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PR Leads Publicity Articles
The Internet Ushers in the Golden Age of PR
By Dan Janal
Your Fearless PR Leader
PR Leads
www.prleads.com
Public Relations will enter a Golden Age thanks to the widespread use of the Internet and the Commercial Online Services, like CompuServe, America Online and Prodigy. Because of technology, PR practitioners will be able to reach their audiences directly-without the intervention of the editor and reporter who act as both gatekeeper and censor of information.
Let's look at what can happen when you send a press release to a reporter. They can:
- Throw it out-which happens more times than PR Pros would care to admit.
- Print it in full.
- Print parts of it, without additional comments.
- Print parts of it, with comments by competitors who downplay your story
- Print parts of it, with comments by analysts who change your perspective.
- Print parts of it in a roundup with competitors, thus diluting your message.
- Delete the key messages that support your main point.
- Introduce typos and errors
So there you have eight actions, seven of which are negative, or potentially negative.
Those should be enough reasons for you to want to speak directly to your audience. But if that doesn't convince you, let's look at a case study.
America Online recently sent a press release over PR Newswire announcing its purchase of the Global Network Navigator from O'Reilly and Associates-a major story in the online community. The company-written press release ran approximately 1,300 words and included quotes from Steve Case president of AOL and Tim O'Reilly president of O'Reilly and Associates.
Reuters felt this was a worthy story. They took the release, cut out the quotes and printed a mere 410 words, less than one-third of the original story.
Did the reader get a fair assessment of the AOL story? Hardly. Does the investment community understand more or less because of the editing by the gatekeepers? Obviously less.
What's a PR practitioner to do?
Plenty.
The first thing to realize is that your audience can access all press releases sent over PR Newswire via the Internet and CompuServe. By using simple searches on keywords, they can find all press releases meeting their needs. So make sure you send releases over PR Newswire. The cost is generally less than $100.
Second, your readers can access press releases you post in your Home Page on the World Wide Web. Many, many, many high tech companies do this today. If you aren't following this tactic, you are giving your competitors an advantage. You can hire any number of talented Internet Presence Providers to set up a competent home page for about $2,500, plus nominal monthly charges for updating and storing your page.
Third, you can create a mailing list of your customers. This is an electronic tool that broadcasts your press releases to customers' email boxes. A word of caution, however. Make sure you get permission from each customer. Online consumers hate junk mail. The rule of thumb for online etiquette, or "netiquette" is "Information that is UNsolicited is UNappreciated." Follow it as if your life depended on it, because if people get upset, they can and will tell 30,000 of their closest online friends with the click of a few keystrokes.
All these steps allow you to create long-lasting relationships with your public. They will come to rely on you as a resource of information that they can't get from the daily newspapers and trade publications. Further, you'll save money through these tools, compared to incurring the expense of printing and mailing hundreds or thousands of press releases via snail mail.
However, these strategies aren't meant to assume that you should ignore the media. Nothing could be further from the true course of action. The media should continue to be an important part of the news dissemination and distribution process. The media still plays an unmatched role as the bestower of credibility on companies and products. A kind word from a reporter will still mean more to a company's credibility than all the ad space in Cyberspace.
Further, many reporters will come to rely on these tools as a way to get information quickly and accurately. Several reporters have told me they wished that all company press releases were in a searchable database online. When they get an assignment to cover a product or company they are not familiar with, they would be able to get a quick read from the company's perspective. They don't want to rely on other reporters articles! Even reporters realize that errors and bias could enter the story printed in the trade magazines and daily newspapers. Yes, hard as it is to believe, some reporters actually value press releases!
The most important point to realize is that the new technology allows all of us in public relations and marketing communications to become publishers of quality information that helps our audiences become happier customers and more profitable investors.
This article can be reprinted if the following information is printed:
By Daniel Janal, dan@prleads.com, http://www.prleads.com
PR Leads founder Daniel Janal is the author of numerous books, including "Dan Janal’s Guide to Marketing on the Internet.”
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