It’s an old habit… typing my name, or the name of my Daily Post column, HMPRESENTLY, in the search bar on a search engine I sometimes use, to see what comes up, online.
Early in my PR career, that’s when it started, this insatiable need to find out if publicity I’d been working on was showing up in the media.
When I was starting out, my colleagues and I relied on press clipping companies for tracking media coverage. They’d send us big envelopes, with articles they’d clipped from print media – newspapers and magazines – and provided transcripts of radio and TV coverage, and, when we needed them, tapes of our TV interviews.
Positive publicity, of course, was what we were always hoping for.
Now that I’ve been away from PR, I’m occasionally searching on my own. Actually, more than just occasionally… it’s that old habit of mine.
A column I’d written in the Daily Post, early last year, showed up in my latest online search, on the web page of a painting company in Canada. Under the heading ‘House Painting News Story’, there was a link to my column.
I’d written about old places with good vibes.
Our decades-old house, that held up well in the big 1989 earthquake, and the gale force winds that sometimes pound our California community, was about to be spruced up with a paint job.
Since a previous owner thought there was a spiritual presence in the house, my family and I were wondering if that spirit, residing with us, was concerned about having fresh paint applied to the old place.
Like our house, the Canadian painting company has been around for a good number of years, as I noted on the firm’s website.
So… I’ll be darned! That particular HMPRESENTLY was shared with our Canadian neighbors, up north.
I’ll tell you one thing… seeing that article, again, felt mighty good.
It’s hard to explain… that old habit, I just can’t seem to shake.
Harvey Radin is former senior vice president in charge of corporate communications and media relations, Bank of America Western Region. He makes his home in Redwood City, CA.