While at the SF PR Summit Conference this morning, Mashable editor Ben Parr made his position clear in the press release debate.
“I filter out all press releases. If you send me a press release, I don’t see it until the end of the week. I hate press releases. Don’t send me one. Send me 2-3 sentence email.”
In 3 years, I’ve written a total of two press releases. What about you? Are press releases a part of your media relations strategy? Or do you rely on blog posts, Facebook, Twitter or other social media properties? Or old-fashioned media relations?
I really dislike press releases… too bad a lot of clients think they’re necessary — remnants of the old guard. At least I’ve managed to convince most of them that they don’t have to spend $2k on a wire release.
There are certain times where I feel the *can* be valuable. They’ll always have a place in corporate communication (earnings, investor relations, etc.) but for the vast majority of news announcements, blog posts, Tweets and pitching can generate far more results, in my opinion.