A Day in the Online Life of a Humble Press Release

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A Day in the (Online) Life of a Humble Press
Release

• Lori Packer
• University of Rochester
• HighEdWeb 2008

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About the U of R

• Research university
• 4,800 undergraduates

Six schools, Med Center VERY decentralized
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About Public Relations at U of R

• Each school has its own PR office
• University Communications covers the
  College and central administration
• There are 29 of us
• Publications
• Periodicals
• Media Relations including six publicists

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About Me

• What is a Web Editor anyway?
• Can you put this on
  the Web?
• She does our Web stuff.
• Can you talk to IT about this?
  You speak the same language.

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Press Releases In the Beginning

• Letterhead, printers, envelopes, labels,
  stamps, fax machines

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Press Releases as Source

• Serve as fodder for journalists
• Tell our stories to reporters, who then tell a
  story to their audience (or not)
• Can influence but not control the outcome
• Have a limited shelf life

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Press Releases as Destination

• Still server as source material for journalists,
  BUT...
• Online, the press release becomes the story
• Cut out the middle man
• Have an unlimited shelf life

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Case Study 1 The
Media Still Matter

• Lights Most Exotic Trick Yet So Fast it Goes
  ... Backwards?
• Published May 2006
• Light passing through a fiber laced with a
  chemical element went so fast that it exited the
  fiber before it entered

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Backwards Light A
Complete Package
Animations
High-res photos
Infographic
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Backwards Light Results

• Hit in the New York Times
• SUCCESS!!

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Backwards Light But Wait,
Theres More

• New York Times story appears online
• Story includes link back to press release
• BECAUSE of the animation

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Backwards Light A Life Online

• After the New York Times hit, the press release
  on our site received over 101,000 hits in one
  month.
• Only about 12,000 (which is still huge) of those
  hits came directly from the New York Times

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Backwards Light A Life Online

• Since its publication in May 2006, the release
  has received over 180,000 hits, mostly generated
  by sites like Stumbleupon.
• Is still regularly in the top 10 in terms of
  traffic to press releases on our site each month.

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Backwards Light Lessons

• Give them a package, something they cant get
  from anyone else
• The gift that keeps on giving
• The mainstream media still serve an agenda
  setting function still drive content on blogs,
  social networking sites

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Case Study 2 Social Media

• Rochester Physicists Quantum Uncollapse
  Hypothesis Verified
• Published August 2008
• Theory that you could unmeasure a quantum
  particle and revert it to its original form

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Quantum Mechanics Results

• No video, no animation, no graphic elements
• No big media hits this time
• BUT ... release receives over 72,000 hits in its
  first month

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Quantum Mechanics
Following the Traffic

• Published on August 4th
• August 5th 11 hits from internal sources
• August 6th 1,700 hits from Reddit
• August 7th 11,000 hits from Digg (Reddit falls
  to 700) and a couple blogs
• August 8th 10,000 hits from Stumbleupon (Digg
  falls to 300)

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Some New Tools of the Trade

• Google Analytics
• Track each news release separately
• Look at a day, a week, a month
• Generate pretty reports

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Some New Sources of Traffic

• Stumbleupon
• Toolbar lets you discover and rank Web stuff you
  may not find yourself
• Digg
• User community promotes/demotes Web stuff
• Reddit
• Much the same as Digg ...

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What did we learn on the show tonight, Lori?

• Its all about telling stories
• The media still matter
• News releases are not just source material
• News releases online are the story