A journalism site posted an article titled “Has social media finally killed the press release?”
Here’s a truism: if a headline is in the form of a question that can be answered with a yes or no, the answer is no. If the answer was yes, the headline would be in the form of a statement not a question.
Social media makes it fast, easy and free to send information to the masses. But that was never the purpose of a press release.
The purpose of having your company’s information retold by an established news media outlet is the credibility that you gain, the media blessing.
But credibility is a two-way street. A 2013 survey of 545 journalists worldwide showed that 51% of journalists would use information from social media but only when they knew the source behind that information. When the source was unknown to them, it dropped to 25%.
The least trusted known source, according to this same survey, is a social media manager.
The benefit of (good) press releases is that that they can (and should) be customized for each recipient. A press release should never be “shotgunned” into a crowd as often done on social media.
Social media have many uses but (good) press releases are still alive and well. But press releases are not the entire solution for a company’s marketing needs. Editorial photography should play a big part in that marketing.
When I worked at a daily newspaper and sorted through a pile of press releases, the goal was to find story ideas, not stories. It wasn’t about what a press release said, but why it said what it said. A subtle but important difference which all good PR people understand.
