Communicating in PR: Press Releases and Social Media

In order to inform the public of the message you're trying to promote in Public Relations, you need to be able to communicate with the media. There's two common forms to do so - press releases and through social media.

Press releases are the most typical form of communicating with the public. I have provided a video below from Howcast that explains what a press release is, arrangement of a press release, and the overall importance of a press release.

Key Points: 

What is a Press Release: 
A piece of information distributed to the media in hopes the message you're promoting will get written about.

Arrangement of Press Release: 

• Contact info at the top of press release
• Attention grabbing headline
• Tagline following headline - explains the headline
• Body of press release - gets across the who, what, where, when and why 
• Boiler plate - short description about company you're writing press release about

Writing Press Releases Requirements: 

Being creative! Just because you write a press release doesn't mean your story is going to be written about. You have to think of new strategies and ways to grab the media's attention.

The other form, social media, is a rather new form of communication in PR. Below you will see a video from Howcast regarding how social media intertwines with Public Relations in regards to communication, and how branding, accessing, and grabbing attention is easier!

Key Points

Brands: It's easier to brand! For celebrity endorsements, you simply send the celebrity a product and they'll tweet about it if they like it. It's an easy stamp of approval from a force that will send the message out quickly.

Access: It's easy access! Social media is always a click of a button away and people tend to find information easier due to our reliability on social media today. 

Gets more attention: People answer social media more than phone calls and emails - it's the quickest way to grab the attention of the media. Plus, the message is spread to a wider audience because so many people are on social media compared to reading press releases. Double win!

I hope this taught you a little bit about how PR professionals spread their messages to the media. Come back next week for the final post regarding the way our group has learned the importance of communication in each of our fields!
-Grace