Why You Need a Year-End Press Release—Now

Whatever your business is, it’s time to start working on a year-end press release to be distributed in mid- to late December.

Think you don’t have anything to say? Think again.

Newspapers, radio and television stations, and bloggers are all doing stories on the economy in late December and early January. Experts with views on national and global outlooks are plentiful. Experts on the economy in your community or your industry tend to be few and far between. They aren’t listed in the telephone directory – or almost any other directory – either, making it hard for reporters to identify them.

You are, however, an expert on how your business is doing. Here are just a few ideas to get you thinking about possible press releases:

• · Do you sell office supplies? How has the past year year been, and what are you expecting for next year? You have valid personal observations on what you are seeing in your business.
• · Do you repair appliances or cars or just about anything else? Are more people keeping their older appliances longer? Or are more people likely to buy a new appliance rather than make major repairs?
• · Are you a medical professional? Are your patients having to make larger out-of-pocket payments as their employers cut back on health insurance? Are you seeing more patients who no longer have group policies? How is this impacting you – and them?
• · What products and services to you offer? Which ones are showing sales increases and why?

In other words, if you are in business and you have customers, you are doing something of interest to the community. It’s a good time to share your story.

Why Write a Press Release When Reporters Will Be There?

Why write a press release when you know reporters will be at an event, anyway?

That’s question I often hear. The answer is this: It can be even more important to have a written press release when you know reporters will be present.

It’s very hard for a reporter (or anyone else) to listen to a speech, much less a panel discussion or question-and-answer session with multiple speakers, and take notes with 100 percent accuracy.

If you put the important facts in writing, you know the reporter will have an accurate record of any numbers and your most important comments. If the reporter is called away to another breaking story before it’s your turn to speak, the reporter will at least know what you had to say.

Issuing a press release, of course, in no way obligates a reporter to use it. The media gets to decide what is published and what is left out.

Good reporters want to get the facts right. A well-written press release makes it easy for them to do so. The easier you make it for a reporter to cover you accurately, the more likely it is to happen.

What questions about PR should a city official ask?

Let me focus on media relations, since that is what I know best. Despite the rise of the Internet, blogs, Twitter, etc., the majority of people still get their news about local government from the mass media.

A city official needs to keep in mind that writing news stories about government is not easy. It’s even more important for officials in smaller communities. Most reporters get their start in small towns, which means that they are less experienced than the ones on national newspapers. (As an aside, there was a columnist in USA Today yesterday who offered advice on how to get coverage in a local newspaper. I’d hesitate to recommend his advice to any business in the Wood River Valley.)

But back to the question. Think about how much you knew about government finance when you graduated from college. Then think about sitting through a city budget hearing and trying to unravel the complexities of general tax revenues, general obligation bonds, revenue bonds, tax increment financing for redevelopment districts, etc., etc. Picture yourself sitting through a three-hour meeting on these subjects, and then having an hour to write a comprehensible story.

So if you want accurate media coverage on a complex topic, take the time to write a background press release and give it to reporters, preferably in advance. If you have time to give reporters a briefing before the meeting, that’s even better. You obviously don’t know what will happen at the meeting, but you can be sure that the reporters at least understand the discussion.

This is good advice for private citizens making presentations to public agencies as well. If you have a press release summarizing your statements and can meet with the appropriate reporters in advance, you’re much more likely to get accurate coverage.

How do you see Twitter fitting into a firm’s PR plans?

Twitter is the best thing for public relations since sliced bread. What a minute – did I use such a trite expression? I suppose I should come up with something more elegant, but then again…. “best thing since sliced bread” was my immediate reaction. Usually, the immediate reaction is the best.

Why is Twitter so great? In the old (pre-Internet days), we had to rely on mass media to get our stories to clients and prospective clients. If an editor didn’t like a your story, there wasn’t much you could do. Thanks to Twitter, you can spread the word yourself. It’s even legitimate to tweet the same thing, preferably stressing slightly different aspects of the topic, multiple times over several days.

You can post a press release on your Web sites, and then go to Twitter and “tweet” about it as much as you like. I like to think of Twitter as the new-fashioned town crier, walking up and down the street shouting out the latest news. You won’t hear every word he says, but the news will get to you sooner or later.

I’ll admit I was one of the initial skeptics. I thought Twitter was for teen-agers telling each other what they had for lunch. If it ever was that, it isn’t any more. Twitter users are primarily working adults, not teens or college students. Nielsen earlier this year found that 62 percent of Twitter users access the site only from work. (See a newsletter article I researched and wrote for a client, now posted on my Web site at http://www.jomurray.com/newsletter.html.)

The American Contract Bridge League, where 98 percent of the membership is over 40 years old and 78 percent over 60 years old, added a Twitter account this month, @ACBL bridge. I set up a Twitter account recently for the Animal Shelter of the Wood River Valley. (@WRAnimalShelter) By the end of the first day, two people –neither of whom I know -- had retweeted the message. Astonishing!

Twitter is the new viral marketing. If you don’t tweet your press releases, you’re stuck in the 20th century. If what you have to say is of interest to anyone, someone will see your tweet and “retweet” it. I could go on, but I think that’s enough for now.

If you have more questions, send me a tweet @JoMurrayPR. If you aren’t up to Twitter, I even answer old-fashioned e-mail (jo@jomurray.com).

Thanks to Dave Chase of Sun Valley Online for this question.

Why was your press release more effective than the ads we’ve been placing?

The marketing term is “third-party endorsement.” Advertising builds awareness. Public relations and resulting news coverage builds credibility.

People expect an ad to say positive things about a company. When a press release results in news coverage in a local newspaper or independent media, it’s assumed that the media has checked to be certain the story has some validity. Just think about a favorable movie review vs. an ad for the same movie. Which are you more likely to believe?

Getting Back to Blogging

Some of my earlier posts were deleted during a changeover in blog hosts. So I've reposted some of the more popular ones.