Whether you do it yourself or have a Press Agent, you can't do much better than with a well crafted press release.
A press release helps to guarantee that your message is the way you intend it to be received. It helps to stop the press from miss-quoting you.
Live interviews go much better when you've helped to craft the press-release first. You have your “talking points” more firmly cemented in your mind. You also can make sure that some of the audio soundbites that are certain to come from a live interview will get the message across with clear and well-said statements.
Soundbites are usually not much more than 10 to 15 seconds in length depending upon the importance of the story inside the newscast and the overall length of the newscast. Ever try to deliver your 30 second “elevator speech” in 10 seconds? With a good press release, you will have a much better chance that you'll succeed.
With today's speed of delivery, and lack of proper writing etiquette when using the world-wide-web for disseminating your message, it seems that we've even gotten so lazy as to not want to send a formal press release. This past week we've gotten numerous requests for publication of events, music releases, and other bluegrass news that came as nothing more than an email with scant information.
The purpose of the formal press release is to make sure you've covered all the bases, the who, what, why, where, when and how much is all covered.
Remember, you're the one “on the scene”. You know better what needs to be told. The press who will publish your information may have absolutely zero background information about your event, location, or any other specifics that can help to make the story more colorful.
Distribution of your press release depends a great deal upon the content of your news. You certainly don't want to send news of your latest CD release to the Mortician’s Monthly. But when in doubt about to whom your press release should go, it may be best to send it to any news contact on your list and let the journalists decide the merit of your story. You might be surprised where it actually gets read.
This brings up a relatively new phenomenon that has begun recently. That is the posting of your news release on your social page in lieu of actually sending it to the media. Or in other words, a very passive approach. Now posting your news on your pages in addition to wide spread distribution to the news media may be a great way to double cover your bases but that doesn't seem to be happening.
Posting on Facebook/Twitter and hoping the media will pick it up is like stepping up to the plate without a bat and hoping for a home run! But, I suppose if you're an optimist, you might like the quote from ANGELS IN THE OUTFIELD...”Hey, it could happen”. Right!?
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