N.B. I write. But I am not a journalist. I have some influence. But I am not an Influencer.
By: Darren Woolley
Tags: Press Release, Influencers, Public Relations, Journalism

N.B. I write. But I am not a journalist. I have some influence. But I am not an Influencer. Darren Woolley Jul 15·4 min read

I recognise I am in a privileged and yet often frustrating situation. I have built a reputation — good, bad, but never indifferent — in the marketing, media and advertising category. Many interesting and influential people will contact me to discuss ideas, plans and ask for my advice or opinion.

It is interesting when an email or a phone call or any number of social media platform messages come from people I do not know offering thoughts and opportunities I had not considered.

Some of my colleagues ask me why I always respond to each of these messages? The reason is that if the person has taken the effort to contact me personally (i.e. the message is addressed to me and my name is spelt correctly) then they must have seen in it some opportunity for themselves. Then why shouldn’t I take a minute to see if there is some opportunity in it for me?

It could be to learn about a new thing? Or learn more on something I already knew? Or obtain a different perspective? Or something of value either financially, emotionally, intellectually or otherwise.

But increasingly I am getting messages like this:

The email that started the conversation

The subject line was: Hairydog Makes 3 New Major Agency Appointments Ahead of Celebrity Ambassador Search.

The email read: Hairydog, an independent Australian-owned and operated alcohol delivery company, have recently made three new major agency appointments ahead of their celebrity ambassador search.

Project PR & Media, Milkman Agency and Brindle Marketing have all been appointed major roles with Hairydog including PR strategy and celebrity ambassador engagement, creative campaign management and media buying (respectively).

See attached media release with additional information.

Thanks,

I thought that is vaguely interesting. A tidbit of information. But what was it all about? Even the press release attached offered no more other than details.

The press release sent to me

As there was no call to action or a request for a response of any type I filed it in the trash. Only to then receive another follow-up email two days later and have the following exchange:

The subsequent email exchange

The follow-up email read:

Hi Darren,

Hope you have been having a great week!

Just following up the below email — let me know if you’re interested?

Thanks,

I was confused as to what would be my interest in this tidbit of industry news and wrote:

Yes, I got it

Is there something you wanted me to do?

Darren

The response was immediate and said:

We were hoping a write-up on the Mumbrella website detailing the appointments and the info in the media release!

Let me know

Thanks,

For those who know, I have been writing a column for Mumbrella so the past four months under the title “Woolley Marketing”. But then I have been writing opinion pieces in marketing, business and advertising for almost two decades. In fact, I found out I have my own MuckRack profile. But this does not qualify me as a hard-working professional journalist. I am simply an opinion writer, who hopefully writes opinions people are interested in reading.

Likewise, while I may have some influence in the marketing industry, I am not a paid influencer and it is not ‘influence’ for hire.

By the way, I forwarded the email from the PR company to the very hard-working and professional, Olivia Kruimel, Managing Editor at Mumbrella, explaining:

I am simply a Mumbrella columnist, not a reporter. It is not my role to write up or report on your press releases. Trinity P3 is a marketing management consulting firm. But I have copied the Managing Editor of Mumbrella, Olivia Kruimel here, as she may be able to help.

Cheers. Darren

Olivia wrote back:

Thanks, Darren.

You are far kinder than I am. I would have told them to do her job properly…

Cheers, Olivia

The world of the journalist and the PR Hack? It is not for me.