A recent survey of UK journalists showed us that press releases are still the #1 source for corporate news.
However, what journalists need has changed dramatically.
They’ve been telling us for at least five years now that they need more than just a page of text. And PR Newswire’s study of how multimedia with a press release increases views makes it very clear that we have to provide images, video and graphics with our news releases.
Yet today I saw this press release about a survey of marketing decision-makers regarding their organization’s attitudes and practices in social media. The release has some useful statistics:
- 65% of C-suite execs are interested in how their brand is perceived in social media. (I’d love to know what the other 35% think of social media, but that’s another blog post altogether)
- 71% of those surveyed think they are doing a good job of reporting on the brand’s perception in social media
- 56% says they measure it by levels of engagement
- 31% use quantitative measures (# of fans, followers)
- 11% rely on gut feel ( very scientific!)
Perceived Value to the Brand
- 84% ranked Facebook #1
- 45% ranked YouTube first
- 41% said LinkedIn was their best bet
The Engagement Gap
Although the majority of companies surveyed see Facebook as the most valuable social media platform, the public is not so enamored of brand fan pages. A recent BlogHer study surveyed 2000 women and discovered that Facebook is not their most trusted source for information and advice:
- Blogs 81%
- Pinterest 81%
- Twitter 73%
- Facebook 67%
The press release references a paper released at the 2012 International Public Relations Conference on Millenials’ interaction with fan pages on Facebook that shows that this group (intensive users of social media platforms) have an arms-length relationship with Facebook fan pages.
All of this data would make a fascinating infographic. At the very least it should have been in a chart or two.
A slidedeck using visuals to depict the data could have been made – see what BlogHer did with their survey:
Using the slide deck a short video of the main points, with perhaps a couple of interviews and interesting quotes could have been produced for next to no cost.
What a missed PR opportunity.
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