So You Think You Can Write a Press Release?

Well, if you think you can, you’ll need the 14 essential elements listed in Chapter 12 of “Share This.” These 14 elements are the basics to building a social media news release and newsroom. They are:

Headline, introductory paragraph, Supporting paragraphs, Anchor text links, Quotes, Supporting facts, Multimedia, Infographics, Social network sharing tools, Email sharing button, Social bookmarking tools, Links, Creative Commons License, and Contact information

The book goes on to say how the press release has evolved over the years, starting from the very first published about the Pennsylvania Railroad (pictured below), to Tom Foremski’s critique, and finally to the ever changing social media release.

Since I have little PR knowledge, I liked reading about the history of the press release and where it is going. I know I’ll have to write a press release at some point in my career, so it was very nice that this book spelled out the individual aspects that come together to make a successful press release. I have most of these elements in my blog posts, but for a company I’ll have to incorporate almost all of these for a successful press release.