As part of BREW Boston (Boston Regional Entrepreneurs Week), I moderated a panel, “Using PR and Social Media to Generate Buzz for Your Startup,” on behalf of the New England Venture Network (which we co-sponsored).
The panel — comprised of blogger Paul Gillin, Xconomy’s Greg Huang, BBJ/Mass High Tech’s Galen Moore, and Fortune.com’s Dan Primack — was lively and entertaining.
Here are some key points from the panel:
New Mindset Needed
- It’s still about telling stories but it’s now about new ways to tell and communicate those stories.
- You don’t need events and milestones to issue a press release — and a press release may not be the best way to tell your story.
- This isn’t to say the press release is dead.
- You can tweet or blog about stories, post photos, videos and audio, etc.
- The stories are there, but it’s a matter of pulling them out, Gillin noted.
- If a picture is worth a thousand words, video is worth a million, Primack said. Using graphics or video to accompany a story can help reporters and bloggers as they cover the story.
- That said, many reporters and bloggers still don’t fully use multimedia in their articles or posts, either.
The panel covered a lot more territory. I’ll report more next week.
