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The dialog continues on the relevance of “press” releases. I have worked for firms where there was an artificial emphasis on sending out one press release per week. We even hired a consultant who was a marvel as spinning such useless tidbits such as “re-painting the parking spaces in the front lot” as a sign of business development.
On the other hand, my most successful effort was working with our agency as we launched an industry-leading technology. We created a campaign of planned editorial and analyst briefings and created a series of exclusives related to the release. When all was said and done, we achieved an almost simultaneous coverage with covers and articles by major editors/columnists over a 60-day period at launch.
The issue remains in balancing the need for attention with understanding what constitutes “news”. Today, you don’t have worry about print press only - but you can craft an excellent campaign building on alternate news streams (e.g. bloggers and podcasters.) But you need to still feed the machine and there is clearly an opportunity to redefine the traditional press release.