Blog Article

The saying goes that ‘a picture paints a thousand words’. That being said, a good photo can also bring words to life.

Whilst a well-written press release will increase your chances of making the papers, trade press and online news sites, an eye-catching, good quality photo that grabs the attention of editors – and later readers – dramatically increases the chances of your message reaching people.

Quite often people approach Ballyhoo PR asking us to write a press release for them. Nine times out of ten, they have a fantastic, newsworthy story but sometimes no photos we can use. We can get around this most of the time by sending out a photographer to take photos especially for this purpose, but if the release is about a partnership and we can’t get the two people together, or it is about an event that has already happened we become unstuck.

If the release makes an interesting story but the accompanying image is dull, poor quality or only marginally relevant to the story, it makes me cringe and cross my fingers in the hope that the editor I am sending it to will see past this and still use the story.

In life, we are all readers of information, whether that be physical copies of magazines, books or newspapers or checking the news every day on Twitter. Think about what grabs your own attention as a reader. Your eyes will automatically be drawn to the article on a page or the posts on social media with a great photo.

So, next time you think you may have a potential news story, visualise it in your own mind and think about what image would really make this story come alive. What one image will get across what the press release is about? And remember, printed media can only use high-res images, so it’s essential that your photos are at least 300 dpi (dots per inch) in resolution and at least 1MB in file size. You can always resize these to create low-res versions for your website, social media and email newsletters at a later date.