Hate to write press releases? Use Muck Rack

By on July 23rd, 2009 In Social Media

I just learned about this on Twitter, of course.  Muck Rack has launched a service that allows you to create one-line press releases and distribute them to journalists.  

Fees are based on the length of the tweet.   The benefit, according to the site?  “A one-line press release on Twitter takes less of your time than long, emailed press releases and phone calls.  Every word in the release counts – literally…”  There is no release categorization yet, but they plan to have it soon.

Here’s a sample that includes a link to a longer version of the announcement: 

RELEASE: American Freestyle Motocross Association @ X Games next week http://bit.ly/9myUr

I find the idea of one-line press releases both bizarre and intriguing at the same time.   What do you think?  If you write a one-line release with no links, what do you charge your clients for that?  

Comments

Malcolm Atherton Says:
July 23rd, 2009 at 12:52 pm

A 1 line “release” that contains no links is like asking for a tall, cold drink and gettiong a glass that contains one teeny little sip.

This new idea reeks of laziness and I anticipate that it will give rise to spin-tastic one liners. 1 line isn’t a press release. I’m not even sure that press releases are “press” releases anymore as they are generally written for and available to consumers, media, bloggers, etc. all at once. But I digress…

If poorly written content has given the press release a bad rap I can’t wait to see what what these little snippets do to the perception of corporate communications:

“Awesomest awesome widget is awesomer than the rest.”

Now, if this 1 liner consists of well-contrived content and is not composed of 100% pure hype then I can see it working as part of a plan to promote a more thorough & contextual release hosted on a wire, a website, or elsewhere.

But doesn’t Twitter already do this(and without the pricetag)? Muckrack charges you $1 a character with a 50-character/$50 minimum for something you can do on Twitter for free. Hmmm…

I look forward to hearing what others think about this.
(Somewhere, Twitter’s founders are cursing themselves for not charging $1 a character on Twitter the entire time…)

Linda VandeVrede Says:
July 23rd, 2009 at 1:21 pm

Malcolm – condensing news down to one line DOES seem a bit extreme. While I’m not sure it works for press releases, I have to admit I do love #iftheytweeted on twitter, which condenses famous people down to 140 characters and what they would say if they tweeted. I had fun with it:

Lizzie Borden: Tired of living cheap.Dad has all the cash.Hate stepmom.Bought a great-looking axe today.

I suppose you could make a press release out of that too, but why would you?

Dan Wool Says:
July 23rd, 2009 at 9:06 pm

Agree with Malcolm. Dumb tool for lazy people. You can tweet anyone (journalists) for free.

Angelo Fernando Says:
July 24th, 2009 at 6:52 am

I don’t see why anyone will need Muckrack for this. If you build a relationship with a small group of journalists who trust you, why use the shotgun approach –and pay for it? (I notice Muckrack says it is Targeted, but does not let you select whom it goes out to.)

I don’t mind the compression, because it’s a lead-in, not a release per se. This sounds like the other side of the Twitpitch debate. http://tinyurl.com/c9hwv6

Deb Krol Says:
July 24th, 2009 at 10:23 am

We do that now at the Heard: a brief Tweet and a link to the event page. Example: Beat the heat at Free Target Sizzlin’ Summer Saturdays http://heard.org/sizzlin/

It works! Don’t need any fancy Web site to do that for us, we just do it.

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