It's more than four years since I wrote my rant "Die! Press release! Die! Die! Die!," which I'm told, has become a standard part of University courses teaching communications.

I'm flattered. And I'm also glad that my rant led to the "Social Media Release" (formerly known as the New Media Release). I did a lot of work on this issue with lots of others, Chris Heuer, Shel Holtz, Todd Defren, Brian Solis, and Shannon Whitley. We did a lot of podcasts and posts on this issue.

Yet I get emails with pitches from PR people that don't even have any links! I have to search for the company web sites they are pitching, and for any other references they put into the pitch.

Same with press releases, there are very few links in press releases.

Also, PR people will ask if their clients can contribute a guest post. I love to get good guest posts. Yet often there are no links in the copy! Am I supposed to do the work and put the links in myself?

Why are people unable to understand the value of putting links into PR copy? Do they know how to create a link and embed it in their copy?

Forget the 'social media release' and the work we did on trying to create a microformats for news releases -- at the end of the day all I want is some links in the copy!

Give me a link to:

- some analyst quotes
- customer quotes
- photos
- videos
- background info
- company blogs
- related stories.

Help me do my job so I don't have to search around for this stuff. I might very well throw those links into my story as a way for readers to find more info, especially if I'm on deadline. You miss a great chance to direct my readership to your choice of links!

Why is this so difficult to understand?

I could go to my mailbox right now and pull out hundreds of examples of PR people pitching me stuff, and sending me news releases, with no links at all, or there is just one miserly link.

What's up with that?! These are "new/social media PR experts" or at least that's what their web sites claim.

They chatter and Tweet all day long about 'social media' yet can't master the simple task of putting links into their communications!

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Please see: 10 Basic Digital Publishing Skills Journalists/Anyone Should Know...

Social Media Is Not About Conversations... It's About Something Much More Amazing - SVW