The fine folks at Realwire (formally WebIT PR) have started a brave campaign called The Inconvenient PR Truth. I say “brave” because it clearly runs along in the wake of Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth but the very fact no one (that I’ve noticed) thinks this is out of line is a very good indicator to just how positive and needed the message is.
The message is; too many press releases are spam.
Stephen Davies , who works for Realwire as a consultant, pulls out three strong facts;
- 1.7 billion irrelevant press releases are emailed each year to US and UK based journalists.
- 78% of press release emails received by people are irrelevant
- 55% of people have taken action to stop getting press releases from these sources
An Inconvenient PR Truth from RealWire on Vimeo.
Realwire have an alternative press release host to Brinkwire but we still like them and this message. In fact, the concept of bugging people with a press release in the inbox is an old and dying one.
There are better, more modern, more relevant and more interactive ways to distribute a press release today. That’s our pitch here at Brinkwire. Here’s the elevator pitch reminder;
- a) Press releases distributed via a network of content suggestion widgets
- b) Press releases sped into Twitter and Google News
- c) RSS feeds built by tags and free-hand search to allow journalists, bloggers and other social media influencers to subscribe to a stream that interests them.
- Reblogging via Zemanta
- d) No emails.
February 1, 2010
Community