Peter Shankman's upstart Help a Reporter Out mailing list and PR Newswire's ProfNet both attempt to link up journalists looking for sources with PR professionals and others looking for good press, albeit in slightly different ways.
HARO actually got started as a group on Facebook, before Shankman transitioned his roughly 600 members over to the mailing list format he uses now. The HARO page on Facebook now counts more than 1,100 fans, without any actual promotion on the HARO mailing list.
Help a Reporter Out (HARO) then became a free service for all involved with dozens of journalist queries going out to more than 23,000 subscribers every day. PR Newswire's ProfNet is free for journalists, but can cost thousands of dollars a year for potential sources.
In an attempt to show the company "gets" social media, PR Newswire has created a fan page for "ProfNet: The Expert Connection" on August 12th. ProfNet has a whopping 37 fans and nearly half of them -- 18 of 37 -- are members of the PR Newswire Association network on FB, meaning, of course, that they actually work for the PR Newswire.
Here's my question: is ProfNet charging folks to be a fan on Facebook, like they do to actually use the service? You'd think a company that was built to -- you know -- network people, would be a little better at it.
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