What Do Modern Press Releases Look Like?
Newspaper reporters? Unfortunate but true, those folks are going the way of the dinosaur. So why are you, a public relations professional , still distributing press releases tailored to a nearly extinct species? Like the jump from rotary telephones to cellular phones, or typewriters to word processors, press releases are making the jump from unchanging documents to digital wonderlands of news and information. Do you have your act together with media releases for the digital age or are you still wrapped in that dated rotary telephone cord while banging on that fossilizing IBM typewriter ?
At one time , if you had put in the effort to lovingly produce a free seminar as a freebie to possible subscribers, you had to eat the cost of dubbing the seminar onto video tapes and sending it off to the customer. Nowadays , you can send those possible customers or subscribers to a URL and broadcast the seminar there. Today , putting out a one page tops, perfectly edited media release is the equivalent of sending a reporter a dusty old VHS cassette. The content creators of the digital age – bloggers, for one, and even modern, social media friendly newspapers and TV stations – are going to overlook your release in favor of a modern release with pictures, graphs and embedded video.
What Should a Press Release for the Digital Age Look Like?
Multimedia – Now not only do you have the opportunity to grab the attention of the media with your wordsmithery, you also get to add in images , art, presentations , videos , webinars , and more. Don’t describe how your brand new 100% energy efficient building looks. Add a picture. Heck, add a virtual tour!
Easy to Use – Just like newspaper reporters in days past weren’t going to waste valuable time to decipher your media release in search of the hook , today’s New Media content creators aren’t likely to click through a five link rabbit hole to track down a few lines of embed code for a video they plan to use on their blog. So put it in the release! The same is true for pictures, graphs and other media . Throw in high res pics that can be used digitally or printed out, and cite your sources.
Links – Some reporters may be labeled “bloggers” nowadays, but that doesn’t mean they’re not prepared to check out your story. If you make extraordinary claims, put your links where your mouth is and back it up with links as proof.
The Downsides of the Digital Press Release
You can distribute your press releases to a big audience, you can distribute them rapidly, or you can distribute them with a select group , but you can’t do all three , at least not now. Wide distribution of media releases is still limited by technology, although don’t bet on that lasting long.
Newswires like PR Newswire and Businesswire are normally text-only services, or they demand a fee to host photos at an HTML site. So while they can send out your release far and wide, they won’t allow you to issue a digital age press release all jazzed up with its photographic bells and graphic design whistles. On the other hand, for a little more up front in time and cash , you can send out your pumped up media release to a hand picked batch of journalists via email or even social media, but that still isn’t quite wide or quick distribution.
Digital media releases are not for those reporters who continue to wear their press pass in their hat brims . But, chances are, your release isn’t for those reporters of yesteryear anyway. It’s high time for PR professionals to make the technological leap.
This article is written by Mickie Kennedy, founder of eReleases, the online leader in affordable press release distribution. Grab your free copy of the Big Press Release Book – Press Releases for Every Occasion and Industry here: http://www.ereleases.com/insider/bigbook.html
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