Does the birth of social media mean the death of the press release?  I don’t think so.  Especially when so many companies are putting up new and shiny examples of newsblogs.  In fact, the genre may be in for a renaissance.

Let’s face it.  Most press releases are dry, boring, self aggrandizing and relentlessly pre-packaged. They are usually exhibit A in the case for “why journalists hate p.r. people.”  Even p.r. people think the press release as we know it is going to die.  I’ll confess, there are some press release projects that have given me the urge to carve the headstone myself.  But, thanks be to God, social media may help cure the inherent ills of the press release.

It can, because social media releases allow you to attach more interesting things onto your press releases–video, podcasts, presentations and lots of relevant linking background stories.  More organizations, particularly healthcare organizations, are starting to put out more and better releases than ever before.  The difference is, they are using tools that humanize their stories.  They’re offering more real interviews instead of canned quotes.  They’re focusing on the kind of information that is not only helpful to people, but that they might actually pass around to friends and colleagues.  They are responding to people who comment online about their stories.  It’s a dialogue, not a diatribe.  And best of all, newsblogs are done on wordpress, which even a monkey could operate. Suddenly, you don’t have to have a four-year degree in programming to put up your releases in your newsroom.  If you don’t know what I mean, here’s one of the best, most comprehensive, cutting-edge newsblogs I’ve seen.  Read it, and rejoice, p.r. people.  Our new era of usefulness has begun.

This entry was posted on Friday, November 13th, 2009 at 4:41 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.