Has the Social Media News Release Come Finally of Age ?

8/9/2019 Has the Social Media News Release Come Finally of Age ?

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By Preesiit

Has the SocialMedia News Release(SMNR) fnally come

of age?

www.pressi .com hello@pressi .com

By Pressi - Social Media News Releasecrea on and publishing pla orm


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Tom Foremski

Brian Solis

www.pressi .com hello@pressi .com

Love it or hate it, the press release has for years been the PR industrys loyal friend. But as journalists and bloggers increasingly turn to social networks and the blogosphere for theirresearch and informa on, this text-heavy, one-size- ts-all format is increasingly falling on deaf ears and no longer serving the purpose it used to. In 2006, former FT journalist Tom Foremskifamously pronounced Die! Press Release! Die! Die! Die!, calling for a demoli on of the pressrelease as we know it, to be replaced with a deconstructed format where informa on is dividedinto special, more useable sec ons...and hence the Social Media News Release (SMNR) wasborn.

Within Liberate Medias network of media contacts, many feel the tradi onal press release isoutdated and in need of a faceli . The SMNR has beensuggested as the answer, but we wanted to nd out whatevidence there was to support this.

Brian Solis , one of the worlds most successful social media in uencers, claims

SMNRs are designed to get the conversation going, providing readerswith the ability to disseminate information and multimedia, bookmark and share the content, and in turn, spark threads. They also serve apurpose of providing new media influencers with the information they need, in one package, in order to write a full story, their way without having to carve out the BS of a traditional release or pitch.

With that in mind, this research looks into the growth of the SMNR, helped byservices like Pressi , and the changing needs of journalists.

According to research by PWR new media who recently surveyed 200 journalists, 63% of those ques oned said theycontribute to an online site or blog and 52% of those respondents said theyve added these du es in the past twoyears.

PWR new media and other sources clearly state that journalists prefer to receive news releases via email; 92% wantthe informa on in that form (although a surprising 3% prefer old-fashioned post and 3% prefer online newsrooms).Tradi onal wires, RSS feeds and social media were the least popular op on - 0% in all cases.

Journalists love images, with 88% saying that easily downloadable images are very important but they dont wantthem as a achments due to clogged up inboxes and incompa bility issues. Journalists also want to receive easilyuseable text from releases ( 78% ) along with relevant backgrounders, bios, and other related info ( 82% ). As in thepast, logos were less popular with only 35% indica ng they were (very) important.

An increasing number of journalists want video to be included in the release, roughly the same as last years ( 35% )

but signi cantly up from 2008s ( 25% ). The numbers of journalists who want embed codes with video and audiois also increasing, according to the survey, with 31% saying its important. Access to other types of embeddablecontent was also important with 34% of journalists claiming that receiving web content such as Slidesharepresenta ons was (very) important (versus 30% last year).

PWR concludes that Press releases must evolve to the new needs of media; some agencies are stuck in old modelsand do not understand what news outlooks are looking for. Our needs have changed due to an increasingly small sta and a greater concentra on on our digital pla orm. Time is not a luxury anymore but a commodity; if we canreceive items by email it will speed up the process of distribu ng or using it for the web or print.

An image and logo on the first contact press release is IMMENSELY helpful. We spend hours of our dayschasing down logos/images that can be spent generating content. Also, know what is on the clientswebsite. Is it a template-based site with a thumbnail logo? If so, that is of no use to us. Additionally, usephotos in your pitches, especially when you are pitching a product of any kind. It doesnt need to be highres for the pitch. The emotional/visual impact will save you hours of slaving over a press release.

S : h p://releaseit.pwrnewmedia.com/?p=89#more-89
http://www.briansolis.com/http://www.pressitt.com/http://releaseit.pwrnewmedia.com/?p=89#more-89http://releaseit.pwrnewmedia.com/?p=89#more-89http://www.pressitt.com/http://www.briansolis.com/


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This research is backed up by usability expert Jakob Nielsen, who conducted three studies of journalists and foundthat they use the Web as a major research tool, with search their main informa on source. They are impa ent withbloated sites that dont serve their needs or do not list a PR contact.

