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In my opinion news releases are a painful, painful part of PR. Thankfully The Badpitch Blog has offered twelve alternatives to the dreaded press release. The author suggests the list in order to offer new suggestions because as the author so bluntly put it ” If you keep trying the same thing, expecting different results, you’re nuts.”

The twelve tips include: advertising, creating a haiku, making a videofile on YouTube, sending mass text messages, and another standby: the media kit.

These tips were interesting. I never thought about using YouTube as a media channel for Public Relations but that is an interesting and great suggestion. A PR practitioner can load videos and commercials about the client and have the potential to create a media buzz.

Creating a Haiku also grabbed my attention and made me chuckle. The author wrote:” Creative writing might work, but what if you’re announcing an acquisition? Procter and Gamble acquired Gillette to grow and be number one. Needless to say, you’ll need background material to support news poetry.” A haiku has the potential to grab the readers potential and leave them with a lot of information in a little bit of space. What a novel and creative idea.

Also as a frequent texter mass text messages may not be the best route to take as opposed to a news release. When I get a text from a company I typically halfway read it and then delete it. Unless the text really grabs my attention and offers something free I delete and go about my business.

The blog post gave me some good ideas for a future of practicing PR but it was a bit outdated also. At the end of the blog the author mentioned that it had been previously posted in 2005, a time in which Facebook and Twitter weren’t the social powerhouses they are today. Which just goes to prove even more that PR professionals need to stay up to date to be the best in the business.