journalism – Griffin's Blog

_{^{Press releases have been around since 1905. They provide valuable information not only to the public but journalists around the world. Since the takeoff of the internet, press releases have grown much more and have become way more common.}}

Press releases have changed with the growth of technology, allowing press releases to become more widely available rather than just seen through traditional media. With the growth of technology, press releases have incorporated multimedia and a way to access these releases online for millions of people to see and look up.

You don’t just want press releases when there is big news because “big news” doesn’t always happen. It’s about making any news have a hook that will intrigue journalists. Having a shift in a company is not the biggest news, but giving a reason for that shift can intrigue a journalist to want to dive deep into that story. This works the same for something that involves evidence. If Taco Bell were to take something off the menu, that is not newsworthy. Still, if they were to take something off the menu after finding something harmful or contaminated within that object on the menu, suddenly, it becomes a great news hook to follow and gather information about.

Press releases provide helpful information to the public and journalists looking for stories. Without press releases, people would go crazy wondering about how certain events happened without the company talking about it, and that’s what press releases do. It also doesn’t have to be a bad event that makes a press release. Some great press releases come from Apple whenever they release a new product and discuss the new features they offer. All in all, press releases are a great way to gain information through the evidence and details that they provide within these releases.

Twitter is a great social media for numerous reasons. It allows for easy engagement due to easy access to commenting, retweeting, or quote tweeting. It is not an app directly for pictures or videos, so engagement is heavy. Commenting on what someone wrote on Twitter vs commenting on a picture on Instagram is two totally different things and makes Twitter more accessible to actually hearing people’s thoughts rather than what they are going to compliment about a photo.

Twitter for journalists is an amazing thing as it works as a portfolio for them, and is super easy to share articles through Twitter. Any type of topic written by a journalist invites that specific group to engage with their Twitter posts, whether they are posting their article or just talking about a specific topic. For instance sports beat writers invite fans to ask specific questions during the season so the journalist can provide insight.

Some practices for journalists on Twitter involve responding to comments, sharing other colleagues’ work, sharing parts of personal life, and sharing your own stories but also posting other tweets that don’t just involve links. By doing this, it allows the journalist to grow followers in a way where they can also be considered fans of your writing and insight.

Whether its Twitter or other social media platforms, journalists cannot ignore other social media platforms because that is missing out on important engagement. All different social media sites offer different demographics, especially Facebook, which is not primarily used by people older than 25 and not part of GEN Z. Journalists can’t ignore certain apps because it takes away from the main part of why they are writing which is the number of clicks and engagement their stories can receive.

Engagement is key in a world full of followers, which is why it is the most important thing in social media. Engagement will always beat out followers because, by having constant engagements, social media algorithms push your content to the top of people’s pages where it can be seen. Any amount of followers can’t do the same thing unless their engagement is high as well. I referenced this in my last blog, but let’s say 1 account on Twitter has 5000 followers with a ton of engagement, and another account has 500k followers with little to no engagement. Even though one account may seem like they make a good amount of money because they have followers, in reality, the account with 5000 followers and more engagement would be crushing the other account in terms of getting paid even with 495k fewer followers. Engagement is KEY.