Asks Elizabeth Albrycht over at CorporatePR. An emphatic no say I! And Richard Bailey at Leeds Metropolitan University appears to agree. Like Elizabeth I frequently represent small, or emerging, technology companies and I've also represented some of the biggest IT firms.

She's right that you are granted an automatic audience if representing a market leader, but it's not impossible to secure coverage for a smaller, nimbler competitor. You just have to try harder. Much harder. If the CEO of a top 100 company blows her (or his) nose then some sad journalist somewhere will cover it. If you represent a tiny start-up you've got to come up with a creative, newsworthy idea that will grab the interest of that journalist's readers. It's probably not going to be about products or services but could be about customers, solutions, issues or surveys.