THIS POST IS FROM APRIL 2009 AND IS EVEN MORE RELEVANT TODAY
I first published this story in August of 2007 – but it is worth repeating.
Now that AGORACOM Small Cap TV is approaching 500 episodes, one of the things I have noticed is that small-cap companies continue to release news just at or before the open. This might have been an acceptable practice back in the day when only brokers could access press releases on their screens but it made no sense once the web opened them up to the entire world.
It makes even less sense now. Why?
Folks, we are in a Web 2.0 world in which citizen journalism and analysis is becoming a bigger, more important research tool than Wall Street and finance portals. As a result, small-cap and micro-cap information is being analyzed and discussed by Twitter, bloggers, podcasters, and vloggers everyday – all of which is being fed into every corner of the web via RSS feeds, other Twitter members, iTunes, blogs, podcasts etc. on your behalf – and for free!
THE LEAST THAT YOU COULD DO
However, if you want your great news covered by these incredible reporting sources, you have to give them a chance to see your news, digest it and report on it. Just like traditional news, Web 2.0 sources have deadlines as well. AGORACOM TV, for example, has a cut-off of 9:00 AM so that we can tape at 9:20 and be up by 9:45. I’m certain others are not much different.
As such, if your press release is coming out at 9:30, you’ve robbed yourself of potential mass coverage by one or more sources that might have otherwise picked up your news and sent it right around the world.
Bottom line – put your news out by no later than 8:30 AM EST. In fact, somewhere between 7:30 and 8:30 AM EST makes the most sense …. unless shunning free coverage is actually part of your business plan.
Best,
George