Lynott & Associates
Lynott & Associates is a full-service public relations firm specializing in media and analyst relations for technology innovators. Our clients include firms with web enabled services that focus on the enterprise, as well as businesses that target vertical industries including financial services, aerospace, telecommunications and consumer electronics.
Blog Posts
PR Tips and Techniques #2 – The Interactive News Release
By Yvonne Lynott
Use of images, audio, video, Twitter, blogs and websites are now part of the news release landscape. Yes, I’m still a believer in news releases, but with reservations. One size does not fit all. By this I mean that an announcement going to traditional media does not resemble news going to social media – those influential bloggers and tweeple who are today intrinsically part of our Zeitgeist.
For social media a more personal and direct approach is required. Most social media types have their specialized areas of interest. Read their feeds, join the conversation on their blogs and follow and respond to their Twitter streams. Once you get to know them and they have a feel for you then pitch them on relevant topics in a paragraph or two.
Improve your new releases by integrating a multimedia approach and carefully placing key words. Doing so will improve your chances of a news release being read by recipients and being found on search engines. Hire a video production studio or set up your own to capture a company executive or expert talking about or showing a new product, feature or service. Make it short and informative so it adds value to the news release. These “pictures” require fewer words in the news release and make it more compelling. An audio link can further explain a technical term, market segment language, or acronym.
A news release directed to the media has information organized in an invisible inverted pyramid or triangle. The most important information goes into the headline/subheadline and first (lead) paragraph. Additional information in descending order of importance follows. You can add a “quote” paragraph with comments from a person of importance in your organization that is relevant to the topic. It’s the only place in the news release where you should editorialize (offer an opinion). Your organization’s boilerplate is the final paragraph.
You can send your Twitter community links to your announcements. Distribute your news to your own highly targeted media contact list through a service like Constant Contact or use a public service like PR Newswire, BusinessWire and PRWeb which all use a combination of traditional media, social media optimization and search engine optimization for wider distribution.
Send me your questions. I’m here to help.