Nielson states the obvious, that journalists o en work under ghtdeadlines but most of the PR sec ons of sites studied fail to support journalists in their quest for the facts, informa on, and contactsthey can use to write stories about companies and their products.He also found that many journalists now work from home.

Among his sugges ons, Nielsen recommends that PR websiteareas have links to external sources, including press coverage;

journalists o en consider ar cles from independent newspapersand magazines to be much more credible than a companys ownpress releases.

Nielsens three studies also underline that journalists today be er appreciate video, webcasts and other mul media.Their main complaint, however, is that mul media content tends to be harder to use and to contain super cialinforma on.

Nielsen says Companies clearly need to work harder to turn new media into useful media. Ultimately,PR-related usability comes down to a simple question: Why spend a fortune on outbound PR (trying topitch journalists) when you neglect simple steps to increase the effectiveness of inbound PR (satisfying journalists who visit your website)?

S : h p://www.useit.com/alertbox/pr.html

PR THE WIDER PICTUREAs we touched on in the intro, many high pro le gures in the PR sector have spoken

out about their distain for the tradi onal press release. SMNR champions like ToddDefren , Brian Solis , Tom Foremski and Esther Schindler , who wrote recently PR isbroken. Social media might, might glue some of the parts back on, believe that thepress release must change.

David Meerman Sco , author of the bestselling book The New Rules of Marke ng &PR (and also a fellow Contribu ng Editor at EContent Magazine ) thinks Web 2.0 haschanged the way everyone should think of marke ng and that marketers who fail tograsp that are doomed to be le in the dust of 20 th -century ideas. He warns that itsimportant to understand that you cant simply use the same rules and glue them on

to Web 2.0 concepts. Your audience is now much bigger than a handful of journalists and editors.

In an interview with Ron Miller on daniweb, Sco says The rules for press releases have changed. In the old

days, a press release was actually a release to the press. Everybody knew that the reason you issued a pressrelease was to get the media to write about you. Nobody saw the actual press release except a handful of reporters and editors. Not anymore.

While all PR people understand that press releases sent over the wires appear in near real-time on services like Google News, very few understand the implications for how they should dramatically altertheir press release strategy as a result. The primary audience is not a handful of journalists. Your audienceis millions of people with an Internet connection and access to a search engine and RSS readers. Pressreleases are also great search engine fodder.

S :h p://www.daniweb.com/news/post974560.html#

David Meerman Sco
http://www.useit.com/alertbox/pr.htmlhttp://www.pr-squared.com/index.php/abouthttp://www.pr-squared.com/index.php/abouthttp://www.briansolis.com/http://www.siliconvalleywatcher.com/mt/archives/2006/02/die_press_relea.phphttp://advice.cio.com/esther_schindler/how_social_medias_changing_public_relationshttp://www.daniweb.com/news/post974560.html##http://www.daniweb.com/news/post974560.htmlhttp://www.daniweb.com/news/post974560.htmlhttp://www.daniweb.com/news/post974560.html##http://advice.cio.com/esther_schindler/how_social_medias_changing_public_relationshttp://www.siliconvalleywatcher.com/mt/archives/2006/02/die_press_relea.phphttp://www.briansolis.com/http://www.pr-squared.com/index.php/abouthttp://www.pr-squared.com/index.php/abouthttp://www.useit.com/alertbox/pr.html



INDUSTRY CONSENSUSSo what does the rest of the industry think about the press release? Is there widespread agreement with the few

outspoken SMNR forerunners that it is me for SMNRs to nally become the industry standard?A recent poll conducted by Ragan Communica ons and PollStream found that 49% of todays professionalcommunicators think press releases are as useful as ever, but a third of respondents admit the press release is anecessary evil that wont go away soon.

The study concludes: There have been several studies done in recent years that support the diminishedeffectiveness of press releases, but as always, it depends on the quality and relevance of informationcommunicated in press release form. If your story stinks, its not going to get attention in press release ortweet form.

