The Role of the Press Release in PR

There is a wonderful discussion at Mark Evans’ blog about the social media release.

What do you think?

Yes, despite the hype, the social media release never really took off. And, if PR professionals can’t sell it, something’s not right.

First a little background.  https://portal.prnewswire.com/ 

The social media release came to fame in 2006 when Todd Defren (Shift Communications) introduced it.  The idea was to give busy reporters everything they need in a release including photos, video, social media.

The social media release still is not commonly used. Evans’ concludes that press releases generally aren’t essential.  Actually, I will amend that -- social media releases aren’t essential.  People commenting on Evans’ post stated that the traditional press release can be simply modified to include video, social media and other dynamic portions of the social media release. It’s as if the social media release has been co-opted, its social and multi-media features absorbed into the regular press release. For instance, PR Newswire lets you distribute multimedia releases and virally publicize them with social media

There is also another reason why it hasn’t caught on.  Unfortunately, it seems that the social media press release is not very interesting to read. It’s bad enough to have dry, jargon-heavy releases (I’ve probably done a few of my own). But who wants to read a glorified outline? Here’s one example.

In the rush to be both expedient and thorough, the social media release lacks the advantages of an expertly crafted release.

Written properly, it tells a story – the who, what, when, where, how. Make no mistake.  I’m not implying that the classic press release is a work of art.  However, it promptly gets to the point and sometimes…it can even grab your attention.

I went on Business Wire’s site and looked under the contest category. This release, Calling All Swedish Hospital Babies and Parents, grabbed my attention right away. What an engaging title! The release is well written and includes all the crucial facts.  I would have liked a visual included with the release, but the visually-austere release still fulfills its purpose.

So where does this leave everyone?

As David Meerhman Scott indicates in his revolutionary book, The New Rules of Marketing & PR, today’s releases are no longer primarily intended for the media. Conversely, they are more geared towards the search engines and ultimately, the customers. This means:

• Press releases must be readable, attention-grabbing, and search-engine friendly so they get highly ranked by Google, Yahoo, etc.
• Press releases should make a journalist’s job easy.  The key facts need to be connected in a way that a media person could simply rewrite a sentence or two along with his/her byline if the media person or blogger was in a rush.
• Press releases can’t be fluffy. They should just stick to the facts.
• Press releases should to be jargon-free

For more ways to enhance your press releases, read this post: 
http://www.badlanguage.net/62-ways-to-improve-your-press-releases

What kind of press release do you use? We would love to hear from you.