Do Your Research!

As I was looking through tweets and blog posts trying to find something to write about this week, I came across a blog called The PR Practitioner. I am always surprised at how many different people of different occupations have blogs. When do they have time to update them during the busy work day?! Well back to this blog that I came across...His most recent post is titled "PR Students: Research before reaching out." The title grabbed my attention and I decided to further look into it. His post talks about the importance of researching before you contact people. He said that he is seeing a trend in PR students that do not research before reaching out. He gave an example of a college student that e-mailed him questions that he could easily have answered himself if he had looked around the blog. At PR Real World I went to the Media Relations seminar and the panel also talked about the importance of researching. In PR, it can make both your job and the reporters job easier if you put a little effort into researching who exactly would be the best person for you to contact with a story idea, news release, or product pitch. Just because they have a username or website that is similar to what you are looking for, does not mean that they are an expert in the field! So take a little time to do some research before reaching out!