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... As anyone who has studied in the fine art of Giving Presentations That Aren’t Horrible can tell you, the first step in giving an engaging talk is getting the hell away from your computer. You want to talk with your audience, not at your laptop. That means using a remote control. And using a remote control, of course, means stepping into a world of pain. Oh, you’re using someone else’s laptop at the last minute? Better track down some compatible USB drivers and hope that they don’t explode in your face. Oh, you forgot to swap out the batteries with fresh ones? Hope you didn’t want to go past the third slide. Presefy wants to kill off the uni-purpose remote control, instead pushing the responsibility of steering to your smartphone. But here’s the special twist: because it’s all done through the browser, no special drivers or apps are required. Here’s how it works...
One of the staples of the public relations industry is the press release, or media release. We’ve talked at length about them, including constructing several versions of the social media press release, but content is only half the equation in all forms of marketing and PR. The other half of the equation is distribution, or who sees your content. If the goal of a press release is to get noticed by media sources, it logically follows that the absolute worst time to publish a press release is when everyone else is publishing a press release. Using four weeks of publication data from our partner MarketWire, we looked at what days and times the wire services are getting swamped with press releases. First up to bat? The day of the week....
...I was recently sitting in a webinar on news releases with my co-workers when the presenter recommended we tweet our news releases to promote them. I felt like gasping out loud. I tried to hold back and finally I just couldn’t. “I just have to say I do not agree,” I blurted. Our intern looked up curiously and asked why. My reasoning? Would you sit down with your friends and read your press release to them? No. Would you read it to a group of prospective new business clients? Would you pass it out to people as you walked down the street? NO. Or at least I hope not. I have been asked many times to tweet a news release and every time it makes my blood boil. That’s not social. It’s not a conversation. It reminds me of the annoying person that only likes to talk about themselves, constantly. No one cares. It’s like shoving dry cereal down someone’s throat without stopping to offer them milk. And my favorite reason, “if you tweet it the media could see it.” Oh please, I assure you the media isn’t going to pick up your news release because you blasted it on Twitter....
‘Everyone knows’ content marketing is now the primary method of communicating with the public. That and Twitter. Everything an organization, business leader, celebrity, athlete, or political figure has to say about themselves or anything else can be boiled down to 140 characters, right? Tweets and Facebook posts are now regal declarations – the absolute truth, recorded for posterity to be criticized, repeated, and submitted as evidence should anybody doubt what was said. So where does that leave the humble news release?...
SHIFT Communications’ release of anupdated Social Media Press Release template—first introduced in 2006—more fully weaves social media into the release with a focus on making it as easy as possible to share its various elements. While the first template and the version 1.5 follow-up both sparked a considerable amount of attention, the new 2.0 version caused barely a whisper. When we chatted about it briefly on our podcast, For Immediate Release,Neville Hobson remarked that interest has waned considerably and that nobody much talks about the concept any more.... If we start to think of the press release as a component of our content marketing efforts, odds are we’ll embrace these principles by routinely incorporating social media elements to the release. We’ll also focus onanybody who would be interested, not just the press and influential bloggers for whom press releases are most often crafted. (That’s why we opted to call it the Social Media News Release when trying to create more enthusiasm for the idea.)...
Need a news fix? How about rack of goat; a score of new websites; 10% retail savings; a two-month old talk show appearance; NYPD Nudie cop; 50 year-old abs; aerospace engineers and car repairs; albinos in Tanzania; air hockey and better relationships; the end of a store sale? We’ve got it all in the 2nd installment of our Bad News Releases feature. Our first collection of bad press releases was our most popular post in 2010. We’ve got 25 brand new press release turkeys that will never get past the editor’s or reporter’s inbox. Here are seven reasons why these news releases fail... [Just in time for the holiday, an old favorite: 25 Press Release Turkeys ~ Jeff]
When asked if it will, Wendy Artman of GroundFloor Media says, “I will always respond by saying absolutely not! When pitching reporters, more often than not they ask for a release.”
But, the press release’s audience has really become anyone on the internet. One idea to take it forward is to trade it for a blog post.
Jeremy Porter, co-founder and editor of Journalistics, a blog about public relations and journalism topics thinks, as I do, that there is little return on the investment in creating and distributing a press release. “The results tend to be pretty lackluster, even from those fancy multimedia or social news releases. There has to be a better way, and I think that way is a news blog,” he says.
I agree – with the caveat that the blog can’t just be filled with typical press release jargon....
[Reinventing the news release as blog news ~ Jeff]
The practice of public relations is so powerful that the simple act of composing a press release can turn an ordinary citizen into a raving monster. This is PR Dummies. Going WAY haywire!!! on subluxated flackery, every week.
The common practice of using current events as a "news peg" for press releases, no matter how tenuous the connection between the event and the PR item in question, is so ingrained that no level of national horror can stamp it out. So the Aurora Dark Knight massacre has brought with it a predictable and depressing wave of massacre-pegged press releases. But none have quite the savoir faire of this one, from a Minnesota chiropractor. (Our correspondent notes that an apology for this went out the day after she received it.)
[Stunning poor taste, insensitivity and a PR fail with this press release. Mind-boggling! - JD ]
I don’t usually write Pro PR Tips about stories that carry my own byline, but man, I had to hold my nose when I pasted this bit into today’s story about the Yahoo/Facebook patent battle... resolution. From the official press release: "Going forward, Yahoo! and Facebook have agreed to work more closely and collaborate together on multiple tent-pole and anchor events annually over the next several years to provide unparalleled experiences for consumers and world-class sponsorship opportunities for advertisers...."
