Take of the Week:
I can admit that I have had a roller coaster relationship with the press release. Ten years ago, I would have told my clients and/or employers that there was no need to waste money when we can just issue a blog post. However, my tune changed when I also saw that the press release can send a signal to an announcement’s importance and that it’s an uplevel from a blog post.
Fast forward to today and there’s been lots of research showing that LLMs are picking up press releases. Hence my surprise when I saw a post calling for the press release to be killed. The press release is a vehicle that should not only remain in a PR pro’s arsenal, but it should be treated differently than a blog post. When it comes to bigger announcements (i.e. major product announcements and corporate news), I like to think of a press release as a high-level, more concise description of that news; whereas the blog post can be written with deeper context.
I’m curious, what do you all think about killing the press release?
Resource of the Week:
Vince shared his “Perfect Pitch ” deck from their recent webinar, it’s worth a look
A message from Reportable:
Did you ever get sticker shock after setting up a press release? Only to learn it's because you're being charged by the word? Reportable's Karen Reynolds has worked at some of those major wire service companies and can spill the tea on the legacy of word counts with the big newswires.
If you're interested, schedule a call with her; and this is "not" a sales pitch, it's purely educational.
The Rest of the Takes:
Media relations
- Aya is “just”ified in her reaction to the statement, “just pitch the media.”
- Not only does Andrew have a killer 90s SNL reference, but I also love this question about media relationships
Measurement
- Kateryna shared a great framework for internal comms pros to effectively measure their work
AI and PR
- Tabita posted some great use cases for Comms and AI
PR Misc
- Jess wrote about why most companies shouldn’t hire PR firms, and the questions to ask to determine that.
- Curious to learn about the definition of PR? Melanie dove deeper to show it’s beyond press releases and coverage
- If we didn’t already have a spicy Take of the Week, this one from Christian would probably be it. It reminds me of how mentor once told me to save “innovative” for electricity, the Internet and other truly major inventions.
- “Yes” to Samantha’s point about how “no” will kill PR momentum
- Magdalena posted Gartner’s predictions for CCO’s
That’s it for this week’s takes, thanks for reading.
-Brian
https://www.linkedin.com/in/bkramer/
