Part IV of "Share This" is entitled "Online Media Relations". Its subject matter follows accordingly. It discusses tools such as press releases, newsrooms, brand journalism, and so on and so forth. There's really not all that much in it to respond to, but I'll consider a few things that were mentioned in the book in this entry.
Press releases are discussed in the first chapter of Part IV, and the book mentions increased animosity toward old-style press releases. This is pretty understandable, as it's hard to doubt that press releases can be abused by companies and fail to provide any meaningful information, amounting practically to spam. The alternative is the new social media release, often using quotes, videos, and so on in order to carry some authority and be stimulating. The one thing I might criticize here is I think the book is somewhat vague as to why these social media releases are so preferable to press releases; it throws around ideas like "supporting facts" but doesn't really acknowledge that it's a given that such facts will be cherry-picked. However, I suppose from a pragmatic standpoint, as long as social media releases are more convincing, it does not matter if they're truly more substantive.
I also found it interesting when the book gave an example of a corporate blog post that backfired and caused a drop in the company's stock. This does seem like a legitimate risk, but also a difficult one to avoid, as stocks can be highly responsive to almost anything. It's hard to say what a company should or should not post on its blog just based on how the stocks will respond, and in any case it seems that whatever details are divulged would probably come out eventually anyway, which the book does not address. These are, however, just a few musings on the reading, not highly substantiated critiques.
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