What the NEW Press Releases should look like

A former FT (not sure what this means) journalist writes in this article his opinion and outlook on the ever so present press releases. He begins by telling the readers (just in case they are not familiar with PR lingo) what a press release is. He states that it is any type of formal document announcing a new product, grand opening, new service, partnership, or basically anything new that is happening to a company or corporation. But there is a problem with these press releases.

The main reason why a press release is issued is to get the word out to journalists so that they can then disperse the information out to their area. Basically what Tom says next is that since press releases are being created by committees of the company being discussed, and edited by the lawyers of that company, there is a lot of fluff in the release. A lot of top-spin, and meaningless quotes that as a journalist, he has to sift through and it becomes a pain. For the most part, journalist throw these releases in the digital trash bin.
Tom then offers his suggestions to improve the press release and in turn strengthen the relationship into a partnership between journalist and PR rep.
His suggestions are as follows:
-Provide a brief description of what the announcement is, but leave the spin to the jjournalists
-Provide a page of quotes from the CEO or other C-Level execs.
-Provide a page of quotes from customers, if applicable.
-Provide financial information in many different formats.
-and finally, Provide many links inside the press release copy, and also provide a whole page, of relevant links to other news stories or reference sources.
Tom offers one final suggestion and that is to properly tag your release so that the journalist can find the relevant information he needs for the story and that way can assemble the story they way they want and just be able to put in their own spin.
He says if PR reps did all this then they will become successful in delivering an effective and factual press release!

Social Networking helping possible pandemic Flu

If you have not heard about the sudden spread of the Swine Flu, then you obviously have not had access to a television.
There have been several hundred cases of this new strand of influenza in Mexico, predominately in Mexico City and has killed several of the citizens who have been infected.
What I found interesting is the use of social networking to spread the word about this disease.
Being informed about this disease, where it is and how it is prevented is the biggest key to staying healthy and with so many citizens using the Internet more than they watch news, using social networking sites such as facebook and myspace to inform your friends.
I have received several bulletins on myspace and read several status updates of my friends on facebook informing people to "learn more about the disease", "wash hands frequently" and "not to take this too lightly". Although there are drugs to help cure this infection, you must get to the hospital immediately for treatment.
If the most important thing we can do right now to prevent this disease from spreading is to inform each other, then I could not think of a better way to reach thousands of people at once, than social networking sites. Think about it, we learned that if one person shares something with at least twelve people, then it will circulate a million times. How many friends do you have on facebook?

Video Project: Alcohol being misportrayed by the media

The above video is one I made for my PR class. We had an assignment to create a video which would raise awareness about a social issue of our choice. I chose to make my video about the way the media portrays alcohol and how it can lead to deaths. In every alcohol ad, it is either portraying a sexy, skinny, women, a man getting all kinds of women, a woman getting all kinds of men or ads that say you could be a better, stonger, better looking person if you drink THIS alcohol. These ads are encouraging more people to drink and therefore encouraging more people to drive drunk. This was the reason I made my video.



My creative view was to place some alcohol ads which I felt represented the basic forte of these ads, alongside pictures of fatal car accidents so that people could really grasp the idea, that it wont matter if they are sexy while they drink, if they are dead.



Our videos could only be 60 seconds long, otherwise I would have included some more statistics on drunk driving. The bottom line is, alcohol companies need to alter their advertisments a little bit so that they do not make alcohol look so glamorous. Adding, "Drink Responsibly" or "Enjoy Responsibly" at the end of their advertisments is not enough in my opinion to detour people from drinking so much they harm others or themselves on their way home.

Video has gotten more powerful

This past week in class our lecture centered around our upcoming project of a viral video we are to create about a social issue of our choice. One example our professor showed us was the Dove Campign videos.

I think in the beginning with the hype of YouTube everyone felt that video communication was nothing more than a fad. In PR 2.0 Deirdre Breakenridge quotes, "A fad refers to a fashion that becomes popular in a culture relatively quickly, but loses popularity dramatically," (161). But in today's media, video communication is just as powerful to professionals as it is to anyone with a video camera. How many people can you think of who have either become famous, made a dramatic difference within a company (like the two brothers who made a viral video against Apple) or have become Internet wonders because of YouTube? Quite a few.

In PR 2.0, Breakenridge talks with Jason Miletsky, the CEO and creative director of PFS Makrywyse and he gives his top ten reasons for the recent surge in video as well as podcasting on the Internet:

1. Improvements in Technology - With the accessibility of lightning speed ways to connect to the Internet, downloading and uploading video clips take less time than ever.
2. More Accessible Production Capabilities - easier and fun ways to create videos.
3. Improved Compression and Playback - Improved players, such as Adobe's Flash player, plays FLV files and the Flash CS3 video encoder significantly reduces the size of videos without compromising their viewing quality.
4. The YouTube Factor - Four words: Web Video is here.
5. The iPod Revolution - iPods make viewing video "on-the-go" easy
6. Increased Competition for the User
7. Less Time Allotted by Visitors to Understand Content - Reading long copy on web pages can be boring and tiring. Cutting out all of this copy will give the user more accessibility to the website's features by allowing them to test it.
8. Higher Degree of Internet Marketing Sophistication and Integration - Video on the Web as a bit of an untapped resource. Marketers are beginning to embrace this concept.
9. Expanded Use - Businesses have begun to return their attention to productive uses of video web posting.
10. Age-Ins Have Entered the Landscape - The hotshot twentysomethings "are pushing the envelope of video, podcasting, and the Web further than ever. The Recent Ashton Kutcher victory on Twitter is a good example.