In uen al Journalis cs blogger Jeremy Porter has some important things to say about the press release. As Portersees it, a press release can s ll be e ec ve in these three scenarios:

S If you have a strong human interest story for broad consump on, a press release iss ll highly-e ec ve for genera ng na onal coverage. I came across a company the other day that has invented a way to diagnose breast cancer from human tears thats a story I could see working well in a press release form.

D - - Some organiza ons are using press releases e ec vely for communica ng directly totheir audiences. There are some instances where you dont need publicity coverage, but rather want to announcesomething to people following your organiza on. While a blog might be a be er vehicle for this, a second op onwould be a direct-to-consumer news release a grand opening or product launch are both good examples.

SEO-PR A release designed to help you increase the number of inbound links to a par cular page on your websiteor blog. This approach is not as e ec ve as it used to be, but for an organiza on just star ng out with a new website,this is one of the fastest ways to kick-start an SEO e ort.

Source: h p://www.quinnandco.com/wordpress/index.php/2009/11/25/is-the-press-release-dead/

Two ques ons can be asked about the e ec veness of the press release. Do journalists read releases on newswiresand are releases the most e ec ve way to generate publicity?

According to the PRWeek/PR Newswire 2009 Media Survey , the answer to the rst is not many. Just 38% of journalists look at opt-in press releases from commercial newswires when researching topics and wri ng stories,while 27% search the websites of commercial newswire services. The answer to the second is a resounding no with90% of journalists preferring email pitches over every other media .

The media survey concludes: If email is the top way that journalists like to receive information, then apress release isnt the best way to get their attention. True, a release could be excellent supplementalinformation to use in supplement to an email, but it shouldnt replace your pitch. A well-crafted and brief pitch letter sent via email can be far more effective at getting a journalists attention.

When assessing the e ec veness of the press release, it s important to also consider the current state of the journalist sector. The past year has seen drama c changes with job cuts worldwide. Evidence of this can be seen inthe redundancies made by News Interna onal, where it is believed the cuts could a ect as many as 200 sta , and10% of News Interna onal journalists, across newspapers such as The Sun , News of the World , The Times and TheSunday Times .

According to Reuters , The New York Times also cut 100 posi ons in its newsroom at the end of 2009 and it is thesecond me that the paper has taken this unfortunate step, having cut 100 posi ons last year.

Leading UK media site journalism.co.uk has a live graph of changes in the sector and said in its recent report thatin the US, for example, in January alone more than 813 newspaper layo s and buyouts have been announced in 17

states for 2010. Two newspapers have announced plans to lay o more than 100 employees: the Journal News andKalamazoo Gaze e . According to FT.com , a 2009 Deloi e report says theres more to come and that one out of every10 print publica ons is predicted to half frequency, go online-only or close down over the year.
http://www.marketingcharts.com/print/less-than-half-of-pr-people-deem-press-releases-useful-10954http://www.ragan.com/http://www.pollstream.com/http://blog.journalistics.com/2009/how-to-write-a-press-release/http://www.quinnandco.com/wordpress/index.php/2009/11/25/is-the-press-release-dead/http://www.prweekus.com/Media-Survey/section/366/http://blogs.reuters.com/mediafile/2009/10/19/new-york-times-job-cuts-read-the-memo/http://www.journalism.co.uk/5/articles/533044.phphttp://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/4d6576cc-c646-11dd-a741-000077b07658.htmlhttp://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/4d6576cc-c646-11dd-a741-000077b07658.htmlhttp://www.journalism.co.uk/5/articles/533044.phphttp://blogs.reuters.com/mediafile/2009/10/19/new-york-times-job-cuts-read-the-memo/http://www.prweekus.com/Media-Survey/section/366/http://www.quinnandco.com/wordpress/index.php/2009/11/25/is-the-press-release-dead/http://blog.journalistics.com/2009/how-to-write-a-press-release/http://www.pollstream.com/http://www.ragan.com/http://www.marketingcharts.com/print/less-than-half-of-pr-people-deem-press-releases-useful-10954



The introduc on of Web 2.0 seems to have been the catalyst for a huge rise in social networkers, bloggers andTweeters, broadly grouped as online ci zen journalists. This development means that press releases must now reacha much wider audience than journalists and contain more informa on than just text.

