From time to time, I complain about how badly some press releases are written. It's part of my job to read them, some ten thousand in the last six years alone.
The problem is clear: if I can't figure out in the first paragraph what the press release is about, then the company forfeits the opportunity to get itself mentioned in upFront.eZine. But the simple approach continues to mystify the marketing departments of some vendors.
So I was glad to read a marketing professional telling his peers to smarten up:
Go ahead and write traditional press releases, but do so with meaningful content. Keep it short and get rid of the adjectives, the 'first', the 'best', the 'paradigm-shifts', 'trend-setting' verbiage, 14 quotes, 'world-famous', etc., and get right down to the meat of it. Reporters aren’t reading brochures, they’re looking for news, and if you were ever any good at PR or marketing, you’d realize that hyperbole does not give your release a better shot at coverage.
Preach it, brother! You can read all of Brian Solis' commentary at Social Media Killed the Press Release Star. (He's the principal of FutureWorks PR, located in San Jose CA.)
The jury is still out on the social media press release.
Until then, the suggestions in this post about how to write compelling press releases are on the mark.
As a former journalist who worked at newspapers for 22 years, I've read thousands of them too.
I get so many questions about how to write press releases that I created a free 89-day tutorial on how to write them and distribute them online--so consumers, not only journalists, can find them.
You can opt in at my website at http://www.PublicityHound.com By the time you're done, you'll have a master's degree on how to write and distribute press releases.
Posted by: Joan Stewart, The Publicity Hound | Jan 24, 2007 at 06:12 AM