A journalism site recently posted an article titled “Has social media finally killed the press release?”
Here’s a truism: any time a headline is in the form of a question that can be answered with a yes or no, the answer is invariably always 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 out information to the masses. But that was never the purpose of a press release, or at least a press release from a smart company.
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%.
Also, according to that same survey, when it comes to known sources, the least trusted is a social media manager.
The benefit of (good) press releases is that that they can (and should) be customized for each recipient rather than just “shotgunned” into the crowd as often done on social media.
While social media does have many uses, press releases are alive and well. But they’re not the entire solution for a company’s marketing needs. Of course, as a photographer, I have to say that 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 very important difference which all good PR people understand.
