A recent poll of corporate communicators conducted by Ragan Communications and PollStream shows up this week, saying that “only 49% of today’s professional communicators say they think press releases are ‘as useful as ever.’ ” About a third say that the news release is holding on largely due to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s old school disclosure rules for public companies.
“Press” releases have been declared dead on other occasions. Mary Schmidt did so in September in Lipsticking. Shel Holtz weighed in 3+ years ago with a reasonable call for evolution (…is Dead. Long Live the …). “Press releases generally don’t create either relevance or trust. In the Darwinism of this crowded new media environment, they don’t survive,” declared Josh in Span Society during the post-election crisis in Iran. Mark Naples of iMedia Connection posted recently on “6 Facts Every Marketer Must Know,” in which he heaps another shovel of dirt on the release based on polls of people who cover marketing for large media outlets.
For a guy who started out his PR career trying to convince clients that an objective of “getting out 100 press releases this year” wasn’t a good objective, I should be heartened. But I’m not. I am hopeful that while the form has used up most of its nine lives, there are many more miles in this cat. And, I am challenged because of what all this talk about the news release says about our culture.
There are three reasons for my faith that the news release has a few more lives.
First, our writing for the ear and for the eye has been expanded in unprecedented ways in recent years with the advent of text messaging, mini-blogs, online video and the like. But, we haven’t given up on the written word. The value of a news release may come in the complete telling of the story from the client’s perspective all in one place. The fact that it has evolved from being written purely for the eye and now includes video or audio that covers other senses is allowing readers/viewers to experience the subject more fully. The better targeted the communication, the more likely it is to be a part of a story, column, post or on-air piece, for sure, but well-timed and well-executed releases still have value.
Gladwell (Social Media: not changing world)
That said, there is a tipping point coming, even if, as reported by rocker/chairman Khan Manka, Jr. , “Malcolm Gladwell (The New Yorker) basically (has said we are) all full of ourselves if we think for one minute that we’re changing the world in any way.” (Khan wrote of the Strauss Zelnick’s Rooftop Salon recently).
Third, the “market” for these communiques is separating the good from the bad. There are literally hundreds of bloggers and journalists who are now able to push a button and purge all messages from a lousy PR person. There are whole blogs and columns written about what not to do. Beth Kanter delivered a great one recently that contained an admonition agaist “cravat” pitches (her husband’s neckwear at their wedding was described in Esquire – with elegant language – as “last seen around the neck of the Undertaker before his match at Wrestlemania XXV. Unless you can deliver tombstone piledrivers to anyone who scoffs at you, opt for a bow tie.”). She also noted, ”My husband didn’t ask me to marry him on our first date.”
And what does all of this say about our culture?
- We are “uprofessionalizing” news at a rate that amazes me. Whole media outlets are falling by the wayside. Whole TV shows are now being done in Tweet form (TMZ). Journalism is trending toward Drudge’s world view in a Liberty Roundtable quote from 1998 – a nation of 300 million reporters.
- Rumor, gossip or opinion is taking on the same relevance as news. But, in this stream, journalists from traditional media are finding some good-sized fish, too.
- Bloggers, for the most part, aren’t coming up with a sustainable business model, so when the economy improves how many of us will find other jobs? In the meantime, traditional media are handing over the keys to covering the news.
- Developing a new relationship between public relations professionals and new media is presenting a tough value proposition. Some want the relationship building to move beyond appropriate first date behavior quickly so we can get to the good stuff. Fortunately, most humans aren’t that easy. Building relationships takes time and resources well beyond what was required in the old press release culture, and many still remember that old culture too fondly. (How many Virginians does it take to change a light bulb? Three. One to actually change the bulb while the other two talk about how great the old bulb was.)
- Engagement is difficult in the form of comments, tweets and limited face-to-face. The old model of engagement was a cab ride uptown to do a personal deskside briefing. Technology has brought us closer in many ways, but it’s more ambient closeness and quasi-relationship in some ways. I’m encouraged by how there are places to meet up, but they also are proliferating and straining the resources traditionally dedicated to communications activities in the old one-big-trade-show; four-big-magazines era.
Many of us continue to move at light speed in sorting this out, and the tilting against traditional windmills work is exhausting. So, I still cling just a little to the evolved news release while doing all these other things. Does that make me a bad person?
Thought-provoking piece, Michael. When I was in college, I was taught the target audience for a press release was the news media. During the last few years, the target audience has clearly evolved. However, the press release seems to be lagging in its evolution.