Ashton Kutcher beats CNN

I found this story to be interesting because I am one( of the very few I am sure) who does not see the appeal of Twitter. Early Friday morning, roughly around 2:13 a.m. Ashton Kutcher reached the platinum level of 1 million followers. Apparently Ashton had challenged the popular news station CNN who handle on Twitter is CNNBrk, to a contest: whoever was to reach 1 million followers first would donate 10,000 mosquito nets to prevent Malaria.

Kutcher then held up the $100,000 check to be given to the charity.

But donating to Malaria does not seem to be the central point of victory from this contest. Kutcher was quoted in a MTV News article saying, "We have shown the world that the new wave is here, it is present and it is ready to explode. You guys are all of it. ... We can and will create our media. We can and will edit our media. We can and will broadcast our media. We will censor our own media ourselves."

When I first heard of this story, I was kind of annoyed because I am sick of hearing about Twitter. But the more I though about it and especially after reading Kutchers quote, I realized that maybe Twitter is providing something to users that is earth-shattering. Putting the power of the media and news directly into our hands. It is just up to us how we use it.

All it takes is ONE(plus a few of their friends) to make a difference

This week in PR we read chapter six from Citizen Marketers entitled "The Power of One". Although the information in the chapter was not surprising to me I still found it interesting. The chapter discussed how it is simple for just one person to make a huge impact on companies and/or brands.

The example at the beginning of the chapter was interesting to me. It was about two brothers by the name of Neistat who became upset with Apple after they found out what it would cost to replace the battery in their ipod. Long story short, they hacked into Apple's posters for the ipod and made a stencil which they then used to spray paint over posters stating the battery life on an ipod is only 18 months. Then they called the Apple customer service and recorded the call where the representative explained it would cost almost as much as a new ipod to replace the battery and they they would be better off buying a new one. They made the call into a video and sent it to 30 of their friends. The friends then sent it to their friends and shortly the video was downloaded over a million times and was picked up by over 130 news outlets.

Apple shortly released a new battery replacement plan of $99 which was later reduced to $59 and did not deny nor confirm that the change was due to this firecracker video. The reason the video was such a success was because of memes.

According to Richard Dawkins who coined the term meme in his book "The Selfish Gene", a meme is " a cultural transmitter that distinguishes an idea from the billions of others that float in the primordial soup of daily human existence." A meme can be anything from tuns, catchphrases, clothes, fashions, etc.

Citizen Marketers explains that one reasons memes are so successful is they follow the four stages of meme replication:

1. Assimilation. The meme is noticed, understood, and accepted by someone, who becomes a hos of the meme.

2. Retention. It is embedded in memory. The longer it is stored there, the better.

3. Expression. The idea can take some form, such as language, text, pictures, or even in unconscious behavior, such as the way someone walks.

4. Transmission. The host passes the meme on to one or more people.

I will say it was amazing to me after I read all this, how many Internet wonders I could think of that fit this format perfectly, which explained why they became so popular.

Second Life? No Thanx

This past week in my PR class, we had a guest come and speak with us about the importance of Second Life. Since this was my second time to hear this, I decided to look for something more than I had already heard about this virtual world. I figured that since this was a PR class, the gentlemen would have emphasized how second life could benefit this particular career field. We got nothing.



I heard the same speech I heard last year. "Second life is a virtual world that allows you to interact with other people, explore different islands....."



I apologize if I am coming off a bit harsh but if you can not already tell, I am not a fan of second life. I find the user interface too difficult to master in a short amount of time and these days people want instant gratification. We do not have hours and hours to devote to this program which in all honesty is not really providing any revolutionary aspects to business's at all.

In a recent news article by CNET, they reported another executive has decided to leave the company. "The marketing hype--it's the next Internet!--bottomed out long ago. There was a wave of unflattering press, from virtual terrorism to technical problems to banking scandals"

If the executives of the company are even leaving then...HELLO second life is not as great as it is advertised to be. I personally find it kind of creepy. To be honest the only news I have heard of that deals with second life was when a women killed her husband because he divorced her on second life.

So to wrap this up, I do not see any way second life could help PR strategies at all. One of the few options a business would have would be to build a virtual representation of their company and encourage users to sign up and visit their interactive business. The only problem with this is that it is extremely expensive to buy an island, construct the building and interface and maintain the property. Doesn't sound like a smart business move to me.

I apologize to anyone reading this blog who is a fan of second life, this is my opinion.