By Priya Ramesh
I am not sharing anything that’s not already been said a gazillion times by my peers in social media but I owe it to my clients and communicators like you who still spend countless hours writing, rewriting, editing and going through a herculean approval process to create THE press release. Wake up! No one is reading it, let alone getting the attention of media that receives hundreds of emails a day. Let’s be honest, when was the last time YOU read a company announcement from your favorite brand?
Quoting Marketing Sherpa, “Most press releases stink. The average journalist gets 250-500 press releases a day via email, mail, and the wire services. They trash 80% immediately, skim-and-trash 18%, and maybe contact 2% to write a story.” The traditional press release is a boring, one-way tool that has become a mere check list for most companies. By pushing out your new product announcement or announcing the arrival of a new CEO through a press release doesn’t mean your job as a communicator is done. The process of communication is complete when the target audience has received your message. I am not sure if the traditional news releases fulfill that basic function of communication.
Why not take that money you are spending on traditional news distribution and invest in a smarter way? Have you considered a company announcement that’s more engaging and entertaining? You have 30 seconds or less to grab your reader’s attention so the more multi-media rich content you have on your news release, the higher the chances of your bounce rate decreasing.
Give your press release a makeover by doing just two simple things:
1. Add multi-media content to that otherwise boring press release: Social media press releases are all about engaging so add pictures, video, brand logo etc. to the otherwise text heavy release. People love seeing or listening to a real person versus a narration of text. Think about adding a 30 second introduction from your new CEO on the news release announcing his/her arrival. You are getting ready to launch a new product or service, show your audience what that looks like on a 2 minutes video. YouTube is the second largest search engine and the more video content you add to your marketing materials, the better your search engine rankings. A good example of a press release that effectively uses multimedia is the Golden State Warriors’ release that has video, screen shots of a contest they announce, links to their various content platforms and options to share the release across a variety of social networks.
2. Shake up the press release to sound more engaging: If you are a startup competing with thousands of household brands to get the media’s attention, you got to bring innovation and creativity to your press release. A recent post from the Wall Street Journal gives kudos to a silicon-valley startup, Smule that took their news release to a whole different level. I am not going into the details of this release but here’s a sample of a what the company’s CEO said about his new executive hires: “Sunil can’t sing for his life, and while Scott will at least tinker on the piano now and then, it’s safe to say that Julliard is not in his future,” said Jeff Smith, CEO and co-founder of Smule. “Jim? There is no hope frankly, and I worry if that’s true even using Smule products. Yet our goal at Smule is to bring creative expression to the masses, and so some diversity on our management team is desirable.” Yeah this press release definitely got the WSJ’s attention!
Okay so now you get my point and are probably wondering how to get started with a social media press release? I highly recommend you start experimenting with Pitch Engine social releases. No, Pitch Engine did not pay me or give me a free subscription to their latest social media new release distribution but I did have the opportunity to speak directly to the founder Jason Kintzler who walked me through their latest version of their social PR platform, PITCH. There are currently 24,000 brands using PitchEngine to look at news release distribution in a whole different way. All I will say is that if you are truly interested in getting your message to your audience online, reporters, bloggers and influentials, PitchEngine surely helps you do a good job of grabbing that short attention span online.
You got any ideas on how to spice up a press release to generate the intended results, do share. We are hungry to hear from you.
Image courtesy: http://fruitfly.wordpress.com/2006/12/01/swiftboating-in-forest-lake/
Thanks for a great post Priya!
The Golden State Warriors release is a great example of injecting some creativity into an otherwise boring announcement. We think a pitch is defined by our user. It could be a post, an announcement a press release, a resume or even an ad.
For example, Beth Mansfield from Carl’s Jr. understands that writing for her demographic (an 1834 year old male) is more effective than writing a boring release that the CEO wants to see. Here’s one of my favorites: http://pitch.pe/6238 (Notice the headline and twitter Pitch are very creative, not just “Carl’s Jr. Announces New Sandwich Lineup.”
Another favorite case study of mine os from a small kayak company in Tennessee, called Jackson Kayak. Here’s the scoop: http://blog.pitchengine.com/?p=175
Thanks for spreading the word and helping to advance our industry!!!
