Picture this: You send off your crypto press release for distribution, and soon, it has been published on multiple platforms and websites. You click on one of these links to take a look at it and notice it has errors!
Not to be alarmed. Everyone makes mistakes, and even the best-written press release can contain spelling errors, grammar mistakes, formatting oversights, or missing information. This is a common enough occurrence that anyone looking to publish a press release should have a game plan for when/if it happens. Here are a few things we recommend.
Determine the Crypto Press Release Error
First, you need to review the press release multiple times and note the error(s) in question. You don’t want to report an error only to find more later, so create a fresh document and note all the errors in bullet points. To make them easier to spot, specify where each error is located and put it in quotes.
An example of this would be “Paragraph 2 line 1, the launch date is incorrectly noted as ‘1st of June’ instead of ‘1st of July’. Ideally, whoever reads the document should be able to spot the error instantly and immediately know what to change it to. Time is of the essence, so make sure it is thorough.
You should comb through the document to spot the errors and determine whether the errors are big enough to warrant an adjustment. If Bitcoin is misplaced as ‘Bitcoin,’ it might not be a major issue. Your company name is misspelled, or a false quote being attributed to your CEO is a very big deal.
Determine the Source of the Error
Besides finding out what the errors are, it is also worth finding out where the error came from. Look at the original document from your team’s end and find out if the mistake came from you. If it did, it is a sign to be more careful. If the error didn’t come from your end, you have to find out which publication it stemmed from.
Look at all the platforms the press release appeared on and find out which one made the mistake. This is to make sure that you don’t end up reaching out blindly to every publication that carried the release, including those that didn’t make any mistakes. Another thing to keep in mind when putting out press releases is to consider the timeframe. Ideally, you want to catch any mistakes before the release goes out or very shortly after. Correcting a mistake weeks after it has been in circulation is not wholly ineffective but will do much less than a faster correction.
Reach Out to Editors
Once you know what the mistakes are and what publication(s) published them, your next step will be to reach out to the publications’ editors. If you manually submitted your press release to these publications, you should send an email directly to the editor you have been in contact with. If the mistake is especially egregious, have the word ‘URGENT’ in the subject line to get their attention. In it, apologize for the mistake if it is from your end or kindly bring their attention to it if it is from their end. List the mistakes as specified in the first step, and if they are pressing, kindly ask if they can be corrected ASAP.
If you opted for a press release distribution service such as what we offer here at BTCWire, you should contact customer service to report the issue, and they will take it from there.
Make Sure a Correction is Done
It is not enough to report the errors to the editors/publications your crypto press release was carried on. It would be best if you also made sure that the errors were corrected in a suitable amount of time. The ideal situation would be for the publication to edit out the mistakes. If there were major corrections, such as a date or misquote, many publications would add a disclaimer stating that certain things were changed to avoid confusing readers.
Check the publications where the mistakes were published and make sure that these errors have been addressed. If many publications carried the error, create a spreadsheet to track which ones have corrected it and which have not. If a publication takes a long time to address the errors or hasn’t responded to you, feel free to send a follow-up email to them. The goal is correcting the error, and you shouldn’t stop until it is.
Reach Out to the Press
There is a chance that after your crypto press release has been published, news sites will pick it up and turn it into a story. If the press release’s error was minor, you might not need to worry about it. However, if the error was something major, you might also need to hunt down the publications to avoid spreading misinformation.
Ideally, you would have tracked down the news sites and press release platforms, but if you didn’t, all is not lost. Create a spreadsheet, then go online to find out the names of publications that have carried this news (this can usually be done with a Google search). Find the names of the editors in charge and send them emails outlining the error, providing the correct information, and apologizing for the inconvenience.
Conclusion
Even the best crypto press release can contain errors, which is why press teams need a plan for addressing them. As we’ve outlined, this will require hunting down both the errors and the affected publications. Once this is done, you’ll have to reach out to the affected publications and have the errors addressed before they circulate and affect your business reputation.