Publicist who have been in the biz for at least 15 years have at least heard of a Whispering Campaign and those in the biz 20 plus years have more than likely used one at some point or another in their career. For those newbies who aren’t familiar, the WHISPERING CAMPAIGN, was a PR tactic consisting of putting short “quotes” or story plants to the media from newspaper gossip columnist to radio personalities. In addition if a particular celeb or pop star was going to be at a club or restaurant the old “hey look who’s …. tactic was deployed and word quickly spread throughout the establishment.
The PR BLURB is now starting to take the place of the old Whispering Campaign along with the actual Press Release itself. As the industry evolves and PRs have additionally become bloggers, social media whizzes and creative content influencers’ the way we get stories out, the way we get the buzz on continually evolves as well. The press release as we know it is dead, I particularly have never been a fan of long wordy press releases and lean-to the short, sweet to the point approach, has finally in 2017 become the industry standard; PR Blurbs are just spot on, a few choice words about what’s on, what to bring attention to with the client, catchy creative content, @’d, a photo or link perhaps with key #s that are trending, a #that you create and of course the #PRblurb
PR blogs are a great way to get your story out with short descriptions and current buzz words, trends to draw in attention added in with links to websites and other social media spots, it’s more than just a blurb and more akin to the press release. With those PR blog links going directly to other influencers, podcasts, bloggers, editors to garner attention. Likes and Retweets being more important than features in an increasing trend where pay for placement in magazines and major blogs are the norm. You still have to be creative in your tweet pitches with the right #’s and trends etc. PRs have to constantly look for editors, bloggers and influencers as it is constantly changing, new ones always coming about. Building relationships with them, as we did with editors we would ring up or fax, so they PAY ATTENTION to what WE send them. They are bombarded with anywhere from 300-800 pitches per week not to mention the countless @’s and # trends they like and retweet, if PR’s don’t establish relationships with them it will slip right by them PRs have the knack of wording something just right, knowing when to pitch them, when to tweet them, how to grab attention, it not something that just ANYONE can do.
Using #PRBlurb and #PRblog in post along side of what Hashtags are trending, yes it is very important to pay attention to what’s trending if you want, you’ll get the buzz about.
Not just limited to the PR blog or PR Blurbs for getting information out, along with creative content PR’s create hashtags that will help the buzz along but the use of multiple photos set up in groups on your #PRBlog and tweet that link out with the right #’s Tweet Storms work great too, A #tweetstorm is a series of tweets that pick up where the last one left off and often look like a mini-essay if all complied together. Make sure and use the #TweetStorm .
These are all great ways of getting the word out and the buzz on for clients. PRs have to stay on and ahead of the Trends and in a lot of cases make the #trends too!
Al Geiner PR 