While most public relations professionals now recognize the essential nature of media monitoring and measurement, many are now dropping press release distribution services as a PR requirement, a new survey reveals.
The overwhelming majority of PR managers (78%) use a media monitoring service, according to the survey by TEKGROUP International, which offers online newsroom software. Over ninety percent of PR managers would consider or might consider outsourcing media monitoring. “Using a media monitoring service is obviously a critical piece of any PR practitioners plan,” the report concludes.
Although some organizations handle social media monitoring in-house, PR experts believe outsourcing media monitor and measurement provides several important benefits. Outsourcing saves staff time and lowers costs by spreading development costs across different clients. Outsourced media measurement provides superior analytics, objective analysis and access to specialized expertise.
Previous research by Researchscape International found that social media monitoring is a main factor for determining executives’ satisfaction with their PR firms. More executives (57 percent) use PR firms for social media monitoring than other services.
While most PR managers embrace media monitoring, fewer use news wire services to distribute news releases, the TEKGROUP survey reveals. Half use news wire services; half don’t. Even the PR pros among the half that use wire services, say they don’t use the services to send all content. Instead, more PR pros now publish and distribute news releases themselves with their own targeted email lists. Almost three quarters (73%) email news releases to a targeted list of contacts.
New Regulations for New Times
The number of organizations using wire services dropped dramatically since the SEC announced in 2008 that a wire service is no longer needed to fulfill the Full Disclosure Regulation, or Regulation FD.
Enacted in 2000, the regulation required publicly traded companies to distribute “material information” widely and simultaneously, explains Kirstin Liebhardt of TEKGROUP International in Business 2 Community. The SEC hoped to stop insiders from gaining important information before the rest of the trading public. To meet the rule, companies turned to newswires to distribute the press releases to well-researched lists of journalists at well-established publications.
The End of the News Middleman
“This was a great idea until the Internet came,” Liebhardt says. “As with most industries, the Internet took out the middle man. Within the PR industry, that middleman is the newswire.”
Many public companies have concluded that they can now easily and cost-efficiently distribute their own news through the internet and social media in order to satisfy Regulation FD. They also now use their own media lists and targeted media relations to reach the organizations’ major constituencies for other corporate and brand publicity.
Public companies also post quarterly financial reports and other announcements in their own online newsrooms, also called press rooms, media rooms or news centers. Brands that follow recommended best practices find that online newsroom offers a potent tool for winning media attention and promoting the brand’s messages directly to their various audiences, including customers. The bigger press release distribution services such as Business Wire now offer online press rooms as part of their services.
The news release distribution services still offer value for many businesses, PR agencies, and not-for-profit organizations that have not developed their own lists or who – for whatever reason – believe there is still value in doing a mass press release distribution of a corporate announcement.
Bottom Line: The rise of the internet and social media has pushed media monitoring to the forefront of public relations. At the same time, the new online communications channels are shrinking the use of press release distribution services by PR.
William J. Comcowich founded and served as CEO of CyberAlert LLC, the predecessor of Glean.info. He is currently serving as Interim CEO and member of the Board of Directors. Glean.info provides customized media monitoring, media measurement and analytics solutions across all types of traditional and social media.
