AgWired

This is the first in a series of articles I’m writing on the issue of tracking news releases. It’s a big issue and I’m hoping for some feedback on it. The primary income source for ZimmComm is our Talking News Release service so it’s very important to us as well as our clients.

Chapter 1

How many reporters used my news release? What kind of pickup do you get? Can I have a list of the stations that used my release?

These are a few of the questions we get asked all the time. However, while we would dearly love to provide a detailed listing of the reporters, stations and airtimes of the stories that included our client’s news releases, that’s just not possible or practical with broadcast radio news. It never has been, and even with the most sophisticated e-mail tracking system (which we have yet to find) we might be able to find out who takes a look, but not who actually uses it on the air.

However, there are some things we can control that will increase usage. Let’s start with the most basic factor that affects media use of a news release. Is the content of the release newsworthy? This is the most important reason why news releases get used or ignored by reporters. If you write a commercial then your release is probably going to be sent to the sales manager at the station or network who should contact you with rate information to purchase advertising. If the release is extremely complicated, long and filled with technical terms that can’t even be pronounced by the average person then it is likely to be ignored. However, if it’s newsworthy, well written, and pertinent to the reporter’s coverage area then it stands a much better chance of seeing airtime. . .(full article).

At least that’s what an article in the Wall Street Journal seems to say. I don’t have a subscription to the Wall Street Journal but maybe you do and then you can read the full article mentioned in Steve Broback’s post over at Blog Business Summit. Steve says:

According to the Wall Street Journal special report How Old Media Can Survive In a New World, Blogs are prominent among technologies threatening to “push the traditional newspaper, television, radio, music and advertising industries into the dustbin of history.”

* The nightly broadcasts on the big three networks have had a 28.4% decline in total viewers since 1991. In 1978, the three original broadcast networks captured about 90% of the prime-time audience. Today, it’s less than 50%. The Journal credits this to cable and the advent of online news sources, blogs and email alerts.

Steve also has some other excerpts available on his post that specifically mention some of the advantages of a blog over traditional media.

He hasn’t mentioned when the next Blog Business Summit will be but I’m looking forward to attending if possible.

He’s a good friend but I just don’t think he’s going to convince me to start on an Apple at this point. I made my decision to be an “IBM” computer dude when I bought my first Compaq Portable. Thanks anyway Evan. He wrote this note after we announced our giveaway of an Apple Ipod Shuffle.

Good Morning Chuck,

Thanks for your support of an Apple product.
As an individual who likes to be on the leading of technology, you would look great with an Apple Power Book.
All the best,

Evan

You can find Evan at the Evan Slack Network.

Here’s something I should have known about. It’s where you ought to go to find out if you’ve been written about on somebody’s blog. Just type in your name, company name or a keyword and it pulls up a list of posts. As of the writing of this post they claim to have listed 11,214,302 blogs! It’s run by Intelliseek and yes they do have their own blog: Blogpulse Highlights

I just did a search for AgriMarketing Pros and it came up with 31 entries. Most were our own posts but some were from other blogs that had written about us. Very interesting.