How to suck less at HARO

(While sucking less at life)

Are you an entrepreneur looking to get a little air play for your product or service? Do you work in PR and want to get your clients press?

If so, the below is a playbook on how to accomplish just this (at least from me).

How to suck less at HARO (and be better at life)

I write for Tech Cocktail. Our mission is to help entrepreneurs. I regularly put together articles attempting to meet this mission.

From time to time, I will use HARO (Help A Reporter Out) to seek entrepreneurs’ insights on various topics (e.g. technology trends, startups to watch, etc.). Essentially HARO serves as a marketplace between the press and the thought leaders / resources that help them create interesting / valuable media. It’s a terrific service, however, I’ve learned that the majority of participating entrepreneurs and PR agencies have little-to-no understanding of human psychology. Please allow me to explain.

Below is a sample query I have delivered through the aforementioned service:

“Are you a thought leader in the startup and/or technology landscape?

I’m putting together a piece curating the top trends from the past year. All accepted submissions will be used as a direct quote and will receive a link back to their company page. This is a great opportunity to showcase your expertise, not your product or service. Any pitches simply trying to promote your company will be disregarded.”

The above excerpt provides:

1. Explicitly stated, an opportunity to demonstrate your thought leadership to a large audience (and some link love to boot)
2. What to include
3. (More importantly) What not to include

Without fail, 90% of the submitted pitches are reformatted press releases.

I assure you, any website that runs such “insight” is not generating any traffic. It’s not building your brand. Your copy + pasted efforts are getting lost in the www dot ether.

You’re wasting your time. You’re wasting my time.

Even worse- you’re displaying borderline sociopathic behavior that is likely having a negative impact on you business (and life).

If Person X came to you asking for your advice (of any kind), and your response was “THIS IS MY MOBILE GAMING APP. NOW AVAILABLE FOR ANDROID. DOWNLOAD AND REVIEW,” that’s the last time Person X will ever seek your wisdom.

I’m guessing this seems fairly straight forward.

Now replace “Person X” with “the media”, because after all, we are people, just like you.