Piaras Kelly PR - Public Relations in Ireland

Interesting discussion with another Irish blogger about receiving mail from PR agencies. He has received relevant press releases due to his line of work from an agency in the past, but recently received a completely random release and he’s annoyed about it.

I’d say that the email was sent in error, but it does highlight the fact that PR agencies have email databases that don’t get updated often. While this might not seem like much of a problem now, as companies start to move into blogging territory things might start to turn a little nasty.

For example, as new business blogs are launched, it isn’t a stretch of the imagination that a number of Irish bloggers will receive an email saying, “Hi, just launched a new blog, please read it and blog about it.” I receive emails like these every now and again as it is, and it’s slightly annoying as if the website is any use I’ll naturally stumble across it. Those emails are not frequent, but if companies suddenly take to blogging, then a PR practitioner’s automatic response will be to announce it. That’s when the fun starts.

The really scary thing is that a company(s) are probably busy harvesting our email addresses as we speak. In light of recent online complaints about calls from telecoms, maybe someone with a better knowledge of the Data Protection Act could post a little guide? Chances are Digital Rights Ireland have something like this already.

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