Putting Your Message in Writing: The Press Release: by Silva Hasalami and Ksenja Ferro

Putting Your Message in Writing:
1
The Press Release
by Silva Hasalami and Ksenja Ferro
Silva Hasalami
2 The Press Release
 If you're thinking about public relations strategy for your business, you'll certainly be
considering press releases. A press release is a written communication that reports specific
but brief information about an event, circumstance, product launch, or other happening. It's
typically tied to a business or organization and provided to media through a variety of
means.
 Issuing a press release doesn't mean the media will automatically run with it. Media outlets
will ask the same questions they always do: Does it interest their readers? Does it benefit
the community in some way? You should also consider other outlets that might pick up
your press release. If you're lucky, bloggers, tweeters, and others on social media may find
it worthy of promoting within their social networks.
Silva Hasalami
3 The Goal of a Press Release
 The main purpose of all press releases is to promote something significant and specific,
and to do so clearly.
Silva Hasalami
4
Beyond that, a press release is a document that adheres to a strict format and serves three
marketing and promotional purposes:
 To notify the media about an event in hopes that they will spread the word.
 To share something about your business, hoping a reporter will see a story in your press
release and write an actual news article about it.
 To promote your business' appearance on the internet via blogs, websites, and social
networks.
Silva Hasalami
5 Media Engagement to Press Releases
 With the advent of social media, traditional press releases started to get new forms.
Consequently, the days of editors being the sole gatekeepers of news have come to an end.
Nowadays, anyone can be a reporter, creating and sharing news with friends and followers.
This places reporters and PR people in dangerous positions if they fail to adapt. Therefore,
the more accessible your company news and information are to the public, the greater level
of credibility you build. To give your “social” press release a better chance of being
noticed here are some tips :
Ksenja Ferro
• Include links to your social networks: These links allow members of the

media to engage with your company online. Include links within the
press releases that lead to additional content, to even more multimedia,
and especially to all the major social sharing networks.
• Share them on your blog and social networks: Putting this information
on your platforms increases the opportunity for it being seen by your
community and spread to other sources who might want to cover it.
• Add social sharing tools to every release: That way, readers can share
them easily with their connections.
Ksenja Ferro
• Host them on the web: Most social-media–powered releases are

now hosted on the web rather than e-mailed or faxed.
• Use short, catchy headlines: Headlines in press releases should
make sense, be relevant to readers, and be crafted with search
engine optimization (SEO) in mind. A headline often becomes the
content for your tweet or update with a link to the rest of the
release.
Ksenja Ferro
• Make it multimedia: A press release should contain images (perfect

for Facebook and Pinterest) and even embedded audio and video
files. Since the releases are hosted on the web, embedding
multimedia like this to enhance them is a breeze.
• Provide “tweetable” quotes: Content is consumed at a fast pace
online. Pull out quotes and excerpts of your releases that have a
maximum of 120 characters so that they’re easily shared on social
networks, especially Twitter.
Ksenja Ferro
 The most important piece of advice: When writing a press release, consider the story
you’re trying to tell. Storytelling is an important part of engaging in social media. Start
there and use the elements of storytelling to convert a press release from a static document
into a dynamic start of a conversation.
Ksenja Ferro
10
 Beware! Just because the web provides you with innumerable
possibilities of inevitable attention, that does not mean that you
should disregard the practices you have been taught in traditional
press release writing. Good grammar, good punctuation and those
six –wh questions – all these rules apply for this kind of press
release as well.
Ksenja Ferro
11
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Silva Hasalami
12 Only issue press releases that are newsworthy.
 A newsworthy press release addresses issues that your prospects or customers are
grappling with and demonstrates why they, as well as the press, should care about the press
release as well as your company.
Example
New service offered by your company that has unique positioning against competitors; a new
product; a special pricing deal; a product or service bundle; an announcement with another
vendor such as a strategic alliance or joint development; results of a survey which positively
impacts your business; several key customer wins; winning some sort of contest and so on.
Silva Hasalami
13
Define Target Press List
 Your target press list consists of the names, addresses, phone, fax, and email addressed of
the key press you’d like to cover your company and technology.
Silva Hasalami
14 Capture the reader’s attention with the
headline.
 In order to capture the reporter’s attention, the headline is in all capital letters, boldfaced,
succinct, includes an action verb, and gives a benefit if possible. Let’s say you’re issuing a
press release on a new version of a product. The headline should be something like:
Example
 NET IMPACT DEVELOPS BREAKTHROUGH

TRAINING AND COACHING SYSTEM
Net Impact Announces its new product E@SY and its Entry
to the Marketplace
Silva Hasalami
15 Include your product’s positioning, key
features, and benefits to end users.
 Positioning, key features, and benefits are key elements that press will want to include in
an article. Positioning is something that can be conveyed succinctly in a company
representative quote or in the first or second paragraph of the release. Key features and
benefits are deserving of their own subhead (capital letters and lower case) in the press
release.
Silva Hasalami
16 Include pricing and availability information.
 Your press release must include pricing information, such as the cost for software or
subscription fees for content products.
 Press will want to include availability information in a subsequent article - whether the
product/service is available immediately or within a few months. Keep in mind that you
will also want to include where the product or service can be purchased as well as number
to call to make the purchase.
Silva Hasalami
17
 After you put your release on the wire, you’ll want to follow up via snail mail and mail the
press kit, which includes the release and accompanying information such as company
backgrounders or product/service white papers.
 Don’t forget to add your press release to your Web site. Press release pages are typically
added to the "Press Release" link, which is often a link under the "About Your Company"
area of your home page. This is important because your press release invites people to your
web page, and because you don’t want to miss any opportunities! Make sure your page is
up-to-date and looking good.
Silva Hasalami
18
i on !
a t t ent
yo ur
r
yo u fo
nk
Th a
Silva Hasalami

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Putting Your Message in Writing:

• Include links to your social networks: These links allow members of the

• Host them on the web: Most social-media–powered releases are

• Make it multimedia: A press release should contain images (perfect

Define Target Press List

 NET IMPACT DEVELOPS BREAKTHROUGH

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