Shel Holtz Is The Perfect Example Of PR People Not Getting It

Looks like Shel Holtz and I are going to continue to argue about social media until the cows come home. In a recent post, called The Perfect Example OF PR People Not Getting It, I suggested that Kyle Flaherty was simply not getting social media when he said things like "OF COURSE I believe in the power of blogging, but let's not take ourselves too seriously, blogging is NOT revolutionary, it is glamorous form of email..."

Shel jumped a board with the following comment, after I dissected Flaherty's arguments and stated "And you don't need PR dinosaurs leading you who tell you that "the blog is just one form of transportation." The press release is dead, and the PR pros just don't want to move onto whatever is next.":

[from /Message: The Perfect Example OF PR People Not Getting It comment by Shel Holtz]

So, let me see if I have this right:

1) The only fodder for conversation in the blogosphere is other blogs, and no other media are worth talking about.

I only said that people in the blogosphere were using blogs to have a conversation. They could be conversing about anything, including the New York Times, last night's football game, or information received via press release. But the notion that companies are part of the conversation simply by pushing out press releases -- of whatever flavor: social or anti-social -- is just dumb. You don't join a conversation by shouting what you want to say over and over and ignoring what people are talking about. Sorry.

2) An employee blogging about something pertinent to his organization needs to (a) include all the boring information most people don't care about (but some do) in his post or (b) leave out information (that may be required by regulatory agencies) -- information that fit very neatly into the "dead" tool called a press release.

People can put whatever they want -- or are required by law to include -- in anything they publish. My point is that people should drop much of the crap that defines press releases -- third party voice, bullshit quotes that no one ever actually said, and so on. How come we continue to have this ongoing debate and none of the PR folks ever focus on these aspects of press releases? The basic tone and format is stupid, and no one will discuss it. Instead, they want to argue about my advocacy for blogs as being adequate to transmit information about companies to the world in a fast and simple (and perhaps better) manner, compared to news wire-oriented press releases.

3) The "press" -- all those local weekly newspapers and trade publications and mid-market TV stations and websites from media outlets like the New York Times -- can just find another way to get information despite the fact that the press release worked perfectly well for them because the press release has been declared "dead" by people who "get it" better than they do.

Newpapers are drastically diminishing in importance in the world. There are laying off people at a prodigious rate. Warren Buffett has declared that the industry is dead and just hasn't realized it yet. The argument that the press release is the right mechanism to transmit important information to the world because it works so well for newspapers, is something like saying that oats are what we should put into the gas tanks of cars because it works so well for horses. The same can be said for conventional TV, which just had the lowest viewer numbers, proportional to population, in decades.

4) Companies requiring an official statement of record can just invent something new because the press release is "dead" but a blog post won't satisfy that requirement.

I have made my argument in several earlier posts about the need for an identity broker service to validate comments made by company representatives. None of the PR folks have yet picked up that thread and discussed it. I guess they are simply stuck, and can't move into a possible future without press releases, while the rest of us can envision it with no trouble.

5) One tool -- a blog post -- fulfills every need, even if it means jamming a round peg into a square hole. If it ain't conversation, it ain't acceptable. (Bad news indeed for fans of Gabriel Garcia Marquez.)

I never said that blogs fulfill every need, but it is a group of PR folks that are trying to socialize press releases, and bring them into the blogospher. Perhaps there are some people in corporations that would ike to have bloggers write about what they are doing?

6) There is no reason an organization should ever broadcast anything. Ever.

My point about broadcast is that people don't trust broadcasted messages anymore. Companies can do whatever they want, but I , and the rest of the world, now have the ability to get our information via other modes of communication: the power has shifted to the edge. They don't control the means of our communications. Companies may feel that they have good reasons for broadcasting messages: economics, expediency, whatever. In general, however, people will tune out or simply discredit such communication as a cheap attempt to manipulate the recipients of the "message" -- the "audience" -- without fully attempting to engage them in dialogue.

7) As a journalist, Tom Foremski is just plain wrong in asking for what he needs -- information clearly parsed without spin that includes elements that help him do his job, which has moved from print (the Financial Times) to the Web (Silicon Valley Watcher). Tom and his peers should just spend hours gleaning the facts by filtering them from blog posts on the topic, assuming he's subscribing to the right feeds, entering the right terms in a search engine, or otherwise lucky enough to find them.

Tom is free to ask for whatever he wants: it's a free country. He can ask for all sorts of things from companies. Fine. I don't begrudge him a thing. I am not even opposed to hRelease microformats, per se.