Best,
Jason Kintzler,
Founder, PitchEngine
The stats in the beginning of the post are spot-on. Bloggers and publishers get slammed with so many boring press releases that the first one that has a great hook to it will get some attention! And I think it’s important to remember that not everything is worthy of a press release – just publishing it on your company blog and sending it out via Twitter and Facebook might be enough.
Thanks!
Priya
Yes I agree social media releases are exciting! they are fantastic way to engage into conversations, they really give new look to old fashioned press release. I have been using pitchengine platform and it rocks. It really helped my clients to promote their products!
amazing stuff!
Tatyana Gann
I think a lot of it depends on the sector your pitching to. Technology (especially B2B) often requires a lot of arguably dry information, so a press release can and still does work for something like that. Phone follow-up helps highlight the story as much as social media.
Then again, if its an interesting story, it’ll get covered no matter what the method of delivery.
As it happens I have some pretty useful notes for how to create a social media press release on the SocialFish blog (http://www.socialfish.org/2010/05/the-art-of-creating-a-social-media-press-release.html). Thanks for continuing this conversation!
Cisco (#15 on the list of most engaged brands) does a great job of going social in their newsroom http://newsroom.cisco.com – they get most of success from social media press releases. I hate to see people say the press release is dead – it’s not dead. It’s still useful – but more so online.
I disagree if you do something great people will find and spread your news. It does happen – esp with well-known brands. Still, I’m all about greasing the wheels by helping people find and share your news by sending it to media and influencers.
Only send someone a press release if it’s relevant to who you’re sending it to and interesting enough to warrant attention. I’d rather have a short note with a link to the pr – not just the pr itself. As I blogger I wish I didn’t get press releases about promotions of people I don’t know from companies I’ve never heard of. I get annoyed first, then delete it.
A lot of small businesses I work with don’t have the content to do a rich SM press release. In that case we aim for the SEO value. That’s what my book I Need a Killer Press Release, Now What?? is all about (obviously I’m biased).
Great post
Janet
Thanks Janet, you make some good points. Small businesses don’t need to create rich content but they definitely can target content distribution to much more effective channels and in my mind press release is not one. Thanks again for stopping by and sharing your insight.
Maddie you rock! thanks for sharing.
Hi Marco, I agree but I also worked in a B2B company that pushed the limits on turning boring content into something more engaging. I think IBM’s YouTube video on “The Art of Sale” is a great example of a B2B doing something fun and engaging. Similar concepts can be introduced to the “better, faster, more scalable” language on a B2B press release. Thanks again for stopping by!
Thanks Tatyana for stopping by.
Thanks Jason for stopping by. You are helping us redefine how to inform and engage with our target audience so kudos to you.
Priya, enjoyed your post. This is certainly a hot topic! I have to respectfully disagree with parts of your post. The press release is definitely evolving but is certainly not ‘dead.’ When and how to utilize media relations depends on the situation (and the client/company). The press release, in many cases, should include links to video/audio, facts, backgrounders, etc. (aka ’social media release’) It’s all about making it easy for the writer to find ALL the information he/she needs and making their job easier.
In a recent blog post that I wrote, I offered these three tips to avoid being a “PR Spammer:”
* Clients and CEOs like to see big names on the media list – even when it’s not appropriate. It’s the PR practitioner’s job to provide good counsel. Set a realistic and common level of expectations.
* Once that’s established, research the writers on your list. Not just what beat they cover, but what they are writing about. What are they passionate about? How does your story tie-in to these things; in other words, why should the journalist or blogger care?
* And be sure to check (or double check), journalist, blogger, and community guidelines before pitching. When in doubt, go without.
(original post: http://budurl.com/unwe)
Best,
Tressa
Thanks Teresa. Your tips are right on. I think we both are on the same page as far as making company announcements more informative and engaging to the receiver be it the media or potential consumers. The press release that I think is dead is the monotonous text heavy narrative loaded with jargons and superlatives being pushed out to the media in the hope that reporters will run with it. You are right, we need to first define goals, set realistic expectations and make it more engaging. Look forward to reading your blog, thanks again for taking the time read and make some valuable comments. – Priya