Messaging and company stories circulate through a surplus of multichannel communication tools, so what’s the use of a press release? We can share news updates on LinkedIn, Facebook, or Twitter. The reason they continue in most organizations is because people would generally agree they still are needed to announce product launches and news, especially for a publicly traded company. I keep hearing terms and phrases like “back to the basics”, “old school”, or “traditional PR” associated with a press release. It brings into question whether press releases are still relevant and useful. To jump into the issue more and find out other opinions on the matter I asked around to a few people who work in PR followed by a quick Google search.

The Great Press Release Debate

I found a handful of articles which proclaim “No wait, they aren’t dead!” This leads me to believe a strong notion exists in the marketing world that press releases are or at one point in time, were thought to be dead or irrelevant. One blog went as far to say that this debate has been going on for the past ten years! To address this circulating claim that press releases are outdated, there have also been a few articles that speak to the new “modern age” of press releases and tips to keep them current. One of those was written by Brian Solis^[1], in a post about how to revamp your press release strategy. It definitely seems like the value of press releases in today’s social media driven world is debated.

It is understandable.

Press Releases and Social Media

What we need, as discussed by Brian Solis, is to change the way we go about writing the release. At a meeting with Marketo’s director of corporate communications and our team, we dissected a press release to delve into this topic. We projected the document on the wall and spent time sharing how we thought we could improve it. We didn’t analyze grammar or organization; rather we made the editing of the message relatable to us by looking at it through a social media^[2] lens.