In the post, Calacanis basically suggests the best PR strategy involves not retaining a PR firm; instead, he opines that CEOs take on this task themselves. His exact prescription: "be amazing, be everywhere, be real." Now, imagine for a moment that some unknown entrepreneur went into a meeting with a VC. Next envision a managing partner asking the entrepreneur their strategy for success. Finally, picture the look on the partner's face is the entrepreneur used Calacanis answer for a PR strategy as a response to that question.
My point is I've never understood why simple answers to questions that involve complex matters are supposed to be OK when it comes to PR when they would never work in the real world. I think it's safe to say Calacanis is glossing over some things when he relays the success he's had without a PR agency. Chiefly, he was able to get a lot of free publicity when his company Weblogs was sold to AOL for $25 million. Reports are that he gets very annoyed when people discuss the collapse of his first company, Silicon Alley Reporter.
Don't get me wrong, every good entrepreneur fails and sometimes on multiple occasions. But if the strategy he speaks about were as bullet proof as he makes it out to be in his latest missive, he should have been able to generate so much buzz about SAR that no mainstream publishing house could have seen how their world would function without it as part of their collection.
Just as that didn't happen and can't be expected to happen in every case, even when it's justified, these "cut and paste" prescriptions for PR don't always work either.
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