Communicating Successfully Through Press Releases in the Web 2.0 World
by Lisa Davis, senior marketing manager at Marketwire (Toronto, ON, Canada)
Nobody ever said communicating was easy.
Taking a message and relaying it to an audience so that they not only understand it but act on it is an onerous task indeed. It’s a tired cliché that in the Web 2.0 world, our jobs as communicators have changed dramatically. Social media, mobile devices and the democratized Web have turned the ways in which we think about crafting messages and targeting audiences inside out.
The technology that powers much of today’s communication, allowing us to blog, text, record, type, post, create, talk and share, is at once enabling and disabling, exhilarating and overwhelming, connecting and disconnecting. We live in a world where presidential candidates use Twitter to announce their running mates and citizen journalists can take video captured on their cell phone and upload it to YouTube faster than international news correspondents can feed footage to CNN.
But is this increased speed, universality and technological savvy making our jobs as communicators easier? Yes and no. While we can continue to use press releases in this Web 2.0 “communication revolution” as efficient, effective ways to reach and build positive relationships with media, consumers and other stakeholders, we need to make sure we do so with our traditional PR instincts intact and our not-so-traditional new technologies —especially the ability to understand and leverage them—fully engaged.
The old adage holds true: The more things change, the more they stay the same. When creating a press release, the fundamentals of good communication, adaptations of the simple rules we learn early in our careers, are as important as ever, and continue—with the power of new technologies—to further successful communication strategies.
Know your audience
One-to-many communication is simpler and faster today than it’s ever been. But just because you can reach almost everyone, everywhere, with your press release, doesn’t mean it’s good practice to do so. The simple fact is that “everyone” is not your audience. Targeting your messages to ensure you reach those most interested has always been important, but perhaps it’s now more important than ever because it’s so easy to connect with traditional and social media audiences, consumers, analysts and other stakeholders. There is no one-size-fits-all in communication, and the more we know about our audiences—the beats they cover, stories they are interested in, products they blog about—the better prepared we are to build and establish relationships with the right people on the receiving end of our press releases.
Know your pitch
The blogosphere is buzzing with thoughts on why traditional press releases are ineffective tools to communicate with media, bloggers and consumers in Web 2.0. Many argue that in today’s media-saturated, 24/7 news cycle, recipients simply don’t have time to read press releases, and the days of pitching your story based on a 400-word release are gone. But is that really the case? The push and pull of news and information still exists in Web 2.0, as does the relationship between those who write and those who want to be written about. How you pitch and to whom has evolved, and today you can Twitter pitch someone as simply as you can call them. But keep in mind that the perfect pitch comes only with a solid understanding of your story, and whether you’re communicating it to the desserts editor at Bon Appetit or to the country’s hottest baking blogger, you need to make them understand—quickly and clearly—why they should care about what you have to say, and how it’s relevant to them. When you have a solid understanding of your facts and your audience and how they fit together, you greatly increase the chances for positive results from your pitch and your press releases.
Know your tools, but also know their limits!
The introduction of the Social Media Press Release (SMPR) into the communicator’s arsenal has at once excited and troubled many in the profession. Many communicators see the SMPR as the perfect vehicle for reaching consumers, non-traditional media and online communities and providing them with multimedia-rich content and collaborative tools. Purists see the SMPR as content-heavy, misdirected communication that is a poor replacement for true media relations, primarily because it bypasses traditional media altogether. There’s truth in both arguments because what works well for some announcements and some audiences doesn’t necessarily work well for others. Just as an SMPR is a poor fit for a media advisory, trying to convey sight and sound or promote two-way communication with text alone is almost impossible. The array of shiny Web 2.0 accessories available for our press releases can be distracting: embedded photos and video, social media tags, audio files, RSS and more. But social media should only be part of a communication strategy, and you need to learn which tools work best to engage which audiences. Bloggers and thought leaders like Shel Holtz, Brian Solis, Todd Defren and, of course, members of IABC are great sources of information on trends and best practices for communicating in Web 2.0.
Successfully navigating Web 2.0 and effectively using press releases to communicate with new and converging audiences can sometimes be difficult, but by adhering to the rules of knowing your audience, your pitch and your tools, it’s entirely manageable and effective. (And it sure is fun!)
About the author
Lisa Davis has been instrumental in the PR community for more than a decade, specializing in youth marketing. She is currently the senior marketing manager for Marketwire, based in Toronto. You can contact her at
.
|