Okay. Now I get it.

Posted by: Shel Holtz, ABC | January 24, 2007 at 04:03 PM

Ok, Shel, do you get it, now?

tags: the+press+release+is+dead, shel+holtz, edglings, kyle+flaherty, social+media

Comments

[Monika Rola]

This discussion has been great to follow along. I actually agree with a LOT of what you're saying about press releases when it comes to the points you are calling out here--the press release "crap."

But I am wondering about the validity of the argument once you get into declaring that newspapers are drastically diminishing in importance, or TV is following the same path. To me this seems like a new version of the argument that TV was going to kill radio, which in the long run turned out to be untrue.

Not everyone is reading blogs, and as the 2006 Telecom Express study seems to suggest when it comes to being a trusted source of news blogs still have a very long way to go. It found that TV was actually the most trusted source of news, followed by newspapers and radio. Mind you they were speaking about the British public but I can't believe that the situation would be reversed elsewhere with blogs coming out on top.
You can read about it more here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/5269530.stm

From personal experience, I work in the PR industry, I have found that there are many businesses who are not even "there" when it comes to knowing how to put out a press release, let alone blog. I guess my point is that you can't have a cookie cutter solution that will fit every single company's need. Many people still love the press release, as long as they do it will live on.

[Shel Holtz]

My feedback.

Back to you, my friend.

[Dominic Jones]

I've seen this invoked a few times and it strikes me as odd:

"As a journalist, Tom Foremski is just plain wrong in asking for what he needs -- information clearly parsed without spin that includes elements that help him do his job, which has moved from print (the Financial Times) to the Web (Silicon Valley Watcher). Tom and his peers should just spend hours gleaning the facts by filtering them from blog posts on the topic, assuming he's subscribing to the right feeds, entering the right terms in a search engine, or otherwise lucky enough to find them."

Wow. Let's completely throw out the news release because ONE journalist said he did not like what he was getting. Did anyone actually ask the thousands of others?

Or is the "social media news release" really just a ruse for news release writers to subvert the blogosphere, give themselves a semblance of relevance and boost their revenues by tarting up something that isn't really broken, just extremely ineffective?

Interestingly, Tom Foremski, as recently last week, says he's never actually received a social media release.

With all due respect to Tom, his wants don't strike me as the real reason why Big PR wants to reinvent the news release.

[Jeremiah Owyang]

oh boy, here we go again...

[Colin Henderson]

Stowe ... my thought is that the more people attack blogs with comments such as "glamorous form of email" that its not worthy of comment. Like you I have seen the power of bogs, quite accidentally in my case, to provide a window to the world, and conversations with people from all points of the world. This resulted in job offers, conferences, and personal growth.

Maybe its time to focus on those who get it, and let the others chase. :-)

[Dimitri]

For that same reason that some claim the press release is dead, I capitalize on web2.0 to spread my message about my art projects. Check the latest odd one: http://www.thousandlotsofsand.com

PR People: get on the train!

[Elizabeth Safran]

I know I am about seven months late on this thread but I did want to add my two cents re: the utility of press releases. Most PR folks are aware that despite their title, the press are not necessarily the sole audience for press releases -- how customers, stockholders, partners, customers and other "stakeholders" will perceive press releases are usually all taken into consideration before it's sent out. That's why those silly quotes no one actually really said stay in there. Keep in mind, the people in those releases who didn't really "say" the quote, did allow for the words to be placed in their mouths...but I digress...

I'm all for morphing content and intent of press releases but trust they're not going away any time soon. As for the social media press release, please help me to understand if it is more than a press release to links of pictures/videos/other content. Is that what makes it a "social media press release????"

I don't exactly find that earth-shattering but....whatever. Would the social media elite of the valley rather vendors all join the blogging craze by launching their own corporate blogs? All you will get is press release type content delivered via the web and called a blog instead of a website. if they do that, does that make them a part of the "conversation?"

Call me way late to the game, or hopelessly "PR 1.0", but this pendulum ain't done swinging yet and I'm more interested in where it's going then where it is at this point in time and I have a bit of catching up to do. Good thing the web isn't one big Wiki or history could have been totally re-written and I would have been none the wiser...

In the meantime I can get a bit more up to speed, so for starters, a working definition or sample of the social media press release would be great, and one more question -- what is so cool about twitter? I've been to the site but clearly I'm missing something....