My favorite line: “Being able to stay in Wyoming and pursue what I love. It’s like a dream.”

Sometimes it takes more than a webinar or a whitepaper to get the point across. 
If you (or your boss) identify with any of these, it might be time for a healthy dose of reality.
Does the sound like your PR firm? Email me - I have a long list of savvy, scrappy agencies and PR pros ready to roll.

12 Signs Your PR Needs An Intervention

• Your press kit has to be bound, stacked or downloaded.
• You have a hanging file full of pull quotes.
• You refer to spamming journalists as, “pr distribution.” 
• Your idea of PR software is Microsoft Word.
• You plan to keep pace with trends by hiring younger.
• Your Twitter feed includes a link to a doc, pdf or white paper.
• You think you can make your press release “social” by adding a “share this” button.
• Your PR tools include a fax machine and a bluetooth headset.
• Your press release reads like a tag cloud of keywords, an seo masterpiece.
• You rely solely on media outlets to reach your customers or consumers.
• You’ve sent an email in the last 6-months that included an attached press release.
• You still think hashtags (###) signify “the end.” 

Cure your lackluster PR. Fill your prescription at pitchengine.com.

Build digital press kits, pitches and newsrooms. Create engaging, consumer-facing PR content  - optimized for search and social media.
Get the word out™ to real people about what you do. 

PitchEngine is good medicine. 

Call 307-855-4011, Email or Tweet us.
Sorry, no faxes  

Follow Jason on Twitter. 

Over the past year, I’ve had the opportunity to sit down and visit face-to-face with PR professionals from many industries. Each, with their own ideas and misconceptions of social media. Sarah Evans and I relish every chance we get to set the record straight and help communicators “get real” about social media and their public relations efforts. I find myself repeating what has become a new mantra of mine, “In PR distribution, if there is an easy-button, don’t push it!”

A Little History
When I set out to create PitchEngine a couple of years ago, I never imagined it would be as robust and dynamic as it has become. I set out to develop a tool to make the workflow of public relations and media professionals easier and well, better. As a former journalist turned PR guy, I was annoyed at the antiquated methods of exchanging word doc attachments, ftp-ing photos and all the other “rigid” ways of sharing content.

I had to start by creating a new “press release” format that enabled us to include all sorts of pieces that we needed to share – pdfs, powerpoint presentations, videos, images, audio, etc., As I researched what was out there, I discovered that something similar had been conceptualized by Todd Defren. It was called the Social Media Press Release (SMPR). It’s important to point out – I didn’t build PitchEngine around this concept. At the time, it didn’t have much adoption, it was simply a mock-up of how something like this should look. The SMPR name seemed like a good fit at the time and made a lot of sense to me as a PR guy. So, I dropped the “press” form the name and called our template the Social Media Release (SMR). Little did I know, the very openness of Todd’s great concept would also be its biggest challenge.

Muddy Waters and a Slippery Slope
Todd is a thought leader in the industry. I respect what Todd developed in the SMPR concept and for all those who pushed the idea out to the industry (Chris Heuer, Brian Solis, Scott Monty, among others). Those who adopted the idea and implemented it in some fashion were early-adopters. However, as PitchEngine grew in popularity and more and more people flocked to build and share SMRs (24,000+ brands, 68,000 SMRs already), the industry and its established PR services also embraced the Todd’s SMPR idea. Unfortunately, in many ways the “SM” (social media) in SMPR  has become nothing more than buzzwords for the sake of marketing up-sell.

I’ve been very open about my views on the misconceptions/misrepresentation of the SMR:

• You cannot make a press release social.
  - Associated Press (AP) format is not conversational or social.
  - If you start by opening a Microsoft Word, you’re probably missing the point.
• Share buttons do not make a press release social.
  - Just because you have the option to share a link to a bunch of text, doesn’t mean you should.
• Multimedia does not make a press release social, it makes it more engaging.
  - I applaud those people who take the time to make their content more engaging and the services that enable them to do it (affordably).
• Social means it should be living and in real-time.
  - It shouldn’t “die” once you send it out through a wire service with no ability to edit, add to or create conversations.

Moving Forward and Staking Our Claim
I desperately want to avoid nit-picking our way through the PR landscape about what the SMR or SMPR is defined as and what it provides. So, we’re going a different direction. The PitchEngine Social Media Release will be reinvented and reintroduced as the Pitch™. Yes, Tom Forenski. Yes, Peter Shankman. The traditional press release is dead! At least, to us it is. I call it “word doc PR” and it’s as played out as Christmas carols in June. Boss require it still? Just include it as an attachment if you have to. Or send it through a traditional service and embed a link to something much better.

Whether you’re pitching a 3-billion dollar product to the world, or telling your neighbors there’s a garage sale on Tuesday, a pitch is a pitch. There will be good ones, and there will be bad ones – we’re all about enabling you to pitch whatever it is you want to pitch in a concise, cool and more conversational way.

In the coming weeks, PitchEngine will roll out more creative tools to help businesses and organizations tell their stories, get found on search engines and interact with media, consumers and other online influencers. It’s time to put those documents in box, figuratively speaking, and take your pitch to the cloud. Pitch stories, pitch yourself, pitch anything. This is PitchEngine.

Follow me @jasonkintzler for more!

photo by Laura Gainor

I had a great time at Marquette University this past week, speaking to about 300 people as part of the PR + Social Media Summit put on by Comet Branding in Milwaukee. The twitter stream during my presentation was incredible and once again demonstrated to me that people are ripe for change in the PR industry.

But who the heck is going to lead this change? With all due respect to the PRSA, PR Week and others, I’m just not seeing anyone step up to the plate and tell it like it is, for the sake of the profession. Is it a big secret? If you want to be part of a sinking ship, do things like you’ve done them for the past decade and see where it takes you. Yes, I do realize that you made money doing it that way, plenty of money – but that’s going to change. If you’re still writing traditional press releases read my last post: 5 Ways to kill the Press Release. 

The thought leaders do exist
Brian Solis, Peter Shankman and Sarah Evans are doing what they can to open the eyes of an eager industry. I too am jumping at every opportunity to inject some passion into the process. Truth is, it’s the youngsters that are tasked with getting it done. As agencies begin to hire, they look for college grads to bring their “social media swagger” and inject it into their shop. But who’s teaching the kids?

The good news is there are a few Universities being proactive. They’re teaching social media skills and story telling (for people, not robots) right alongside AP-style and the fundamentals of public relations. Schools like the University of Oregon, Kent State, Wisconsin, Auburn and Marquette (one of my favs) have integrated PitchEngine into their curriculum to help students tell better stories. Professors like Bill Sledzik (Kent State) and Gee Ekachai (Marquette) who are giving graduates something more than fundamentals to take with them into the workforce. It’s been so successful for students that we’re creating a university software package to make it easier for schools to teach.

Who is succeeding now?
I believe it’s the smaller PR firms with creativity and grit that have big clients clamoring for the next generation PR. Social media aside, they understand that the PR process isn’t cookie cutter and that good PR doesn’t stop with a lead list, search engine optimization or the press release.

On the plane back from Denver I realized that now is the time to change course. I am recommitting myself to helping those who see into the future and feel ill-equipped. For those that don’t get a whole lot of inspiration form the pillars of public relations community.

I’ll start with this blog and next year’s speaking schedule, but I won’t stop there. I’m going to make it a point to rain on the parade of the “easy-button” generation of template-driven, over-optimized bad PR people. Change won’t come from recognition, it will come through adoption.

Who’s with me?
@jasonkintzler

share this post: http://post.ly/ZI3u