In uen al blogger Gina Trapani is among those who strongly advise against spam press releases, andis one of a number of bloggers to have published a public blacklist for agencies sending unsolicited emailpitches: h p://prspammers.pbworks.com/ .

Adam Singer on Futurebuzz reiterates what seems to be the general consensus among bloggers and ci zen journalists, which is that while: Press releases are not dead and still serve a function, they now belong towire service distribution, and should not replace one-to-one conversation.

He says: I fully embrace the PR-blogger relationship... but a press release as an introduction probably wont make it very far.

Source: h p://thefuturebuzz.com/2009/08/17/dont-send-a-press-release/

Professional blogger Darren Rowse, in an interview with PR blog Naked PR, reiterates the view that tradi onal text-heavy press releases serve no useful purpose nowadays, and hints at the value the SMNR approach could add:

I must have hit delete on thousands of press releases over the last few years. While I do occasionally usethem - it is generally only when they are right on target for my niche and quite often when I go searchingfor them. Id much rather be pitched a story idea that is tailored to my blog. This need not be long ordetailed (in fact its best if its not) but if someone shoots me an email that says heres a story you might beinterested in and heres why its relevant to your blogs readers, Im much more likely to read it. If you dohave a press release, it might be more effective to not send it but to give a link to where it is hosted online

so that if the blogger wants to refer to it (and link to it) they can.

h p://nakedpr.com/2008/05/06/darren-rowse-on-targe ng-and-pitching-bloggers/Whilst this is a massive debate, there seems to be an overwhelming consensus of opinion among ci zen journaliststhat the press release is outdated and o en irrelevant, owing to its one-size- ts-all approach. The majority of bloggers would prefer a personalised and carefully targeted approach, with a link to informa on hosted online.

There is a wealth of informa on and discussion for those interested in learning more, and below are some links toget you started.

Golden rules on contac ng bloggers:

h p://paulstama ou.com/how-to-pitch-bloggers

Pressures on bloggers and journalists:

h p://www.stagetwoconsul ng.com/wordpress/are-bloggers-underu lizing-pr-people-236/The changing Press Release format, targe ng di erent forms for di erent audiences:

h p://probusinesswriter.com/public-rela ons-wri ng/pressreleasewri ng/balancing-pr-and-seo-in-online-press-release-distribu on/

One of the many improvements that SMNRs o er over the tradi onal press release is the ability to incorporate video.Within our research, we looked at online newspapers and magazines to see whether they were now using video toback up their ar cles. This would give strength to the theory that video is what audiences want and would indicatepeople could now be ready for SMNRs over the text-heavy tradi onal press release.

We found that nearly every newspaper and magazine tle online is now using news and feature videos prominentlyto back up and enhance stories on their websites.

This expansion is also being encouraged by the BBC in the UK, which is sharing videos with major Bri sh newspapers,in what the Guardian described as a landmark deal . The rst papers involved are the Daily Mail , The Guardian ,
http://prspammers.pbworks.com/http://thefuturebuzz.com/2009/08/17/dont-send-a-press-release/http://nakedpr.com/2008/05/06/darren-rowse-on-targeting-and-pitching-bloggers/http://paulstamatiou.com/how-to-pitch-bloggershttp://www.stagetwoconsulting.com/wordpress/are-bloggers-underutilizing-pr-people-236/http://probusinesswriter.com/public-relations-writing/pressreleasewriting/balancing-pr-and-seo-in-online-press-release-distribution/http://probusinesswriter.com/public-relations-writing/pressreleasewriting/balancing-pr-and-seo-in-online-press-release-distribution/http://probusinesswriter.com/public-relations-writing/pressreleasewriting/balancing-pr-and-seo-in-online-press-release-distribution/http://probusinesswriter.com/public-relations-writing/pressreleasewriting/balancing-pr-and-seo-in-online-press-release-distribution/http://www.stagetwoconsulting.com/wordpress/are-bloggers-underutilizing-pr-people-236/http://paulstamatiou.com/how-to-pitch-bloggershttp://nakedpr.com/2008/05/06/darren-rowse-on-targeting-and-pitching-bloggers/http://thefuturebuzz.com/2009/08/17/dont-send-a-press-release/http://prspammers.pbworks.com/


