Media & Communications Corner: Don't Send That Release (over the Wire)

Consider This Study

Last year, an independent study of commercial newswires reported that more than half the releases transmitted by the biggest distribution agencies are never picked up, at least not by mainstream media. That's a lot of money and energy expended for zero return.

There is a more effective and less expensive strategy that will help law firm PR teams get better results from their press releases. Instead of simply shooting your firm's news aimlessly into the ether, you can deploy a variety of tech tools and creative techniques to increase the odds that your news will reach and influence target audiences.

Creating an SMR

Take a cue from the social media release (SMR) ' a multi-media cluster of information that is far more versatile than the one-dimensional press release. An SMR is an aggregation of news nuggets that can be distributed not only as text, but also by video as well as MP3 file or podcast. The material can be mixed and matched, then tagged to provide content and context for journalists and bloggers.

For example, touting a multimillion-dollar settlement negotiated by a team of hotshot litigators at your firm, your SMR would include downloadable headshots, a short video “sound bite” from the lead attorney, and facts about the case and settlement in bulleted chunks. Journalists and bloggers need only click your link to reach you by e-mail or text message with further questions or a request for an interview with the subjects.

You can also provide a link to the firm's Web site, an online archive of coverage about the case, or even court documents that are part of the record. All these ways to access and weave together information help journalists and bloggers report more easily on your news and are far more effective and impressive than a traditional press release. (We know this for a fact. See the sidebar below for details.)

Repurposing Your News

Presenting your news in discrete clusters allows you to repurpose it in various ways to reach different audiences ' clients, potential clients, business associates, journalists and the general public ' and gives them the ability to comment, bookmark, and share in ways never possible with a printed piece.

Bloggers and Tweeters

As with any material that represents your firm, assume that bloggers and Tweeters as well as professional journalists alike will read your SMR. Though reporters are unlikely to quote verbatim from it, bloggers and Tweeters may readily do so, so you need to ensure that it is well written and does not violate any potential firm or client sensitivities. Aim for conciseness too; Twitter allows only 140 characters per Tweet. Also, bear in mind that your headline may appear in search engine result pages, so make it stand out without using kitschy tag lines and clich's.

Register with Search Engines

In addition to creating SMRs, you should also publish the information on your firm's Web site and register it with search engines, ensuring that it is optimized to be “findable” and searchable. As with SMRs, provide links to relevant research and articles ' even competitors' articles ' which you can annotate with your own comments using tools such as del.icio.us. You can also support the text with relevant photographs, charts and video, which increase the likelihood that the information will be easy to spread through cyberspace.

Launch an Online Newsletter

If you don't have a regular newsletter available online, it's time to launch one. You don't have to wait for a big verdict or acquisition to make an announcement. Instead, you can provide a steady stream of “news” ' promotions, partnership announcements, community participation and events, speaking engagements ' that gets people talking, builds relationships, retains clients and generates new business. When information is provided in bite-size portions and accompanied with the tools to distribute it easily, readers are more likely to do just that.

Don't Forget the Company Blog

You can also tweak your press release for use on the company blog, enhancing its versatility without an extensive commitment of time and energy. Both your blog and your Web site should allow viewers to subscribe using an RSS feed so they can be kept up to date when you have new announcements. And it's worthwhile to encourage journalists who follow legal affairs or specific industries to sign up for RSS feeds from your firm or practice group. The regular contact will help affirm your status as a resource.

Don't be afraid to Tweet links to your site or blog. Tweet pitches directly to journalists too. You can also share news on business networks such as LinkedIn, and you can del.icio.us it, Furl it, and StumbleUpon it.

If all this seems overwhelming, and with a 24/7 news cycle it can indeed be, then fortunately, there are services that have arisen to take some of the work off your hand:

• PitchEngine is one site that allows you to package all your PR assets in one concise, easy-to-share package. You can then share it with your media contacts by e-mail or social sites.
• Twitter provides a free service that hosts your release for 30 days, or you can create a newsroom to host all your releases for $550 per year.

Compare that with using a traditional commercial newswire service to distribute a release that is “published” online instantly. You are paying to get your news picked up by real-time indexes, such as Google and Google News, MSN and Yahoo!, as well as RSS Feeds, which means it is available for everyone on the Internet to read, not just journalists. For most law firms, however, this is overkill, as are the other services they offer for free such as coding, SEO expert clipping services, media dashboards and real-time feedback.

