The Future of Press Releases

The long-standing cornerstone of most public relation offices has been the distinguished press release. It has pretty much never been changed and remains the best tool for companies to declare their news to the media. Specialized agencies used to send out releases to offices and press bureaus around the world hoping that their news was considered worthy and made it through the selective process to be noticed.

Within the last decade, the necessity of a PR company to communicate directly with the bureaus has become less important. The internet has allowed anyone to post a press release on just about any of the press release syndication websites. The drawback to this mode of free promotion is the included advertising for other companies or products whether they are related to your press release or not... or even if they're competition. Another drawback is the fact that the market is much more flooded now with the free distribution over the internet, so the chances of getting your press release noticed and printed are slim.

Journalists and editors scan through traditional press releases just to catch the key phrases and decipher if there's anything worth talking about. If they're not worded properly, formatted right or just too long-winded then your important information could be overlooked completely. In writing traditional press releases, the headline is the most important bold information at the top center of the sheet. Just as with newspaper headlines, it allows people to glance over it and see if the topic piques their interest and read on if it does.

Brian Solis has taken that concept and worked it in with one of the fastest moving social media networking sites. A new wave of press releases are called MicroPR, which is a micro press release using Twitter. It's genius in that a micro press release (140 characters or less) can be posted directly to a community of journalists, bloggers and/or editors. Solis's idea of eliminating the verbiage and just posting headlines on Twitter is groundbreaking, in my opinion. Why? It's direct, less to write and read. "Here it is! Interested? Great! Want more info? Fantastic! Go to my blog/website/myspace/twitter to find out more!" It all can lead directly through all of your social networking sites my good friends.

Not many bands understand the importance of press releases. To be honest, the ones that will get you across the desks of the major publications need to be done by professionals who will cost you money, but can guarantee results. But, start looking into some of the press related twitter accounts and see who you can follow and where they might take you.

Here's a few that I found:

Press About

Twitter Press Release 001

Also, steer clear of the sites that are starting to charge for Twitter press releases! Carmen San Diego will be delving further into this phenomenon this week and let you know more about it next Hump Day.

Cheers!
Creed