Like the public relationsprofession as a whole,the press release hasevolved over the years,

and come under attack by critics and under constructionby more progressive thinkers inthe field. Many of us haveworked on press releases, strug-gled with the language, andwondered, perhaps, if the current format is inconsistentwith the way it reaches ourintended audience: the media.Many journalists search for stories in other places. They fil-ter their inboxes and applywhat’s crudely referred to as a“BS detector” to releases filledwith spin and gobbledygook.

There are plenty of books,blogs and white papers on thisailing (or somewhat advanced inage) communication tactic. Ifthe press release is on life sup-port, as some suggest, is thesocial media release, or SMR,that was talked about five yearsago (such as those from SHIFTCommunications, Pitch Engineand News Basis) its heir?

First, we need to ask if thepress release is still intended forthe press.

“Traditional PR is oftenreferred to as press relations,”

notes Shannon Whitley, HRsystems project manager at thelaw firm Pillsbury WinthropShaw Pittman and an applica-tion developer (he created MyTweeple, a relationship manage-ment tool). But consideringwhat social media have thepotential to do, he adds, “it’s alsovery important to expand thatreach to bloggers, group influ-encers and directly to the cus-tomer.” Although he grants thatit is important to reach out tothe press, he notes that “throughsocial media, large groups ofpeople are more available to PRprofessionals. With some work,PR practitioners can find placeswhere the most important peo-ple for a campaign are alreadygathering. All one has to do isjoin the conversation.”

Whitley knows firsthandabout going directly to the customer. He developed the first SMR creation tool, PRXBuilder, and now specializes insocial applications for the Web,desktops and mobile devices.

PR’s new platformJason Kintzler, a former journal-ist and anchorman turned PRguy, takes a different approach,saying we should not be obsess-

ing about or targeting the pressat all. Kintzler co-founded PitchEngine, a service that promisesto “free the press release.” Free it

communiqué

tech talk by angelo fernando

Doing PR in the era of social mediaWhatever became of the social media release?

“You cannot

make a press release

social. It has to be crafted

differently from the start,

multimedia-rich and

conversational—some-

thing traditional press

releases lack.”

10 Communication World • May–June 2011 www.iabc.com/cw

communiqué

www.iabc.com/cw Communication World • May–June 2011 11

SHU

TTERSTOC

K

from what? From the trappingsof a document, the companysays—to “put an end to theWord doc PR era.” Any news-

worthy announcement is placedin a social PR platform.

“Back when reporters wouldtypeset paragraphs from press

releases straight into articles, thepress release served as a utility,like a Swiss Army knife. It wasthe ‘plug-and-play’ of its day,”

12 Communication World • May–June 2011 www.iabc.com/cw

communiqué

about the authorAngelo Fernando is principal ofPublic Radius, an Arizona-based

strategic communication and PRconsultancy that helps organiza-

tions bridge the gap between traditional and digital media. Read

his blog at HoiPolloiReport.com.

Kintzler explains. When I askedhim to elaborate on this, theword spam came up a lot. Hewas incensed that some compa-nies use press releases like anaerosol can to spray “non-news”across the wire services, with theintention of reaching thousandsof journalists. Pitch Engineseems to be the grown-up ver-sion of the SMR, thoughKintzler shies away from callingit that (the company uses theword pitch instead). Rather, hebelieves that the traditional wireservices that created proprietaryversions of the SMR have“watered-down” versions ofwhat it could have been.

“Truth is, all they did is put ‘share buttons’ on tradi -

tional press releases,” Kintzlersays. “You cannot make a press release social. It has to becrafted dif ferently from thestart, multi media-rich and con-versational—something tradi-tional press releases lack.”

“Components of the socialmedia release continue to findtheir way into the releasestream,” Whitley says. “Forinstance, it’s exciting to see howHTML is now a major part ofthe downstream distributionfrom major newswires. Thisopens up many new possibilitiesfor social tools.”

This downstream flow isanother way of saying that con-tent elements in the press release(video, podcasts, image files,etc.) are search-optimized sothat not just journalists, but alsoa company’s affiliates, vendors,potential investors or customerscan get a more well-roundedview of a product or service.

Kintzler might second that,because he thinks that the press release (um, “pitch”)should be aimed at customers,not gatekeepers: “I believe thatin the next few years PR willbecome primarily consumer-facing. Brands are able to con-nect with consumers directlynow, leaving little need for amiddle man or distributor in theprocess.” What he means is thata story sent to a media organiza-tion is limited because it has topass through multiple filters. Ithas to be considered newsworthyto editors, then passed on towriters, then incorporated into astory. Why bother? Just as audi-ences now get their music andnews sans traditional distribu-tors, the broader audience willbe able to get to its information

by bypassing PR distributors. But not everyone is cheering

on the SMR. Mark Blevis, aCanada-based strategist on digi-tal communication, believes thatpress releases containing mes-sages intended for “consumingaudiences” are different fromthose intended for “participatingaudiences.” As such, PR needsto focus on engaging content,not delivery tools; the contentalso needs to change for differ-ent audiences. A 2010 survey ofmore than 770 journalists in 15countries found that 75 percentprefer to receive press releases viae-mail. Despite that, some jour-nalists, like Dan Nelson, givethe SMR format a thumbs-upbecause “it significantly cutsdown on the time it takes to getto the most important bits ofinformation.”

Nelson, a regular contributorto The Seattle Times and Men’sJournal, is your typical digitalnomad, working across mul -tiple operating systems—laptop,iPhone—and using online filestorage and RSS feeds. He sayshe has tailored his work style tocreate, interact with and distrib-ute content in the cloud, a termthat generally refers to usingapplications and services such asGmail or Dropbox that resideon remote servers and not on aperson’s computer hard drive.

“What do PR people whowork with press releases need tokeep in mind in order to reachor interest someone like you?” Iasked him. “Learn to work withPR in the cloud, and engage mein the cloud,” he respondedwithout missing a beat. A pressrelease that is nothing more thana digital version of a paper pressrelease, he says, won’t cut it. ●

Catch and releaseBefore you fire off that next release to your database of contacts,here are three things journalist Dan Nelson recommends that youkeep in mind:1. Get social. Create your release with more social features (video,

audio, etc.). Send a very short e-mail (with an emphasis on very)with a URL to the pitch.

2. Don’t send paper. Ever. A digital release is easy to archive for later use.

3. Don’t write the story. It is futile to write up a full-blown story.Nelson says he would never run a full story from a release—or acanned quote—verbatim. Instead, he’s always looking for ideas,condensed as bullet points.

—A.F.

Understanding SMRsWhat exactly is a social media release? It has its roots in a February2006 blog post by Financial Times correspondent Tom Foremski (“Die! Press Release! Die! Die! Die!”; find it here: http://bit.ly/cwiabc03).Foremski railed against traditional press releases, calling for PR peo-ple to “deconstruct” the information in the release and place it “intospecial sections,” tagging the different elements so that a publishercould then “pre-assemble” the story. That challenge was taken up byTodd Defren of SHIFT Communications, who created a template forthe social media press release.

—A.F.