have commented on my blog or reached out to me as a result of a blog post or a story I’ve written in a magazine. How difficult can it be to read the blogs and Twitter feeds of the reporters you’re trying to pitch? It teaches you precisely what interests them. Then you can email them with something interesting that they are likely to write about rather than spamming them with unsolicited press releases. When I don’t want to be bothered, I get hundreds of press releases a month. But when I do want feedback and conversation, I get silence.
Something’s very wrong in PR land.
Reporters and editors use the web to seek out interesting stories, people, and companies. Will they find you?
Public Relations and Third-Party Ink
Public relations was once an exclusive club. PR people used lots of jargon and followed strict rules. If you weren’t part of the in crowd, PR seemed like an esoteric and mysterious job that required lots of training, sort of like being an astronaut or a court stenographer. PR people occupied their time by writing press releases targeted exclusively to reporters and editors and by schmoozing with those same reporters and editors. And then they crossed their fingers and hoped that the media would give them some ink or some airtime (“Oh, please write about me!”). The end result of their efforts—the ultimate goal of PR in the old days—was the press clip, which proved they had done their job.
Only the best PR people had personal relationships with the media and could pick up the phone and pitch a story to the reporter for whom they had bought lunch the month before.
Prior to 1995, outside of paying big bucks for advertising or working with the media, there just weren’t any significant options for a company to tell its story to the world.
The web has changed the rules. Today, organizations are communicating directly with buyers.
Yes, the Media Are Still Important
Allow me to pause again for a moment to say that the mainstream and trade media are still important components of a great public relations program. On my blog and on the speaking circuit, I’ve sometimes been accused of suggesting that the media are no longer relevant. That is not my position. The media are critically important for many organizations. A positive story in Rolling Stone propels a rock band to fame. An article in the Wall Street Journal brands a company as a player. A consumer product talked about on the Today show gets noticed. In many niche markets and vertical industries, trade magazines and journals help decide which companies are important. However, I do believe that, while all these outlets are important aspects of a larger PR program, there are easier and more efficient ways to reach your buyers. And here’s something really neat: If you do a good job of telling your story directly, the media will find out. And then they will write about you!
Public relations work has changed. PR is no longer just an esoteric discipline where companies make great efforts to communicate exclusively to a handful of reporters who then tell the company’s story, generating a clip for the PR people to show their bosses. These days, great PR includes programs to reach buyers directly. The web allows direct access to information about your products, and smart companies understand and use this phenomenal resource to great advantage.
The Internet has made public relations public again, after years of almost exclusive focus on media. Blogs, online video, news releases, and other forms of web content let organizations communicate directly with buyers.
Press Releases and the Journalistic Black Hole
In the old days, a press release was actually a release to the press, so these documents evolved as an esoteric and stylized way for companies to issue their “news” to reporters and editors. Because it was assumed that nobody saw the actual press release except a handful of reporters and editors, these documents were written with the media’s existing understanding in mind.
In a typical case, a tiny audience of several dozen media people got a steady stream of product releases from a company. The reporters and editors were already well versed on the niche market, so the company supplied very little background information. Jargon was rampant. What’s the news? journalists would think as they perused the release. Oh, here it is—the company just announced the Super Techno Widget Plus with a New Scalable and Robust Architecture. While this might mean something to a trade magazine journalist, it is just plain gobbledygook to the rest of the world. Since press releases are now seen by millions of people who are searching the web for solutions to their problems, these old rules are obsolete.
The Old Rules of PR
The only way to get ink and airtime was through the media.
Companies communicated to journalists via press releases.
Nobody saw the actual press release except a handful of reporters and editors.
Companies had to have significant news before they were allowed to write a press release.
Jargon was okay because the journalists all understood it.
You weren’t supposed to send a release unless it included quotes from third parties, such as customers, analysts, and experts.
The only way buyers would learn about the press release’s content was if the media wrote a story about it.
The only way to measure the effectiveness of press releases was through clip books, which noted each time the media deigned to pick up a company’s release.
PR and marketing were separate disciplines run by different people with separate goals, strategies, and measurement techniques.
The web has transformed the rules, and you must transform your PR strategies to make the most of the web-enabled marketplace of ideas.
The vast majority of organizations don’t have instant access to mainstream media for coverage of their products. People like you and me need to work hard to be noticed in the online marketplace of ideas. By understanding how the role of PR and the press release has changed, we can get our stories known in that marketplace.
There are some exceptions. Very large companies, very famous people, and governments might all still be able to get away with using the media exclusively, but even that is doubtful. These name-brand people and companies may be big enough, and their news just so compelling, that no effort is required of them. For these lucky few, the media may still be the primary mouthpiece.
If you are J. K. Rowling and you issue a press release about a new book, the news will be picked up by the media.
If Apple Computer CEO Tim Cook announces the company’s new iPhone, the news will be picked up by the media.
If the president of the United States announces a pick to fill a vacancy on the U.S. Supreme Court, the news will be picked up by the media.
If you are smaller and less famous but have an interesting story to tell, you need to tell it yourself. Fortunately, the web is a terrific place to do so.
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