"We are the very leaders!"
Press releases from emerging IT companies are all too often an imposition
The press releases of up-and-coming IT companies are all too often an impositionBy Clemens HörlerThe companies in the IT and Internet industry are almost all young and inexperienced in communication. In addition, many are under enormous pressure to become known as quickly as possible and seek their salvation in a flood of press releases, often written by themselves. The result is news that often does not even meet minimum requirements.
"The best, the leaders, the greatest!" Superlatives like these are just being bandied about by IT journalists. Because in the IT and Internet market, many companies are fighting for survival and attention, and for many of them, excessive press work seems to be the most adequate means of achieving this. At least at first glance, this is cheaper than advertising. And, according to a widespread view, media releases can be managed by oneself without expensive agency costs.
In the process, some companies obviously confuse advertising and press texts. Or they regard press relations as free advertising. "Companies often do not see PR as a long-term instrument, but think that their press releases should primarily support sales," analyzes Urs Jenni, owner of Jenni Kommunikation, Zurich, which specializes in IT. Self-praise is often exaggerated: "Just one year old and already the world's leading provider..." begins the recently published media release of a Swiss company about its success at the Internet Expo.
Formal deficiencies make reading a pain
Strong incense in the tone of the communiqués is not everything. Many IT press releases fail to meet even the most minimal requirements of professional communication, which apply to the IT industry just as they do to everyone else. Time and again, editors receive messages by e-mail that contain meaningless information in the subject line, such as "Info from company X" or nothing at all. They end up unread in the trash.
There are also problems with the language and structure of media releases, which have been defaced with Anglicisms. A small example? "User-friendly in the offer of virtual markets" writes a Lugano-based company about its latest product, which is hopefully better than the language in which it is advertised. With many texts, the journalist can't even detect the beginnings of a story after three sentences. "If you beat around the bush for too long, you have little chance of being noticed," says Jolanda Brühwiler, managing director of In Marketing GmbH, Schwerzenbach, which specializes in IT.
The problem with many reports, however, is that there is no nutritious porridge at all. "As a journalist, you are often served old wine in new bottles," observes Matthias Zehnder, journalist and editor-in-chief of the Internet magazine Smile. Many press releases generate attention that cannot be fed.
Jenni agrees with the demand for press releases with content that open up story perspectives for journalists: "You should supply the media with information on a continuous basis, but only if it has content. Those who simply stuff the editorial offices or adulate themselves increasingly lose credibility." Young start-ups in particular find it difficult to be convinced by such theories, especially if they want to gain notoriety as quickly as possible at any cost.
The deal without style around the
Reprint of press releases
Professional PR agencies tell their employees to refrain from adding a reprint request to the media release. This is exactly what happens very often, especially with companies that write their own press releases.
Some companies - probably out of inexperience - go one step further and, in return for the "publication of a small PR report", wave the placement of advertisements or contributions to printing costs.
"With this kind of approach, the companies in question are clearly cutting their own throats," says Serge Steiner, PR editor with a focus on IT at Trimedia Communications, Zurich. However, Steiner relativizes, one cannot put the entire blame on the companies. He, too, occasionally receives a response to a press release that first asks for an advertisement or for contributions to expenses. This is especially true for smaller publications.
The fact that hot air or relatively insignificant reports also repeatedly find their way into newspapers and trade journals is not only due to the "PR-heavy" nature of certain publications. Recently, more and more pages have been reserved for the fashionable topic of the Internet, which absolutely had to be printed, if necessary also with filler material from the amateur communicators in the companies.
Even PR agencies slip up when it comes to conveying information
However, the start-ups are not solely responsible for inflated media releases; sometimes these are also penned by PR firms: "Not only the IT companies themselves, but also certain PR agencies send us downright junk," says Wolfgang Böhler, long-time editor at Computerworld. Not infrequently, even the names of the products or references to what kind of offer - hardware or software - are missing.
In the Internet age, this would actually be only half as bad, after all, the corporate website is available for quick research, but even companies with an affinity for the Internet often have problems in this area. On many corporate sites, one searches in vain for up-to-date information or even high-resolution images.
But Böhler sees the biggest problem in the increasing Europeanization of press relations. More and more often, international media releases are being sent out from European metropolises, the content of which the respective country offices in Switzerland do not even have a clue about.
IT PR - a still dry job market
Even for professional PR firms, media work in the technology industry means a special challenge, because writing-savvy people with IT skills are not easy to find at the moment. The dilemma is well known: Many articulate communicators don't have a clue about technology, and many specialists can't express themselves in a way that a journalist, let alone John Q. Public, can understand.
For Jenni, it's not years of professional experience in the IT industry, but an interest in the subject and an understanding of communication that are the basic requirements for a PR editor in the IT industry; an opinion that Brühwiler also shares. After all, specialists are available for technical details.
