Taking Notes: Press Releases

Following up on my post about taking notes on how interviews are structured, I now bring you a prime example of why public relations professionals should do the same with press releases.

The example I'm linking to confirms that untimely death of a professional hockey player in the middle of his career. In the hockey world, this type of press release might be written a few times a decade. In sports in general, it will probably be written 10-20 times a year. So even if you're not in hockey PR, but lets say in baseball PR, you can still find reviewing this press release useful.

Now I know this example is a depressing example, but tough news is always harder to deal with emotionally and mentally then others. Tactfulness and compassion are paramount and time is often short at best. That's why reviewing bad news examples are more important because they have a sense to be more "on the money".

Again, review it, take notes, and stash it away in a folder labeled "Just In Case - PR". Sooner or later, you'll be looking at this folder for one reason or another and it's always better to be prepared with examples that you have previously found to be a great that look over.

And remember, topics you want to look out for can be about anything - good or bad.

Interactions on Social Media Platforms

Social media platforms have created additional direct methods of communications between many groups of individuals that public relations professionals must be aware of. They consist of (in no particular order or terminology): Consumer/Brand, Consumer/Media and Brand/Media.

In these models, public relations professionals are a part of the “brand” and even in the model that features only the “consumer” and “media”, the “brand” (PR professionals) must follow their communication because the feedback going back and forth is important. The image or perception of the brand can also be affected and needs to be monitored as well.

Since the media are on multiple social media platforms, communication directed to and from journalists is increasing due to the simplistic methods social media provides. This pattern shift shows that journalists are not only speaking to their followers and/or fans through their traditional publication medium, but also through social media platforms.

Social media platforms allow journalists to voice their opinion - or additional opinions - on subjects or events they have covered, opined or even have no direct relation to. That last part adds to the monitoring that public relations professionals are responsible for.

Jeremy Porter from Journalistics.com commented in an Internet article:

“What has changed is the direction of the arrows in traditional mass communications model. Back in the day, you had your message, the medium and the mass. Rip that page out of the book and throw it away. Today, you have people interacting with people. It’s two-way, with a lot more listening going on. You still rely on a medium to communicate your message – but you use it to listen now, and there are a lot of media options.”

“Mainstream” Journalists Use Social Media

An early, but crucial battle that social media platforms won in the communications revolution is when the “mainstream” media began publishing news on platforms such as Twitter and Facebook. That move signaled to the world that social media platforms are legitimate enough to deliver their most important type of news -- breaking news.

At the same time, using social media platforms have turned the job of journalists from being ready to report the news at anytime to actually reporting the news at anytime on a consistent basis. So not only do social media platforms bring a new breed of journalists for public relations to interact with, it changes the behavior of “mainstream” journalists.

This is another, but important paradigm shift that public relations professionals must be aware of.