I have just bumped into an article in PR Week about the state of the Press Release. I have read the introduction to the article: 'With the changing media landscape, today's press release has evolved into a virtual Swiss army knife of communications tools that can address a myriad of marketing challenges.'
I wanted to read more but unfortunately I do not have an access to Business Wire - the source of the report. As a result I can not tell you what Vice President of New Media Monika Maeckle thinks about the state of the press releases. What I can share with you is the results of my own research about the future of the social media news release.
I wanted to read more but unfortunately I do not have an access to Business Wire - the source of the report. As a result I can not tell you what Vice President of New Media Monika Maeckle thinks about the state of the press releases. What I can share with you is the results of my own research about the future of the social media news release.
Taking into consideration the growing importance of social media platforms, traditional news release has been transformed into much more technolgically savvy resource for journalists, which is Social Media Release (SMR). Its popularity as a Public Relations tool is growing and changing the third party endorsment into more direct-to-consumer communication. I have decided to investigate if there is any strong evidence or signs indicating an increse of popularity and usage of SMR as well as what kind of implication it might have for the PR industry in the future.
Tom Foremski in an article for Silicon Valley Watcher claimed, that the traditional press releases are useless and that demands have changed. In his opinion press releases are sent ‘(...)to reach the digital and physical trash bins of tens of thousands of journalists’.
I decided to check if more people supports Foremski's opinion about the traditional press releases. Neville Hobson, who is a Head of Socila Media Europe for an integrated communications company WCGon his blog experssed his beliefe that traditional press release has a place in PR's toolbox: '(Press release) plays a key role in you achiving your objective and the recipient of your announcment achiving his or her objective'. The importance of traditional press release template has been suported by the result of survey done by Oriella PR Network, which shows that the most useful type of PR's tactics in jounalist's opinion is still emailed press release.
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Which of the PR’s tools journalist finds the most useful. May/June 2010 (Oriella PR Network 2010) |
However, neither of those opinions are wrong or right. The traditional press release and media is important when trying to reach journalists, but is not good enough as a tool in order to satisfy the social media users which require and expect direct communication with brands.
Neville Hobson further on his blog supported the idea of using both tools in a complementary fashion: ‘That way, you’ll meet the needs of those who want to receive traditional press releases by email as well as those who will benefit from the interactivity of the social media version.’
SMR has opponents, who are not ready for the transition to the new press release template as its supporters can still see a future for it. Even though in the profession there is no doubt that this new communication tool provides easy access to useful information and will bring benefits, enhancing communications between customers and companies. There is a growing number of companies letting practitioners download the SMR template, which definitely indicates that there is a demand for this tool. One thing that is worrying is that most of the large wire services designing and allowing the download of SMR templates such as PRNewswire charge additional money to add a YouTube video or an image to the SMR. It is going to cause barriers for the PR industry in adopting SMR and the practice should be stop considering there is no charge for uploading a video to YouTube.
Neville Hobson further on his blog supported the idea of using both tools in a complementary fashion: ‘That way, you’ll meet the needs of those who want to receive traditional press releases by email as well as those who will benefit from the interactivity of the social media version.’
SMR has opponents, who are not ready for the transition to the new press release template as its supporters can still see a future for it. Even though in the profession there is no doubt that this new communication tool provides easy access to useful information and will bring benefits, enhancing communications between customers and companies. There is a growing number of companies letting practitioners download the SMR template, which definitely indicates that there is a demand for this tool. One thing that is worrying is that most of the large wire services designing and allowing the download of SMR templates such as PRNewswire charge additional money to add a YouTube video or an image to the SMR. It is going to cause barriers for the PR industry in adopting SMR and the practice should be stop considering there is no charge for uploading a video to YouTube.
In addition, SMR was the subject of many PR conferences such as the CIPR’s World Public Relations Conference and Festival in 2008, which indicates its importance for the industry. Introduction of new PR tools should be exciting for communication professionals and they should not be scared in embracing new techniques.
Professional bodies such as CIPR should encourage practitioners to use a SMR as a opportunity to improve the service the PR industry offers and allow the profession to develop. At the same time, PR practitioners should inform their clients that they should be more flexible and evolve by using new tools to distribute messages in a way that they can be better shared and delivered within the Web 2.0. Whilst studying, future PR practitioners should be taught how to write both traditional and social media press release and how to use them for the appropriate audience.
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