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