It’s been my experience that the press release CAN be used as an interactive document but there is nothing inherently social about a static press release, it’s up to you and I to make it social, to spread the word, to have a conversation stem from the news, that’s what makes even a ‘traditional’ release social in my mind.
@Britt Drewes Yes, the press release has been slow to evolve, but I’d say that the sharing tools are now available and the evolution now relies on the crafting of “shareable content” Meaning, Add video, add photo’s and use hyperlinks to social profiles. You’d be surprised at the lack of simple links added in press releases.
@MichaelWhitlow I think you’re smart to cling to the evolution of the news release without giving up on it completely. As you point out, PR Pro’s still have an opportunity to tell a story from the client’s perspective all in one place and now it be a little more transnational. I think this hybrid approach to news releases works.
Michael – Thanks for the thoughtful comments. Yeah, the laughable mistake today is sending a release with nothing linked. Even if that was OK for the media (since you’re going to approach them many ways), it doesn’t do anything for the broader audience Britt suggests is reading the things. So, evolve we must, eh?
Michael, I’m with you on seeing the value of press releases but not from a media perspective. The process of preparing a press release triggers a review of an entire communication strategy: Who’s the audience? Why is the topic worthy of attention? Do we even have a decent boilerplate that sums up our value in the marketplace?
Since most press releases seem to be created to fuel word of mouth, perhaps we could drop “press” altogether. “Buzz release” anyone?
Therese – Glad to hear from you on this. Love the idea of Buzz Release, but just not sure…I always told my clients to drop “press,” but the press seems to be going away quicker than it is being dropped from our outdated lexicon. Your questions are great in the era of the new form release (social, searchable, etc.). Thanks!
you know what’s funny, sometimes I see news in TV that was sourced over the internet! I personally feel bothered about it since they’re supposed to gather news somewhere else and not where it’s easily accessible for normal, average people like us.
if they continue on doing this, then their resources should be cut down to laptops, terminals and nothing more.
as for the press releases, I have always believed that using traditional ways combined with the new is the best way to nail a market. what it needs is to comply with each other.
great post, by the way! :)
Having embraced social media tools this year, I have been researching the press release vs the social media news release. The purpose of both is branding, however the methods and styles are both similar and different. Relationships are a must for both, but the social news release comes with the “must be tailored to the listeners of the blogger” and submitted by the preferred listening method of that blogger (not typically email as in a traditional press release, but comments to their blogs or even twitter but mostly not Direct messages(DM)). With collaboration 2.0 in the mix, and few legal experts embracing facebook for the enterprise it will be a slow process for big business to effectively use or embrace social media news releases. Both have their place and smart firms will learn how to use them concurrently.
great piece! Glad my husband has a sense of humor and he’s glad that he has a different last name!
Good take on this issue Michael and I agree that even in a rapidly shifting media landscape the humble press release has a place when “well timed and well executed”…a comment on your thought about how the nature of a public “lawyer dominated” company culture is one reason why the press release – a static document by nature – endures against the sort of new media nirvana of communications some espouse. I believe there is, as well, a more prosaic reason that the press release format yet endures and has value. After leading external communications for a number of different business units at a public corporation I’ve realized that the static press release format often serves a dynamic “behind the scenes” function when it comes to framing a communications strategy.
In many ways – before ever seeing the light of day so to speak – a press release has done a great deal of heavy lifting internally by helping to focus a timely discussion about a news-oriented story we need to communicate…an painful but necessary “consensus building” exercise that helps align key internal groups (marketing, sales, line of business, IR, overseas staff, legal etc) and results in an evolution (in the ideal case) from something dense and unapproachable into a simple, crisp & clear articulation.
Ideally this articulation advances some higher strategic purpose and represents a key public data point supporting numerous other tactical contributions (such as op-eds, feature stories, marketing campaigns, executive speeches, blog postings, viral videos, etc) that combine to achieve something of importance to the business. Inside our company the often agonizing process of getting a final, approved press release ready to issue – numerous conversations held, decisions mediated and made, words written and edited and edited again – becomes by virtue of the work required and the people brought together…an essential part of driving to a result (be it increasing sales, advancing corporate reputation, developing a thought leadership platform or entering a new market) and thus integral to strategic communications.
I’ve not seen a blog, a tweet or anything else on the new media front that comes close to helping to promote this level of formal coherence internally and doubt that, until something does, we’ll ever see the press release format completely fade. However once it crosses the wire then, as you rightly note, it’s a Brave New World…