“I Am Press Release” – 107 Years Young

Today’s guest post was written by Press Release, who recently turned 107 years of age.

It’s not easy being me.  After all, how would you like to wake up nearly every day to wave after wave of news articles and blogs and opinion pieces urging me to “die die die” or to articles claiming that I have actually been dead for several years already.

It hurts.  But it’s hogwash.  Thankfully, I have resolve, staying power and a thick skin.  I keep reminding myself that at 107 years old, I am battle tested and a true survivor.

How do you think Business Wire grew over the last 50-plus years to become a company that employs over 500 people in 32 bureaus around the world?  Well, it happened on my back.  And don’t forget that the Oracle of Omaha acquired Business Wire more than seven years ago and is now enjoying more growth as a subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway. So if Warren Buffet sees business value in me and recognizes that I’m able to adapt and morph and even thrive in the constantly changing world of news distribution and communications, well then dismissing me seems like a bad idea.

What about PR Newswire, the other big distributor of press releases? PR Newswire, which is also more than 50 years old, provides service to tens of thousands of corporate clients around the world.  PR Newswire, Business Wire and the entire community of news distribution companies that includes Marketwired, PRWeb and dozens of free services all have one thing in common:  they built their reputation and their business on my back.

There are those in the news community who say no one reads press releases.  Take freelance journalist/author Amy Westervelt for example, who recently wrote in her blog that the press release is dead, please stop trying to revive it. …  No one in the media reads press releases. Not a single person, I promise you. For some reason, companies still ask for them, publicists still write them, the wires still publish them—this whole completely unnecessary and ineffective ecosystem still exists. Stop it. Please. The only time I ever, ever hear a media person mention a press release is to mock it.

Hmm, I beg to differ, Amy.  To no one’s surprise, so does Sarah Skerik, vice president of content marketing for PR Newswire.

“No one reads press releases?” she says. “I’m sorry, I have data otherwise. People read them by the millions.”

Hey look, I’m not saying that I’m the be all and end all.  But if you use me in a thoughtful and strategic way like you do with your blogs and emails and tweets and whitepapers and eBooks — you know, as part of your targeted content plan and not indiscriminately like I see so many companies still doing while giving me a bad name in the process (aka spam), then I am going to deliver results for you.

I promise.  That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

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Read This Before Blaming Your PR Agency For Lack of Coverage

On behalf of PR agencies everywhere, thank you Amy Westervelt for your recent tell-all post on why startup companies need to stop pointing fingers at their PR firms and instead learn more about how editors and journalists do their jobs.

Amy is a freelance writer/editor/author and frequent contributor to business publications like Forbes, the WSJ, Bloomberg BusinessWeek and Fast Company among others. In her post, “Stop Complaining about Your PR Firm. Here’s How the Media Works,” Amy’s shares nine things about the media “that will hopefully help you figure out how to deal with us (and maybe your PR firm) better.”

One of the bigger challenges PR firms face in working with startups is the clients’ often unrealistic expectations when it comes to media coverage.  The combination of ego, drinking of the Kool-Aid when it comes to their offering/product, pressure by investors, over sensitivity as to what the competition is doing and general ADHD-related behavior can be toxic when it comes to building a mutually beneficial relationship between agency and startup.  Add in the factor of a client who has a fundamental misunderstanding of what compels a journalist to write an article and you have a recipe for disaster.

Any engagement with a new client should include a period of expectations setting that includes how agency and client are going to work together (roles & responsibilities) to achieve the desired results of the communications program.  It’s during an expectation setting session, which should happen in the first week of a new relationship, when the agency account team should be able to find out how much the client actually knows about how the media works.  If the client is a startup, chances are the principals have limited exposure to the media and taking them through a primer would be invaluable to the relationship.

Ms. Westervelt makes a number of great points in her post, and I encourage you (if you’re a PR pro or a client) to read it in its entirety, but for now I wanted to spotlight a handful of her points.

Editors are important.  Freelancers are your best friend. So true. Freelance journalists are more prevalent and more influential than anytime in recent memory.  Unlike a staff writer, a freelancer like Amy may write for several publications. They can make more money by repurposing one article so that it might run in multiple publications, albeit with a different angle and fresh content.

The most important PR move you can make is to build and maintain relationships, and be patient.  Another great point here. Just because your PR firm was able to set up an interview with a journalist for you doesn’t mean that journalist is going to run right back to their office and bang out an article.  “Maybe I’m waiting for a newsy hook to peg it to,” Amy says.  The worse response by the agency is to harass the journalist to find out when the story is going to run “Because his or her client is sending equally as many emails.”

Stop worshiping at the altar of print media.  I think it’s still largely true that a print article is held in higher regard than an online-only piece.  Amy, however, says clients should thank their PR people for getting them mentioned in Time.com blogs.  “You may not get a photo of yourself in TIME to frame for your office,” she says, “but chances are those blog posts will be read more and pay back more over time than that one print hit will.”  Print stories still carry a ton of weight, then again, who buys TIME anymore?

And finally …The press release is dead, please stop trying to revive it.  Like you, I’m pretty tired of reading the press release is dead stories.  They’ve been showing up for years, yet thousands upon thousands of press releases are issued everyday in the U.S. though Amy maintains that “No one in the media reads press releases. Not a single person, I promise you.”  Really, Amy?  Members of the media still look to news releases to keep current on companies and their financials, business trends and for story ideas, among other reasons, including to occasionally mock PR people.

Otherwise, I think Amy’s post is spot on and I wouldn’t hesitate to share it verbatim with any startup.  Would you?