Poll: Don’t trash press releases yet

By Lindsay Miller

Source: Ragan.com

Even as social media widens its reach, communicators see a future for the old standby

Despite continued reports of newspapers failing and social media growing, communicators say press releases are as useful as ever, especially for targeting print outlets.

A recent poll of corporate communicators conducted by Ragan Communications and PollStream found 49 percent of the poll’s 401 respondents believe press releases are “as useful as ever.” Another 33 percent said they’re a necessary evil that won’t go away soon, in part because of SEC notification rules. An overwhelming 64 percent said they target their press releases most often to print outlets, and 23 percent listed online news and financial sites as well.

If press releases are losing relevance, it’s because of the growth of social media, said 45 percent of respondents. Though, 23 percent and 24 percent respectively blamed the demand for a more trustworthy and/or engaging information source and the decline of the newspaper and magazine industry.

Lauren Fernandez, marketing coordinator at American Mensa, still believes in the power of the press release and the importance of directing the message and the medium to the audience. You’re not going to have much success tweeting a reporter who prefers press releases via fax nor contacting a 65-year-old-plus audience via Facebook.

“Traditional tools will not go away,” Fernandez says. “I can’t say that something is new and shiny and I’m going to forget everything else. I don’t think [press releases are] going to go away. I don’t think they’re dead; most effective brands are using both.”

Whether press releases are very near to or light-years away from their demise, PR professionals are thinking twice before writing and submitting them. If they decide to send one, it’s for a specific reason; if not, they’re confident they can reach their audience through other means.

Targeting the press release

There may be good reason for a more direct approach. Most communicators surveyed send their press releases to print sources, which means newspapers and other publications receive hundreds, perhaps thousands, of press releases per day, says Vanessa Horwell, chief visibility officer for ThinkInk. Some surveys estimate that from 55 percent to 97 percent of press releases sent to media outlets are never acted upon, Horwell says.

That’s a lot of work for a small result, and the reason Horwell believes sending press releases shouldn’t be an exclusive tactic.

“I’m not anti-press-release,” Horwell says. “It’s a tool that our industry uses and needs, but people view press releases as the be-all and end-all of what we do. They don’t see that the content needs to be newsworthy content that’s vital for a story to be told.”

Horwell thinks about the audience and how useful the information is before sending press releases on behalf of her clients.

“We need to create interest first, but people keep pushing out press releases because companies think that the more they’re sending out, something’s going to stick,” Horwell says. “That’s not how I want PR as an industry to be known. Can we live without them? No. Do we need to change? Yes.”

For one of her clients, National Foundation for Teaching Entrepreneurship, she focused on creating events including competitions and roundtables instead of press releases. She does issue one press release per quarter—if there’s news to announce.

“We do it on a case-by-case basis,” she says. “Who are they trying to reach? How many people are they trying to reach? We’ll send it out on a wire if it’s so big, because you can pitch to 500 editors quickly. But we make sure it’s breaking news and that it ties into something that’s just taken place. You can’t physically reach out to everyone.”

Of the respondents, one communicator echoed Horwell and said simply, “Sometimes you only need two sentences (a tweet) to tell a story.”

Another applauded social media tools for the level of control it allows, “It depends upon your audience, but you can reach your clients directly with your message intact. With a press release, it is up to the press how and what they decide to print or broadcast.”

Trusting the message

Part of the reason for recommending a widespread approach may be the public’s perception of which medium is most trustworthy. According to the 2009 Edelman Trust Barometer, trust of news coverage on the radio, television, Internet, and in newspapers ranked significantly higher (38, 36, 35, and 34 percent respectively) than corporate communications such as press releases, a company’s Web site, and social media (26, 24, and 15 percent respectively). Although survey respondents trusted all these media less this year than in 2008, trust of corporate communications fell from 38 percent to 26 percent.

Communicators who responded to the Ragan/PollStream survey trusted social media the most, followed by corporate communications, and company Web sites.

One communicator chalked it up to shrinking news sources. “As news sources become more obviously biased and decrease in size and content, publics are turning to other sources of information.”

Another blamed cautious companies. “Companies have become too self-protecting in their releases. Everything has been tossed into the legal CYA blender, and what comes back is bland and over-processed.”

One way to get around that, of course, is social media. Fernandez uses Twitter and Facebook to connect with members and prospective members to promote the brand. She also tries to connect with reporters using her personal Twitter and Facebook account so she’ll be available if they have questions.

If she’s pitching media, she tries a bit of everything.

“A lot of beat reporters have seven different beats now, whereas before they just had one or two,” Fernandez says. “It’s just a guessing game at this point, so we really use all of the channels. Traditional is just as important. We use all the tools to try to reach a limited pool of people who have to decide what’s important.”

Toronto-based Pollstream partnered with Ragan to create POLL-arized, a series of polls about corporate communications. PollStream is a leading provider of interactive engagement and community building solutions for Fortune 1000 organizations and government organizations. Its proprietary two-way dialogue solutions engage, educate and inform customers, prospects and employees online. For more information, please visit PollStream.