Attention, executives at wire services and industry magazines, before you jump into the comments section here, believe that I fully acknowledge your good intentions. However, perhaps your excitement and enthusiasm may have clouded your judgment and inadvertently encouraged the infamous PR spin to shape your announcements and articles, which ultimately added more weight to the designer luggage that PR, as an industry, is forced to lug around.
Back to my point...
We can't talk about how to improve PR enough, especially as the industry attempts to keep up with the rapidly changing landscape of influencers and communications tools.
posts out there discussing the MarketWire/PRNN deal, and not only what it means to Social Media and PR, but also analyzing the distribution of the news itself as a case study in understanding the differences between how Social Media and Traditional PR can work together.
One of the more common reactions out there has been that we're leading a charge that calls for the death of the press release as well as the wire services.
First, let me be clear. I've said all along that wire services have a place in the PR arsenal of broadcasting news and SEO, especially as the Web becomes the dominant source of information in our daily lives. I am simply stating that in the realm of Social Media, we examine other ways of getting our news in front of people in order to spark meaningful conversations across the Web and expand the overall reach of company news and information.
No one is calling for the death of the press release per se, we are calling for the end to the bull shit - honestly, cut the hyperbole, the corporate speak, and the messaging pyramid from the dialogue. Wire services aside, it’s the PR people that are pumping this stuff like toxic waste hoping to get out there over the wire and end up miraculously on the desk of the lead WSJ reporter. We all know things don’t work that way.
So without getting into the debate about Social Media and wire services, let’s fix traditional media before we start advertising new ways for PR people to package the same old crap in a new way.
No wire service ensures that messages are compelling or that they will be widely heard. They do, however, provide a channel for the news to reach communities and influencers, but there is a proactive step required of people in order to find the information. In most cases, they have to be looking for something that matters to them, whether it's Key words. Tags. Referrals.
Don’t get me wrong.
Wire services do work in different, yet still valuable ways. But let’s be clear, it’s up to PR to be intelligent about how to make them most effective.
My only cause here is to ensure that Social Media doesn’t end up as polluted as the majority of the traditional media infrastructure. Remember, this entire “Social Media meets PR” revolution was sparked by journalists comment sections of The traditional release about the PRNN acquisition could be covered by PRWeek and Bulldog and the original post on the acquisition (just a bit more focused on the deal and its relevance and hosted on a formal company news platform) as a representation of the kind of SMR I’m talking about?
Blogging platforms, thus far, are proving to be one of the most effective social tools for sparking and tracking online conversations.
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