Nevertheless, a certain degree of expertise is part of the armamentarium for a PR editor. Most of the larger PR agencies have therefore formed units that deal specifically with the IT industry. Some agencies, such as Jenni Kommunikation or In Marketing, have even specialized entirely in this area. According to Jenni, this is also what many clients want: After all, in such a fast-moving industry, they don't want to have to explain everything to their PR agency from scratch for every assignment.
"The best, the leaders, the greatest!" Superlatives like these are just being bandied about by IT journalists. Because in the IT and Internet market, many companies are fighting for survival and attention, and for many of them, excessive press work seems to be the most adequate means of achieving this. At least at first glance, this is cheaper than advertising. And, according to a widespread view, media releases can be managed by oneself without expensive agency costs.
In the process, some companies obviously confuse advertising and press texts. Or they regard press relations as free advertising. "Companies often do not see PR as a long-term instrument, but think that their press releases should primarily support sales," analyzes Urs Jenni, owner of Jenni Kommunikation, Zurich, which specializes in IT. Self-praise is often exaggerated: "Just one year old and already the world's leading provider..." begins the recently published media release of a Swiss company about its success at the Internet Expo.
Formal deficiencies make reading a pain
Strong incense in the tone of the communiqués is not everything. Many IT press releases fail to meet even the most minimal requirements of professional communication, which apply to the IT industry just as they do to everyone else. Time and again, editors receive messages by e-mail that contain meaningless information in the subject line, such as "Info from company X" or nothing at all. They end up unread in the trash.
There are also problems with the language and structure of media releases, which have been defaced with Anglicisms. A small example? "User-friendly in the offer of virtual markets" writes a Lugano-based company about its latest product, which is hopefully better than the language in which it is advertised. With many texts, the journalist can't even detect the beginnings of a story after three sentences. "If you beat around the bush for too long, you have little chance of being noticed," says Jolanda Brühwiler, managing director of In Marketing GmbH, Schwerzenbach, which specializes in IT.
The problem with many reports, however, is that there is no nutritious porridge at all. "As a journalist, you are often served old wine in new bottles," observes Matthias Zehnder, journalist and editor-in-chief of the Internet magazine Smile. Many press releases generate attention that cannot be fed.
Jenni agrees with the demand for press releases with content that open up story perspectives for journalists: "You should supply the media with information on a continuous basis, but only if it has content. Those who simply stuff the editorial offices or adulate themselves increasingly lose credibility." Young start-ups in particular find it difficult to be convinced by such theories, especially if they want to gain notoriety as quickly as possible at any cost.
The deal without style around the
Reprint of press releases
Professional PR agencies tell their employees to refrain from adding a reprint request to the media release. This is exactly what happens very often, especially with companies that write their own press releases.
Some companies - probably out of inexperience - go one step further and, in return for the "publication of a small PR report", wave the placement of advertisements or contributions to printing costs.
"With this kind of approach, the companies in question are clearly cutting their own throats," says Serge Steiner, PR editor with a focus on IT at Trimedia Communications, Zurich. However, Steiner relativizes, one cannot put the entire blame on the companies. He, too, occasionally receives a response to a press release that first asks for an advertisement or for contributions to expenses. This is especially true for smaller publications.
The fact that hot air or relatively insignificant reports also repeatedly find their way into newspapers and trade journals is not only due to the "PR-heavy" nature of certain publications. Recently, more and more pages have been reserved for the fashionable topic of the Internet, which absolutely had to be printed, if necessary also with filler material from the amateur communicators in the companies.
Even PR agencies slip up when it comes to conveying information
However, the start-ups are not solely responsible for inflated media releases; sometimes these are also penned by PR firms: "Not only the IT companies themselves, but also certain PR agencies send us downright junk," says Wolfgang Böhler, long-time editor at Computerworld. Not infrequently, even the names of the products or references to what kind of offer - hardware or software - are missing.
In the Internet age, this would actually be only half as bad, after all, the corporate website is available for quick research, but even companies with an affinity for the Internet often have problems in this area. On many corporate sites, one searches in vain for up-to-date information or even high-resolution images.
But Böhler sees the biggest problem in the increasing Europeanization of press relations. More and more often, international media releases are being sent out from European metropolises, the content of which the respective country offices in Switzerland do not even have a clue about.
IT PR - a still dry job market
Even for professional PR firms, media work in the technology industry means a special challenge, because writing-savvy people with IT skills are not easy to find at the moment. The dilemma is well known: Many articulate communicators don't have a clue about technology, and many specialists can't express themselves in a way that a journalist, let alone John Q. Public, can understand.
For Jenni, it's not years of professional experience in the IT industry, but an interest in the subject and an understanding of communication that are the basic requirements for a PR editor in the IT industry; an opinion that Brühwiler also shares. After all, specialists are available for technical details.
Nevertheless, a certain degree of expertise is part of the armamentarium for a PR editor. Most of the larger PR agencies have therefore formed units that deal specifically with the IT industry. Some agencies, such as Jenni Kommunikation or In Marketing, have even specialized entirely in this area. According to Jenni, this is also what many clients want: After all, in such a fast-moving industry, they don't want to have to explain everything to their PR agency from scratch for every assignment.
