I'm up late tonight working on a press release that's not a press release. It's a "social media release." Sure I wish I was sleeping. But it could be worse. I could be working on a press release.
A social media release recognizes that the web has changed the game and journalists don't want to get a heavily canned press release that's dense with run on sentences like this one that contain a million bits of jargon all awkwardly architected in language that pushes the bounds of grammar and often never seems to get to the freaking point already.
When I was writing for the Globe, the releases I received largely went unread. The pitches I really payed attention to were very short interesting emails. But even then, if they didn't contain a link directly to more info, I just passed them by.
Social media releases have a headline, a short summary and then bulleted lists below that contain key facts, approved quotes, and links to media (blog, site, video, image, etc.).
Mark Glaser has a nice piece on the current state of the social media release.
Help to kill the press release!
I'm with you. The press release is dead.
Best,
Raza Imam
SoftwareSweatshop.com
Posted by: SoftwareSweatshop | April 28, 2008 at 12:49 PM
Maura. Give www.pressreleasegrader.com a try. It is a cool, free tool we built to help folks build better press releases that drive more business value. Bh.
Posted by: brian halligan | August 08, 2008 at 12:41 AM