Will the News Release Rest in Peace?

With the recent speculations about whether the press release will become obsolete, a Forbes article confirms my feelings that the boom of social media use is causing the traditional press release to become useless in many situations.

As I’ve learned in my public relations courses, reporters can get up to hundreds of press releases a day, including many by email, which can be deleted as soon as the boring subject line is read. To avoid these downfalls, many services have been created online in order to facilitate the company’s needs without wasting the time, money and inbox space.

Companies such as H&R Block and Budweiser are able to serve their customers directly with websites such as PitchDirectly.com founded by Jason Kintzler, a former reporter. They send out a two-sentence pitch to major outlets such as USA Today, The Wall Street Journal and Rolling Stone. Using this approach allows them to craft a message specific to their audience instead of trying to communicate to the CEO of their client.

It seems social media is doing for public relations practitioners now what the news release did a couple of decades ago. Do you think this will be a new era for the public relations industry?

This guest blog was written by PRowl Public Relations staff member Emily Ascani.