The _____ Amazing News Release Ever

I’ll let you decide how to fill in that blank. I was looking to add another press release to my PRoToolKit I made last semester, so I Googled ‘best news release’ to see what came up, and if any of my already written news releases met the criteria (they don’t).

Anyways, I stumbled across a Dean Rodgers article where he’s talking about the most amazing news release ever written. You can read his outlook on it over at KoiFish if you’d like. To make a long story short, it got me wondering if gimmicks really work in the media. As far as public relations goes, I always look at it as a very professional field, and I was surprised that this “press release” got any coverage at all.

Gimmicks are fun, don’t get me wrong – but do they work? Well, I guess to an extent they have to, because I’d never heard of Pitch Point Public before this, but now I know that it is a PR firm launched in 2007 and that it was founded by Mitch Delaplane, who has helped clients like Lexus, McDonald’s and BP (they probably could have used you this past year, Mitch!).

Another gimmick comes to mind. There was a man named Orson Welles, you might have heard of him. You know, the man who broadcasted War of the Worlds over the radio wreaking havoc on some American citizens’ psyche. Yeah, that guy. He’s immensely famous, so I guess they do work – if you do it right.

But companies don’t always do it right.

Take McDonald’s “The Lost Ring” campaign it tried out before the Beijing Olympics. Alternate reality games (ARGs) are becoming more popular, and I think they’re a very hip and cool alternative to normal advertising, but when I heard about “The Lost Ring” I didn’t know who to thank for it. I didn’t hear until after the Olympics had started that it was done by McDonald’s in conjunction with the Olympics. It took too long for the results to come out, and ultimately failed to garner as much attention as it should have.

That being said, it did put one more idea in my head in case I ever take that marketing/advertising job over one in PR. For me personally, different forms of advertising are eye-catching.

I’ve started drinking Miller High Life occasionally since their 1-second Super Bowl advertisement, where before I never touched the stuff. I just see gimmicks as a creative way to advertise, and I don’t think I’m alone in that.

But at the end of the day, a gimmick is only such until people realize what it truly is, and then it ceases to become a gimmick and becomes everyday advertising, which makes them hard to sustain – but I guess that’s why I find them so interesting.

Is there such a thing as too much social media?

Social Media sites are like vegetables – you can never have too many

According to Dave Folkens over at Online Marketing Blog, there is. I agree with his article to an extent. Social media is everywhere. You have Twitter, LinkedIn, Digg, Facebook, Quora, Myspace (dying) as well as countless other sites. Sure, some are professionally oriented and others are geared more toward everyday users – but they are all social media.

Dave goes into specifics as far as time spent on social media goes. He cites “22 percent of time spent online” is on social media networks. I’m sure I spend at least double that percentage of my time on social media. If you count my phone usage, it’s probably closer to 70 percent.

That’s nearly three quarters of my internet consumption. Where do I find time to look at icanhascheezburger.com and ESPN? No wonder I’m not level 85 in World of Warcraft yet!

Woe is me.

I get it – you spend a lot of time on social media. So what?

So the question remains. Is there such a thing as too much social media? It feels like the new flavor of the month for the public relations field is social media. It will eventually slow down (I think), but until then, I say if you have the resources, hit up every social media site you can. 

That doesn’t mean companies should hire a social media person if it’s not in their budget. And it definitely doesn’t mean if your company has a social media person that they should exhaust every social media site around. But optimizing the sites that work best for your company or organization should be a top priority.

Dave touches on that by asking you if the social media sites “generate enough direct revenue to offset the staff time required?” 

Valid question, but how measurable is that? Just because you don’t see a profit from Social Media site A today, doesn’t mean you won’t see huge growth when it blows up in two months. And now you’ve been there for months posting your organization’s news and that’s what people will see when they start joining.

On top of that, most social media sites are 100 percent free. That’s 100 percent free publicity, even if only one person sees it. That one person could tell a friend who only uses their social media site of choice to look for organizations. Do you have a presence there, too?

Ever heard of Vampire Freaks? I hadn’t either, but a 10 second Google search turned it up as a “gothic industrial social networking community.” According to the website, Vampire Freaks is 10 years old with two million subscribers. If your company is selling lip rings and angsty t-shirts, this would be an amazing place to connect with the people you advertise to. If you’re trying to offload sports memorabilia…maybe pass on this one.

All in all, I think it’s just as important to keep niche social media in your sights as it is to keep the major social media sites there, but how you do that should be planned out according to your company and its goals – and I think that’s probably the hardest part.