Conclusion

It wasn't that long ago that cell phones could only send and receive phone calls. In less than a decade, we've witnessed the explosion of multifaceted hand-held devices that can surf the Net, download and play music and videos, take photos and host an arcade's worth of games. If a hand-held device can do all that, why shouldn't a press release add functionality too? You ditched your no-frills cell phone years ago. It's time to do the same with your no-frills, no-results press releases too.

Reaching the Elusive Journalist

We all want to believe that the press releases we create and distribute will garner the media attention we think they deserve. The reality, though, is that journalists don't get their news from press releases. They craft news from information confided by their sources and contacts, analysis, document review and interviews.

We've been contacted by reporters for help with various topics over the years, but the truth is that few of them have ever come to us because of a press release.

Is it just us? To find out, we asked a few legal journalists for their opinions on how useful press releases are in their work. They all said they receive press release e-mails that are most often either irrelevant or unwanted; that is, they were sent to multiple recipients who didn't give permission. In other words: spam. And most releases are way off base anyway ' only about 10% of the releases they receive are even related to their beats.

The truth, they confided, is that journalists pay little attention to press releases. Reporters are by nature competitive, and their goal is to break news. A mass-distribution release means they are getting the information when everyone else is, which makes it pretty worthless.

On the other hand, big news is going to be covered, so a widely distributed release is likely to be useful when speed of distribution and breadth of coverage is the goal. Finally, the more narrowly a release is focused, the more useful it is, so keep it tight and make sure it gets to the handful of writers who truly care about your topic.

Nicholas Gaffney, a member of this newsletter's Board of Editors, is a lawyer and former journalist. Nick manages Infinite Public Relations' San Francisco office and can be reached at [email protected] or 415-732-7801.

Law firms and other businesses devote a huge amount time, effort and money to creating and promoting “news” via press releases. But are they worth the time and money?

Think about it: To get even the simplest of releases out the door, you have to gather the facts, write the release, add quotes and circulate it for comments and edits. Then comes proofreading, the final approval, and, finally, paying for distribution over a commercial newswire such as MarketWire, BusinessWire or PR Newswire. The entire process can cost upwards of $3,000 for even a basic release.

News aggregator Pinhawk estimates the top 200 law firms “publish” 20,000 releases a year. Then consider that Business Wire, PRNewswire, and Marketwire distribute more than 1,000 releases each day. That's a staggering amount of noise and competition. Is it worth all the effort? Do press releases deliver value for the time and money spent? Not really, apparently.

Consider This Study

Last year, an independent study of commercial newswires reported that more than half the releases transmitted by the biggest distribution agencies are never picked up, at least not by mainstream media. That's a lot of money and energy expended for zero return.

There is a more effective and less expensive strategy that will help law firm PR teams get better results from their press releases. Instead of simply shooting your firm's news aimlessly into the ether, you can deploy a variety of tech tools and creative techniques to increase the odds that your news will reach and influence target audiences.

Creating an SMR

Take a cue from the social media release (SMR) ' a multi-media cluster of information that is far more versatile than the one-dimensional press release. An SMR is an aggregation of news nuggets that can be distributed not only as text, but also by video as well as MP3 file or podcast. The material can be mixed and matched, then tagged to provide content and context for journalists and bloggers.

For example, touting a multimillion-dollar settlement negotiated by a team of hotshot litigators at your firm, your SMR would include downloadable headshots, a short video “sound bite” from the lead attorney, and facts about the case and settlement in bulleted chunks. Journalists and bloggers need only click your link to reach you by e-mail or text message with further questions or a request for an interview with the subjects.

You can also provide a link to the firm's Web site, an online archive of coverage about the case, or even court documents that are part of the record. All these ways to access and weave together information help journalists and bloggers report more easily on your news and are far more effective and impressive than a traditional press release. (We know this for a fact. See the sidebar below for details.)

Repurposing Your News

Presenting your news in discrete clusters allows you to repurpose it in various ways to reach different audiences ' clients, potential clients, business associates, journalists and the general public ' and gives them the ability to comment, bookmark, and share in ways never possible with a printed piece.

