The press release is dead. Long live the e-release!

By Sarah Botha

The Pleiades Media team recently attended a talk held by the Public Relations Institute of South Africa (PRISA) entitled ‘The End of the Press Release’  presented by Sonya Culverwell, editor dynamo of online media and advertising industry go to Adlip. With a somewhat controversial title for us PR practitioners who can live and die by the press release, we were intrigued to hear what more we could learn about the PR landscape which has been embroiled in a vortex of change for the past few years.

The changes within the PR industry are consequent of the global convergence in the physical and online space and the subsequent collision of advertising, marketing and social media. No longer can we easily differentiate the various specialities and instead the term Content Marketing is the “catch-all” phrase for what we as PR’s do and more so. 

Face facts, Culverwell said, the press release as we know it is dead. Globally the ways of disseminating information are changing, and as such the press release and the information it carries needs to be repackaged in multiple ways for online dissemination - in short the more bite sized the better. 

Enter the e-release with its quick and digestible form which is tailored made to fit the needs of its reader and our target markets as PR practitioners. Repackaging the traditional press release is the name of the game with the E-release, which demands the presentation of information in a new and interesting way for your reader. 

How then to make your client’s content relevant and valuable to a market of readers, editors and journalists,  that are fast becoming more and more shut off to the world of traditional marketing?

Think about giving publishers pieces that will delight and surprise their audience by taking a press release and turn it into something more interesting by looking for a different angle. Do content writers job by providing urls, links, logos, embed images and video in the text. Embed back links in your copy so that the publishers can get more information should they need. 

More and more Pleiades Media have been incorporating these content strategies into our client platforms. The discussion reconfirmed this and the need for clients to fully embrace the changing landscape. We loved Sonya’s affirmation of the PR sector, we wholeheartedly agree.