More Publicity Hounds have responded to the items you’ve read here and here, about the Atlanta TV station’s I-team report on dirty hotel glasses, than any other item in recently memory.
An observation:
I half-expected the PR departments at Embassy Suites, Sheraton Suites and the Holiday Inn in Atlanta to email me and explain improvements they’ve made to their housekeeping as a result of the I-team video. After all, don’t savvy Publicity Hounds create Google Alerts so they know what people like me are saying about them online, and then follow up with journalists and bloggers to tell their side of the story? Don’t they try to do damage control? So far, I haven’t heard from anybody representing those hotels. Amazing.
A warning:
All you hotel PR people, don’t be surprised if your hotel is the target of an I-team investigation like the one in Atlanta. When a story like that one uncovers wrongdoing, you can bet that one or more other stations will do an identical I-team story.
Creating Google alerts, and responding to bad news stories, are integral to your 2008 media plan. I discussed both of those topics and hundreds of others during my teleseminar series “How to Create a Media Plan.”