Bad PR mistakes, according to a longtime business journalist

Donna Fenn, who has been a business journalist for more than 20 years, writes on BNET about the worst public relations mistakes she has encountered.

Here are a couple:

Pitching off-topic. Say I put the word out on HARO (Help a Reporter Out, which we all love), or on Facebook or Twitter that I’m searching for small manufacturing companies in the southeast. Your public relations persons thinks “what the heck, I’ll give it shot, even though my client runs a bakery in San Francisco.”  That’s a waste of time for everyone. If you’re tempted, just tell yourself this: God kills a kitten every time you pitch off-topic.

Extreme persistence. Re-sending the same email multiple times within a few days will get you categorized as junk mail poste haste.  If we’re interested, we’ll get back to you. Promise. Some journalists don’t mind follow-up phone calls (although I don’t know any of them and I’m definitely not one of them), but please don’t call an hour after you send a pitch. And don’t ever call a newspaper journalist close to deadline time.

Read more here.