On March 31^st on #NationalCrayonDay in the heart of New York’s Times Square, Crayola held a press event which was streamed lived on Facebook announcing the retirement of the color Dandelion.  The recording of the livestream has over 225K views. That is a lot of exposure.  Show me a communications professional that wouldn’t melt over that kind of reach.

Adding to the fanfare and building on the announcement, Crayola put the color on a retirement tour across the US, creating a buzz on Instagram and Facebook for Crayola fans to interact with the brand.

This is not the press release process you learned in school or even on the job. This is the press release rethought and redelivered to reach out to the brand’s fans and followers to maximize exposure.

Calling a Press Conference/Media Event

Press conference, media event, no matter how it’s labeled gathering the media to cover an announcement is public relations opportunity to garner news coverage. It can be classified as earned or paid depending on how you may evaluate the cost of putting the event together. What can’t be disputed though is the coverage is nearly guaranteed to be reported. Yes, nearly.

There are two major dynamics at work in the press world – deadlines and breaking news. All of which is reported on by fewer journalists. Journalists on deadline already have their topic and are working on corroboration, fact-checking etc. Breaking news is a current issue that warrants interruption of a broadcast, special edition of a newspaper and lately Tweets or Facebook posts with hashtags to carry the content.

Calling a press conference or media event doesn’t guarantee coverage because your content may be pre-empted with breaking news, become a 10 second B-roll mention or simply not that interesting to have warranted the media outlet to send a resource to cover the event in the first place.

Issuing a Press Release 

There was a time, not so long ago when a press release was issued by a brand, the wires would pick it up, newsrooms would pick it up and so on… and that was how a brand received exposure from their press release. (Yes, a bit oversimplified but you get the idea.)

Today, simply issuing a press release, sending it out into the big wide world and expecting coverage is not considered a best practice. Frankly, it’s lazy and unproductive. Today, a press release needs an escort (think targeted media list), and even an introduction (think relationship with journos.) Creating a focused list of media contacts with which the brand or communicator have a relationship and know there is interested or a tie into a current story is what journalists keep asking for, so good communicators deliver. In turn, they are more likely to get timely coverage.

However, the single approach to distributing information is not going to reach the entire target audience. This is were thinking about where you audience spend their time and what tools are best suited to reach them comes into play.

Facebook Live is one of several options for brands to reach their audience where their audience(s) gather. Crayola did a great job generating interest in what could have been a non-event. It isn’t the first or only live-streaming option (you can live-stream on Twitter’s Periscope and Instagram’s Stories) , however Facebook seems to have made live-streaming mainstream.

Brands are using this form or communication to inform their followers of events, share behind-the-scenes stories, and generally humanize the brand.

Remember you have several options for pro-active outreach including, the company website, the company blog, FB, Instagram, Twitter, Snap and the direct to the journalist emailed press release.

A multifaceted approach to communication conveys the brand’s acknowledgment of the fact that we all use different tools at different times of the day to get caught up, entertained or stay informed.

 

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