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News releases for LegalTech to prove worthless in days of social media?

LegalTech social mediaThe news release Is worthless in today’s social media age writes marketing communications strategist and blogger, Aaron Perult.

I receive at least 10 relatively illegible news releases daily (and many reporters tell me they get up to 300 each day). And rarely, if ever, can I get past the subject line in my e-mail inbox. Most of them simply seem to take up space.

Perult practices what he preaches.

I recently helped announce the licensing of a new high profile video gaming experience. Instead of spending $1,000-plus on a news release–and it was definitely what most would consider news release worthy due to the brands involved–we simply sent out a two-sentence pitch to a few important news outlets, including USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Rolling Stone and Billboard.

Once the stories posted on January 13, it spread throughout traditional media, the blogosphere and social media platforms and, in essence, we received the same effect as a news release might have had in the times of Alex P. Keaton.

As a popular law blogger I get 10 to 20 news releases a day. On the eve of LegalTech in New York last year I received as many as 25 or 30 a day. When I got to LegalTech CEO’s and pitchmen wanted to get my time to share news of their product releases.

One or two of the releases and pitches were of interest to me. But in the vast majority of cases, I knew nothing of the company and their services or products were totally unrelated to things I blog about.

LegalTech is next week in New York. I’m noticing companies exhibiting at LegalTech and releasing products there are starting to follow me on Twitter. Some will share on Twitter what booth they are in. Most appear to have little knowledge how to use social media to build relationships with the people they are looking to cover them.

My guess though is that l’ll still see a steady stream of news releases in advance of the conference.

Though there are thousands of legal professionals blogging, Tweeting, and using other forms of social media, most of the companies serving the legal industry who will be exhibiting at LegalTech have little understanding how to leverage social media. Very few of their CEO’s blog or use Twitter — at least in an effective way.

Legal reporters and publishers can then continue to act as the principal means of reporting on product releases and developments. Those legal reporters and publishers remain a captive audience for news releases.

We’ll see news releases for LegalTech again this year, but I think their days are numbered.

I’ll be at LegalTech next week. If you you have something of interest to lawyers and law firms in the area of client development, marketing, social media, and the like that may be of interest to my readers and I, please let me know.

If you’re interested in discussing how to use social media (blogging, Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook etc) to effectively spread word of your company and its services/products I’d be happy to get together for coffee or a beer.

  • Bill Pollak

    Supporters of any single media like to say that “their” media is not only better than every other form of media, but in fact replaces any need to use the other media forms. I’m sure proponents of TV advertising said that of radio in the 50′s. Online ad sales folks have been saying that about print for the last 10+ years. And now we have social media boosters making that same claim vis a vis other forms of promotion.
    But study after study says it ain’t true. In fact, integrated media — that is, using multiple media forms — consistently does better at reaching an audience than only using one form. Combining print and online does better that only one or only the other. And I’ll bet combining social media with more traditional forms of message distribution will also do better than just one or just the other.
    In this case, I have no doubt that combining a press release, an email campaign and targeted use of social media will do better than using only one of those forms for LegalTech exhibitors who want to make sure that they reach their target audience. Which is why I think press releases are here to stay.

  • http://www.techno.la Kate Bladow

    Kevin – The news release isn’t dead yet. I just watched a conversation on Twitter between a conference organizer and a news reporter where she requested that he send a release. It’s not that her paper isn’t using social networking & social media. I suspect that they have established processes to handle press releases, so news items have less chance of getting lost. – K

  • http://kevin.lexblog.com Kevin OKeefe

    Thanks for the feedback guys. Though I am always going to be out in the front on social media as an evangelist, my gut tells me you’re right.
    Kate, the established processes that the mainstream media, their reporters, and their editors have may mean in some cases it is easier to get your news into their system via a news release.
    For example Monica Bay, the editor-in-chief of ALM’s Law Technology News, was kind enough to let me know a couple years ago that she and her team have a refined process as to how they receive news releases and move them along. Going to Bill’s point it’s Monica’s and my effective use of social media (integrated approach) that helps nurture what I think it is a good relationship between us that led to our discussion on news releases.
    I agree on on the print being here to stay Bill. As much as LexBlog as relied exclusively on blogging, social media, and word of mouth we are discussing a more integrated approach for this year. That approach will include print.