How would you like your startup to get 10,000 media mentions that is seen by an estimated 10 million people – for one story? This just happened for Boston-based WordStream, a search marketing startup. In the words of Founder/CTO Larry Kim, “We hit the public relations lottery.” Here’s how they did it – and what you can learn from their success
Last week I penned and article for Ragan’s PR Daily titled “The 5 Mistakes Press Release Writers Make” and followed that up with a more detailed post here titled, “The 6 Mistakes That Can Sink Press Release Visibility.” I shared these on several PR discussion groups and solicited additional feedback from my fellow members, asking what other press release tips they would offer....
Each week, Dear Gracie answers questions from ProfNet Connect readers with advice from our network of nearly 50,000 ProfNet experts. Dear Gracie, Some of my clients repeatedly ask me to pitch announcements that I don’t think qualify as “news.” I know if I do pitch the information, journalists will be annoyed and I could damage my media relationships. How do I explain this to my clients? Peeved Pitcher
Don’t write another press release until you’ve read these tips from a search engine optimization expert. ...Even without the help of a distribution service, the guidelines below will help make a press release as SEO-friendly as possible....
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There is an ongoing conversation among communications and SEO professionals, alike, about the value of using news releases to boost your online visibility. While there are SEO benefits, publishing news releases plays numerous other marketing roles. The rules, purpose, and audience have changed. It’s time to update how we think about them, write them, and measure their results in order to get the most online visibility value from them. There are three very distinct reasons to not only write a news release, but to publish and distribute it online....
A new web-based service identifies and strips out annoying buzzwords from press releases at the click of a button. The Buzzsaw service from Twelve Thirty Eight is available at: http://www.1238kmh.com/buzzsaw.htm Twelve Thirty Eight’s recent Buzzword Report highlighted the PR buzzwords, terminology and practices most likely to inflame journalists. There are more than 500 in the database already, including terms like repurposing, solution, robust, best of breed, mission-critical, scalable, next-generation, web-enabled, leading, value-added, leverage, seamless, etc....
...More companies are realizing the value of blogging. The blog, like the news release is owned media. You create the message, write the content and publish it, post it or distribute it via many channels. But, here’s the $5 million chicken-or-egg question — which comes first? Should a company write a blog post to launch news or should it write a news release to launch news?...
What’s the difference between a social media press release and the more traditional version? This is one of the most common questions we receive here at PR Newswire, and the answer is simpler than you may think. At the outset, the social media news release (SMNR) — originally conceived by Todd Defren of Shift Communications — looked pretty complex, incorporating a host of multimedia assets as well as links to related information, such as other press releases from the company and quotes from experts. The emphasis on the format intimidated many, and frankly, continues to do so today. The difference between the two release types, in our mind, is pretty clear. A social media release at its most basic is easy for readers to scan, includes elements (text, multimedia, etc.) that are easy to share, and offers readers ready access to a collection of associated, relevant information. A more traditional message lacks these features....
Back in 2006, SHIFT Communications pioneered the first social media press release. It was super-cool, with links to other sites, shorter media snippets, recommendations for social network posting, multimedia, and more, well ahead of its time. But that was years ago; is the social media press release still relevant? In some ways, the answer might surprise you: the Social Media Press Release isn’t relevant as a standalone press release, because these days social media and earned media are one and the same. Gone are the days where you needed separate communications for someone who was in the mainstream media and someone who was a blogger. Today, if you don’t treat new media creators with the same level of access as traditional media outlets, you’re in for a bucket of relative obscurity, especially if your product isn’t especially share worthy. If social media isn’t fully and wholly integrated into your overall earned media and marketing plan, you’re fundamentally asking to be ignored....
Slapping the terms "media advisory" and "for immediate release" on a press release is meaningless in today's PR world. Stop, please! I once started a Twitter debate with a PR pro after I tweeted that adding the words "for immediate release" on pitches to reporters is unnecessary. The conversation inspired the PR pro to write a blog on the topic debating use of the term. I still don't understand why PR pros add those words or other phrases such as "media advisory." Here are a few reasons why... [Keith Yaskin makes a lot of sense. ~ Jeff]
So, to quickly recap yesterday's post, the press release did not die, but was also not resuscitated by a new social media version. It remains an undead communication tool that its original target – journalists – has no interest in ... [Laura Thomas shares an excellent overview of press releases and the challenge of convergence of PR and marketing ~ Jeff]
Via Miguel Macedo
In today’s real-time, connected world in which our audiences expect to find anything they want, when they want it, it’s imperative that communicators wring every ounce of effectiveness out of all the content they publish, and to continually assess the results each message generates. On the heels of last week’s post about rethinking (and expanding) the audiences for press releases, today we’re putting the press releases under the microscope. and we’re focusing on some of the most common questions we hear.... [Practical press release tips - JD]
Press releases will continue to be the workhorse of public relations, even after social media has allowed businesses to engage directly with customers. Here are 10 mistakes to avoid when pitching one.
Though there are many, many ways to get news coverage without issuing a news release (for some ideas, see my seven-part series on ways to earn good media coverage), press releases still work. That said, it’s also all-too-common for companies to make fatal errors in the way they write and distribute news releases. Here are 10 common problems....
The press release is a tried-and-true public relations workhorse which (despite many premature reports of its death) remains one of the most popular communications formats for PR pros today. That said, we can all agree that the last few years – heck, the last few months even – have seen tremendous change in how information is consumed. To ensure your press releases are effective in reaching today’s wired audiences, avoid these common mistakes that can sink your message’s visibility....
Great news for PR practitioners: Despite rumors to the contrary, the trusty old press release is not dead. Text 100 surveyed 72 journalists and found that the press release is still the preferred format for receiving corporate news.
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I have seen many but this might be interesting, let me know your thoughts..