UPDATED 09:52 EST / JULY 12 2011

Interview With Vannesa Camones: It Pays To Out Silicon Valley Bullies

I recently spoke with Vanessa Camones, a Silicon Valley PR veteran and founder of theMIX agency about the reaction to her recent article about Mike Arrington, Editor of TechCrunch: DIGIDAY:DAILY – Entrepreneurs Should Say No to Silicon Valley’s Bully.

One of my readers suggested that Vanessa’s surname become “Cojones” because of her bold position in taking on Mr Arrington. Many PR people have made similar complaints about Techcrunch but she is the only one to have gone on public record.

Ms Camones said that the response to her post was excellent. “I got a lot of emails of support from other PR people and also lots of journalists. And also a lot of business leads came in as a result of the article.”

– There were more than 6,000 pageviews of the article. (Plus another 2k on my post about it: It’s Time For PR Community To Grow Some Cojones And Out Silicon Valley Bullies – SVW)

– More than 250 new Twitter followers.

– 100 new Facebook friends.

– Seven new business leads.

She says that she got fed up of hearing about Mr Arrington’s bullying tactics, some of which she documents in her post. Also that startups think that the way to success is to appear in TechCrunch when the reality is that it often has little to do with their target market and generates very little in traffic.

She knows that many others feel the same way she does and she believes that startups deserve a level playing field.

While she understands that PR people are often in a tough position to criticize leading Silicon Valley influencers for their behavior, she believes that her post will be useful by becoming a point of reference for others.

So far, speaking the truth has been very good to Ms Camones. Hopefully others will join her.

 

[Cross-posted at Silicon Valley Watcher]


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