Bloggers and Tweeters

As with any material that represents your firm, assume that bloggers and Tweeters as well as professional journalists alike will read your SMR. Though reporters are unlikely to quote verbatim from it, bloggers and Tweeters may readily do so, so you need to ensure that it is well written and does not violate any potential firm or client sensitivities. Aim for conciseness too; Twitter allows only 140 characters per Tweet. Also, bear in mind that your headline may appear in search engine result pages, so make it stand out without using kitschy tag lines and clich's.

Register with Search Engines

In addition to creating SMRs, you should also publish the information on your firm's Web site and register it with search engines, ensuring that it is optimized to be “findable” and searchable. As with SMRs, provide links to relevant research and articles ' even competitors' articles ' which you can annotate with your own comments using tools such as del.icio.us. You can also support the text with relevant photographs, charts and video, which increase the likelihood that the information will be easy to spread through cyberspace.

Launch an Online Newsletter

If you don't have a regular newsletter available online, it's time to launch one. You don't have to wait for a big verdict or acquisition to make an announcement. Instead, you can provide a steady stream of “news” ' promotions, partnership announcements, community participation and events, speaking engagements ' that gets people talking, builds relationships, retains clients and generates new business. When information is provided in bite-size portions and accompanied with the tools to distribute it easily, readers are more likely to do just that.

Don't Forget the Company Blog

You can also tweak your press release for use on the company blog, enhancing its versatility without an extensive commitment of time and energy. Both your blog and your Web site should allow viewers to subscribe using an RSS feed so they can be kept up to date when you have new announcements. And it's worthwhile to encourage journalists who follow legal affairs or specific industries to sign up for RSS feeds from your firm or practice group. The regular contact will help affirm your status as a resource.

Don't be afraid to Tweet links to your site or blog. Tweet pitches directly to journalists too. You can also share news on business networks such as LinkedIn, and you can del.icio.us it, Furl it, and StumbleUpon it.

If all this seems overwhelming, and with a 24/7 news cycle it can indeed be, then fortunately, there are services that have arisen to take some of the work off your hand:

• PitchEngine is one site that allows you to package all your PR assets in one concise, easy-to-share package. You can then share it with your media contacts by e-mail or social sites.
• Twitter provides a free service that hosts your release for 30 days, or you can create a newsroom to host all your releases for $550 per year.

Compare that with using a traditional commercial newswire service to distribute a release that is “published” online instantly. You are paying to get your news picked up by real-time indexes, such as Google and Google News, MSN and Yahoo!, as well as RSS Feeds, which means it is available for everyone on the Internet to read, not just journalists. For most law firms, however, this is overkill, as are the other services they offer for free such as coding, SEO expert clipping services, media dashboards and real-time feedback.

Conclusion

It wasn't that long ago that cell phones could only send and receive phone calls. In less than a decade, we've witnessed the explosion of multifaceted hand-held devices that can surf the Net, download and play music and videos, take photos and host an arcade's worth of games. If a hand-held device can do all that, why shouldn't a press release add functionality too? You ditched your no-frills cell phone years ago. It's time to do the same with your no-frills, no-results press releases too.

Reaching the Elusive Journalist

We all want to believe that the press releases we create and distribute will garner the media attention we think they deserve. The reality, though, is that journalists don't get their news from press releases. They craft news from information confided by their sources and contacts, analysis, document review and interviews.

We've been contacted by reporters for help with various topics over the years, but the truth is that few of them have ever come to us because of a press release.

Is it just us? To find out, we asked a few legal journalists for their opinions on how useful press releases are in their work. They all said they receive press release e-mails that are most often either irrelevant or unwanted; that is, they were sent to multiple recipients who didn't give permission. In other words: spam. And most releases are way off base anyway ' only about 10% of the releases they receive are even related to their beats.

The truth, they confided, is that journalists pay little attention to press releases. Reporters are by nature competitive, and their goal is to break news. A mass-distribution release means they are getting the information when everyone else is, which makes it pretty worthless.

On the other hand, big news is going to be covered, so a widely distributed release is likely to be useful when speed of distribution and breadth of coverage is the goal. Finally, the more narrowly a release is focused, the more useful it is, so keep it tight and make sure it gets to the handful of writers who truly care about your topic.

Nicholas Gaffney, a member of this newsletter's Board of Editors, is a lawyer and former journalist. Nick manages Infinite Public Relations' San Francisco office and can be reached at [email protected] or 415-732-7801.