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The Rise of the Infographic Press Release

by Robin Cangie on February 29th, 2012

The popularity of infographic press releases is on the rise, and for good reason. A well-done infographic is eye-catching and engaging, and, unlike traditional text releases, it tells your story almost instantly, offering a crucial advantage in the constant battle for your customers’ attention.

Infographics offer more information and detail than photographs, and convey it more quickly than videos. They are especially good at conveying complex data and statistics, original research or when you’re catering to a multi-lingual audience.

According to a study last year by PRNewswire, press releases that included multimedia content garnered significantly more views (up to 77% more) than those that didn’t.

So what makes a good infographic release? When telling your story visually, there are three main things to keep in mind:

  1. Keep it meaningful. This really should go without saying, but we’ll say it anyway – if you don’t have a really great story to tell, one that will be meaningful to your audience, not just tout your brand, then you shouldn’t be writing a press release.
  2. Keep it relevant. No amount of beautiful design will help you if your audience isn’t interested in your story.
  3. Keep it concise. Attention spans are short. Respect your readers’ time by keeping your story clear and concise.

Here are a couple of examples:

source: PR Newswire

source: PR Newswire

Have you ever tried an infographic release? What were your results?

by Robin Cangie
on February 29th, 2012


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Why You Need to Invest in Online PR

by Jesse Wynants on February 20th, 2012

We came across this great infographic on prmarketing.com a few days ago about the importance of your brand’s online presence. The statistics are eye-opening – for example, did you know that 1 in 9 people on Earth are on Facebook!

If that’s not enough to make you invest in online PR, have a look below at the many payoffs of having a strong online image, as well as the pitfalls of neglecting your brand online.

What do you think of this infographic? Do you agree, disagree, have something to add?

by Jesse Wynants
on February 20th, 2012


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The PR News Wire Is Dead. Long Live the PR News Wire.

by Robin Cangie on January 31st, 2012

We recently came across this article about the death of the traditional press release news wire, which asks the following question of several PR experts:

As Google alerts, social networks and online communities grow in strength and accuracy when sourcing stories and building relationships – what becomes of the wires? Do they become less important? Do they cease to exist?

Given that we’re in the business of helping you create and distribute social media press releases (though we’re not a traditional wire service), we took a natural interest in this debate. The general consensus of the experts is, predictably, that the traditional news wire isn’t dead; it’s simply evolving.

We’d like to offer an additional take. While the news wire is still a useful component of your PR strategy, effective PR is and always has been about building strong relationships. Sending a generic press release to thousands of publications via the news wire might get you a temporary boost in traffic or even – if you’re lucky – a mention in a big publication. But in the long run, ten strong relationships with influencers in your industry are worth more than 10,000 media outlets who’ve never heard of you.

Press releases, the news wire, multimedia content and your social media newsroom are powerful tools for the PR professional, and as you begin building solid relationships with influencers, they’re great resources for your contacts. But they’re no substitute for genuine human interaction. This was true long before the social web rose to prominence.

Do you still use a traditional news wire? If so, why? If not, why not?

by Robin Cangie
on January 31st, 2012


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Three Tools to Find Your Influencers

by Robin Cangie on January 17th, 2012

Where are the influencers in your industry? You probably know where to look for the top-tier influencers, but don’t underestimate the power of niche influencers who may not be as broadly known.

Here are three tools to help you find the hidden influencers in your niche:

  1. Klout. Love it or hate it, Klout is a great starting point in any search for influencers. It’s free to use and easy to search by influencers according to selected topics. One thing to keep in mind: Klout only measures online influence. It won’t tell you anything about the valuable offline connections that your influencers may have, which is why you should treat it as a starting point, not the final point.
  2. Follower Wonk. Follower Wonk is a fun and geeky little application that helps you uncover hidden influencers in your own network and those of your Twitter followers. You can search on Twitter profile data, compare different users, analyze your followers’ followers and overlay your own social graph on top of it all. Give it a try, but we warn you, it can get addicting.
  3. Muck Rack. Muck Rack is a service that aggregates the tweets of journalists and organizes them according to beat, geography, and news source. We’ve written about them before, but the company has made updated their business model since then – most notably, you can no longer hunt for journalists by beat for free. With a bit more legwork, the free version of Muck Rack can still help you uncover potential influencers in your niche. The paid version is also affordable for most businesses and will save you a lot of time.

While you probably won’t read about them in Mashable anytime soon, these “hidden” influencers can still offer you valuable coverage, especially if they have a trusted following. It’s all about quality over quantity.

What tools do you use to find your influencers? Please share in the comments.

by Robin Cangie
on January 17th, 2012


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Maximizing Your Email Deliverability

by Jesse Wynants on January 5th, 2012

The most beautifully crafted pitch email in the world isn’t worth a thing if your message doesn’t reach its recipient. Luckily, if you send emails via Prezly, rest assured that we take many steps to ensure that your emails get delivered to your media contacts’ inboxes, not their junk folders:

    • We use SendGrid: a professional and proven email delivery system.
    • We have a dedicated IP address to ensure optimal delivery of every email.
    • We continually monitor blacklist services.
    • We get notified every time we receive a spam report (it doesn’t happen very often!), so we can take appropriate action immediately.
    • Our email layout is professional, clean and can’t be customized, reducing the potential for spammers to take advantage of our templates.
    • Only paying customers get access to the email functionality. This is the absolute best way to keep spammers out.
    • We have a clear unsubscribe link, so anyone can opt out at any time and for any reason. This keeps us compliant with spam and email privacy laws and helps minimize spam complaints.
    • You can only use our email tool for sending out press releases. This prevents anyone from trying to abuse our system – not that any of our wonderful customers would do such a thing! :)

That’s how we approach email deliverability. There are steps that you can take, too, the most important of which is to build a good reputation by following certain email best practices (i.e. don’t spam your contacts!) We’ll dive into this in greater detail next week.

In the meantime, please share any tips you have to improve email deliverability in the comments.

by Jesse Wynants
on January 5th, 2012


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