The big magazine you’ve pitched says it wants to print the op-ed column you’ve submitted. But the editor says the head shot you’ve sent her isn’t good enough. She’s asked you to send a version that’s “300 dpi, 4-by-6” and she needs it NOW.
Do you dare reply to the editor, telling her you’re not sure what dpi stands for and that you don’t have what she needs? It panic time!
That’s just one of a long list of techie issues that can ruin an otherwise sterling PR campaign.
Technology—even the simple stuff—stumps me all the time!
When I finally got a second monitor last year, I ended up running all over town for the correct cables needed to hook it up because I tried to take instructions, over the phone, from someone who knows what he’s doing. Finally, I gave up in frustration and asked a local geek to do it for me.
Here are eight common tech problems you can encounter during a PR campaign that can turn into disasters if you try to solve them yourself.
1. A press release you’ve emailed is garbled.
You email a press release, in the body of the email, to a journalist. She hits “Reply” and writes a snotty message pointing out that the body of your email looks like hieroglyphics. She’s right. It’s got all these funky characters you’ve never seen before. But it looked perfect when you sent it and you even proofread it three times!
How to fix it: If you wrote the press release in Word, saved it to your clipboard and pasted it into Outlook, that’s probably the culprit. NEVER cut and paste text from a Word document, another email message or any Microsoft program, into email. And NEVER email anything to a journalist until you’ve emailed it to yourself first to see how it looks on your monitor. You can “sanitize” the copy and remove all the funky coding by pasting it into Notepad, and then pasting it into Outlook. Or, use Text Clean-up, a nifty program that cleans up text, removes coding and makes it presentable.
2. Your Facebook page has disappeared.
You log into your Facebook account and find that your page is gone, along with the several thousand “Likes” you’ve accumulated. That’s what happened to me, and it took weeks before I finally tracked down somebody who was able to find it.
How to fix it: You have five options.
3. You need to transfer everything from your old computer to the new computer you just bought.
Ever try to reload all the software programs onto the new computer yourself and tinker with the settings until everything is perfect and new computer works just like the old one did, only a lot faster? I made this mistake last year and it cost me three weeks of wasted time.
The fix: Hire a techie to do it for you. Or take it to the local computer store along with all your software, and let the experts hassle with it.
4. You don’t know how to edit photos.
You’ve written a guest blog post for a popular blogger and you have a beautiful photo to accompany it. But you need to remove one minor imperfection in the photo and you don’t know how to do it.
The fix: Go over to Fiverr.com where you can find a techie to edit it for you, for only $5. This site lets people post projects they’re willing to do for $5. So look around, and see what’s available.
5. No online press room or media room.
A journalist you’ve pitched asks for the link to your online pressroom (or media room) so she can use your logo and other photos to accompany a feature story she’s writing. But you don’t have an online pressroom.
The fix: Hire a geek to build one for you. My Special Report #22: How to Build an Online Media Room explains what it should include.
6. Your WordPress blog is messed up.
The right panel on your WordPress blog, where your bio and photo usually can be found, is suddenly on the left side of your blog.
The fix:
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