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The Independent and the Telegraph group, but the publicly funded corpora on also plans to make the video newscontent available to other UK-based news websites.

The BBC will provide a limited range of video news content in four public service areas: UK poli cs, business, healthand science and technology. The material will be given to the papers at no cost and is intended to supplement theirown work. According to The Guardian , the BBC has been clear that it has no intention of extending the range of content to genres such as entertainment and sports news.

S : h p://www.editorsweblog.org/mul media/2009/07/bbc_to_share_video_news_with_uk_newspape.php

Research by online video provider Brightcove also indicates the rapid adop on of video by newspapers online. Itsndings indicate that:

Newspapers are producing more video: The number of videos uploaded by each newspaper into the Brightcovepla orm grew from an average of 186 videos per month in 2007 to an average of 638 videos per month in 2008. Forthe year, the total number of uploaded videos grew by nearly 1,500% in 2008.

Newspapers are distribu ng more video on more webpages: In 2007, the number of Brightcove-powered video

player-loads on each newspaper website in the sample jumped from an average of 169,093 per month to an averageof 964,144 per month in 2008. In the same year, the total video player loads on newspaper websites grew by morethan 700% .

Consumers are watching more video on newspaper websites: Video streams from the companys newspapercustomers are growing an average of more than 35% quarter over quarter. In an example quarter (2009),Brightcoves newspaper customers did 42,777,231 video streams, compared to 15,311,542 video streams the samequarter in the previous year. In 2008, the company saw 365% growth in total video streams among newspapercustomers.

F :h p://www.bizreport.com/2009/04/can_video_save_newspapers.html

In brief, the rules have changed and the tradi onal press release is no longer adequate. Increasing pressures on journalists, coupled with the rise of the online ci zen journalist indicates that therewill be more demand for a greater range of informa on than just text.

Our research found that while general press releases are s ll useful and up to nowthe vast majority of journalists want to receive them by email, new pressures on

me mean that they also need quick access to images, video and links. The styleof informa on and forma ng is crucial that means no PDFs as the only source of informa on. Video is increasingly important, as are embeddable links and links toother sources.

PR is becoming increasingly about Personalised Rela ons, where a tailored and

relevant pitch is increasingly expected by journalists and bloggers alike. The tradi onalpress release no longer ful ls this requirement but the SMNR can provide a useful wayof hos ng all key facts and digital assets around a story that can supplement an emailpitch.

The SMNR has been si ng in the wings for a few years now, not quite managing tomake the most of its poten al. It would appear, however, that journalists could nally be coming round to makingthe most of the advantages SMNRs o er over the tradi onal press release.

Author: Nathan Greenhalgh, Liberate Media

Editor: Wendy McAuli e, Liberate Media

Nathan Greenhalgh
http://www.editorsweblog.org/multimedia/2009/07/bbc_to_share_video_news_with_uk_newspape.phphttp://blog.brightcove.com/en/2009/04/newspaper-online-video-surges-consumer-demandhttp://www.bizreport.com/2009/04/can_video_save_newspapers.htmlhttp://www.liberatemedia.com/http://www.liberatemedia.com/http://www.liberatemedia.com/http://www.liberatemedia.com/http://www.bizreport.com/2009/04/can_video_save_newspapers.htmlhttp://blog.brightcove.com/en/2009/04/newspaper-online-video-surges-consumer-demandhttp://www.editorsweblog.org/multimedia/2009/07/bbc_to_share_video_news_with_uk_newspape.php

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Has the Social Media News Release Come Finally of Age ?