The shocking publicity tip you should ignore – plus a smarter strategy!

Bad advice is plentiful, both online and in person. Here's one surprising publicity tip you should ignore and what you want to do instead.

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I’ve heard all kinds of bad publicity advice over the years, but the tip offered by a publicist during a recent virtual summit presentation truly shocked me.

“Use ChatGPT to write your responses to queries from Source of Sources and HARO,” she advised her audience of small business owners.

Journalists, TV and radio producers, podcast hosts, and bloggers use Source of Sources (SOS), Help a Reporter Out (HARO), Qwoted, and other services like them to find sources to interview.

These services send subscribers – people who want publicity – a list of media source requests – “queries” – daily. You review the queries and determine which you’re qualified to respond to with a “pitch” about why you’re the perfect source.

The publicist’s advice to use AI for that response pitch is awful. Let’s file it under “publicity tips you should ignore” because you should never, ever use any AI tool to reply to queries shared by these services.

Why is this a publicity tip you should ignore?

Why is taking her advice a bad idea?

Let me count the ways.

1. The journalist/producer/blogger will delete your response.

In addition to working as a book marketing coach, I’m a freelance writer. I regularly use these services to find qualified sources to interview for article assignments.

I also have a large professional and friend network of journalists and freelance writers. When one of them asks which of these services provides the best sources, the discussion always turns to AI-generated responses.

More often than not, several reply with, “I got too many AI-generated responses from service X, so I don’t use it anymore.”

We don’t like AI responses.

We delete them.

2. AI-generated responses are easy to spot.

They’re obvious. And they are useless.

They are so useless, in fact, that some journalists (this one included) specify in source queries that they’ll delete them.

Here’s how one writer handles this in their queries:

“I can only accept original quotes written by experts—NOT assistants or AI bots. When sending me emailed answers, please run your content through a plagiarism checker like Copyspace. I am unable to use any content that comes up as a red flag on a plagiarism checker.”

3. HARO now flags AI-generated responses.

HARO now lets journalists block AI-generated responses.

Those of us using HARO to find people to interview or quote simply check “No AI responses” when submitting a query, and HARO’s technology removes them from the replies we receive.

If you don’t know enough about the topic to write your own response, you don’t know enough about the topic to respond.

We don’t care how well-written your response is. We care about the quality of what you say in your response.

So write it yourself, even if you don’t have the writing skills to polish it. That’s okay.

4. You’re insulting us when you use AI.

We can tell the difference between a good response and a bad one.

When you use AI to reply, you’re suggesting that we can’t. What you’re telling us, instead, is that you don’t care enough about the free media exposure we can offer you to write a thoughtful pitch.

And an insult is not a good relationship-building tool.

Here’s better publicity advice

These services can be your shortcut to publicity success. When you find a query that’s a match for your expertise or experience:

• Write your own authentic, personal response. We can distinguish between real and fake. We want real.
• Include a full email signature with your name and website. You might be surprised at the number of people who don’t even include their last name.
• Respond promptly. Some journalists use the first good responses they get. Others wait to consider all of them. Presume that you’re replying to somebody who doesn’t wait around.
• Check your spam folder for replies. You don’t want to miss a request for more information from a journalist, podcaster, and so on.
• Add your name to your headshot file. IMG_1084 is less helpful than you think.
• Skip the publicist for this. Some of the worst replies I get are from PR pros. You can do this yourself.

And the best part? You don’t need to pay a publicist (even a good one!) to get the priceless media exposure that can help establish credibility, build a career, and sell books.

Maybe the businesses paying the publicist who is burning bridges with the journalists those businesses want to connect with will figure that out, too.

Quick video tip about using AI to respond to media queries

Have you landed media coverage using these services? What’s your best tip for getting quoted?