New Media is all about conversation. Spam NEVER talks back.

I recommend Stowe Boyd’s post on PR Spam. In the Philippine context, what he’s saying is that PR practitioners should engage bloggers and journalists through social tools like Twitter or Facebook, and not through the email inbox. That way, it looks more like an invitation to join in on the conversation, with our time well spent in listening to a pitch. Stowe wants PR practitioners to stop spamming inboxes:

So, this is an additional argument for MicroPR: forcing PR firms to approach us in the open, on open social flow apps like Twitter, and in the small, where they have to jettison all the claptrap of the old press release model. In the open, that can’t lie easily, or they will be caught on it. In the small, they have to junk the meaningless superlatives, the bogus quotes that no CEO ever mouthed, the run-on phrases, the disembodied third party mumbo jumbo, as if the press release were edited by God.

In this light, he’s encouraging bloggers and journalists who have an online presence to have some sort of page that lists details on “how you can pitch to me”.

The case may be true as well here as giving out your business card equates to a no holds barred directory spam of products and services we might not be interested in. If I unlinked my @b5media email address to the addy I forward my mail to, I can guarantee a huge decrease in spam pitches.

Before Twitter, being part of the whole publisher-PR-advertiser-product manager chain of conversation would entail using a service like ProfNet, a PR Newswire service I’ve had immense success with for suppliers and pitches. Out of the seven good opportunities I receive, I always get about four or five bogus spam in my inbox. Ignored the spam. Took the conversation of the legit ones to my inbox.

My inbox is reserved for personal mail and to business contacts with whom I’ve established a strong rapport through the many months of dealing with them. It isn’t elitist in any way. It’s just the practical way of doing things. So yeah it really isn’t about just Twitter, or Facebook or Profnet … or even my Inbox. These are just tools that help initiate real conversation.

New Media is all about conversation. Spam never talks back.