much aside from rice and electricity.

Meaning that we are going to have to go into the open waters without the comfort and support of a traditional PR firm.    Though I do have a sneaking suspicion that all the blah blah from the A-list bloggers about not liking PR firms can be translated as “We don’t like PR firms that pitch us like we are Old media”

Meaning that there are probably a few PR firms out there that know how to run the bloggers and get the right story written.  (see Powerset pump and dump by SHIFT as a case example)

That being aside we move forward without a PR firm and will probably be ok for the following reasons

• Through Social Media, we can access most of the Tech bloggers Directly.   They are either going to write about our release or not - but we do have the tools to get the information in front of their critical eyes
• As I am able to currently handle the daily volume of request personally, I would much rather speak with the journalists directly that a PR firm that does not have intimate knowledge of our product.

However one of the main issues resides with Old Media and mainstream adoption.   Meaning that as we are a New Media company, we are going to get coverage from the blogsphere and all the early adopter tech geeks are going to hear about us one way or another.   However while this is a valuable and core audience, our make or break will not be on the Tech-fan, but rather on the average internet user.

To reach this crowd, posts across the blogsphere are not going to be a direct help  (though indirect for many reasons including the spill over effect - meaning that Old media journalists are many times New media readers )

What we want is not only to be on the top of blogs, but main stream news coverage.  We want an article from CNN, BBC and Yahoo News.    We want to be written about in the weekly tech briefs of the local newspaper.   this is where the magic lies.   And to accomplish this while possible through the social media method would be a whole lot easier if we had a PR firm that could pick up the phone and call the Tech Beat reporter from the BBC and tell them all about our new product.

So while all and all it is great 60’s love theory to say that PR can be bootstrapped, it is also a big shot of Kool-aid when you look at the masterful PR firms and what they can accomplish - especially when we are aiming for the moon.

That all being said-  we are going to make best with what we have and see what happens.   We will approach tha A, B and C list bloggers and attempt to gain a critical mass through sheer volume of coverage with the hopes that this will in turn cause us to spill over and get picked up by tradtional media outlets.