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Marketers and public relations professionals can find plenty of advice on how to write a press release, but rarely is that advice directly from the journalists that press releases attempt to engage.
It turns out, journalists have a lot to say about press releases. It also turns out that marketers have a lot to learn.
Although I recently joined an inbound marketing agency, I'm a 25-year veteran the Chicago Sun-Times and the Contra Costa Times, among other. For decades I started my mornings weeding through the press releases in my inbox, one finger hovering over the "delete" key and ready to strike.
Wondering whether things have gotten better lately, I reached out to several journalist friends.
"Most of what I get is garbage," said Mary Pols, a longtime Portland Press-Herald/Sunday Telegram reporter who has also worked at the Los Angeles Times.
Ouch.
Follow these top 9 recommendations to stand out....
Google likes to keep us PR pros on our toes.
Last year the big update to search results came through the “nuclear bomb” that was Panda 4.0. The age of the keyword was essentially over, and proper storytelling blogs and press releases were in. Many claimed that SEO was on its way out completely.
Recently, Google made even more changes. Though the advent of Panda 4.0 made press releases seem borderline useless, the search engine has now revalued them. There’s one big alteration, though, that changes the way savvy PR pros should use press releases....
I wince at 99.99% of the press releases I receive daily. That’s because 99.99% look like sloppy cut-and-paste jobs, ones that have nothing to do with the Daily Fix and its readers, and everything to do with the sender, the sender, and, oh, right, the sender. Reading a press release that doesn’t make me wince is rare—yet not impossible.Now and then, I receive press releases that are smart, audience-focused, brief, and interesting. So, for this week’s post, I thought I’d stay on the sunny side of the street and share seven traits about press releases that DO get read....
OMG BuzzFeed has gone Fortune and its Original Trust Content one better. Instead of cranking out BuzzFeed-like content for corporate-owned media, the publication will teach you how to draft stories like the pros. That’s right. You too can write scintillating headlines like “15 Reasons Taylor Swift Might Be a Cat” or “27 Better Ways to Eat Ramen.” It’s another form of journalists reaching into corporate pockets with the value proposition, “We can help with that burdensome chore called content development.”
With the ability to instantly publish a press release online, the world of PR has changed. Press releases now have the power to both attract media attention and drive traffic. This change in accessibility has also changed how businesses write press releases. Here are a few tips to help you write effective online press releases.
‘Everyone knows’ content marketing is now the primary method of communicating with the public. That and Twitter. Everything an organization, business leader, celebrity, athlete, or political figure has to say about themselves or anything else can be boiled down to 140 characters, right? Tweets and Facebook posts are now regal declarations – the absolute truth, recorded for posterity to be criticized, repeated, and submitted as evidence should anybody doubt what was said. So where does that leave the humble news release?...
Back in 2006, SHIFT Communications pioneered the first social media press release. It was super-cool, with links to other sites, shorter media snippets, recommendations for social network posting, multimedia, and more, well ahead of its time. But that was years ago; is the social media press release still relevant? In some ways, the answer might surprise you: the Social Media Press Release isn’t relevant as a standalone press release, because these days social media and earned media are one and the same. Gone are the days where you needed separate communications for someone who was in the mainstream media and someone who was a blogger. Today, if you don’t treat new media creators with the same level of access as traditional media outlets, you’re in for a bucket of relative obscurity, especially if your product isn’t especially share worthy. If social media isn’t fully and wholly integrated into your overall earned media and marketing plan, you’re fundamentally asking to be ignored....
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It can be difficult to get a news release approved internally—even without thinking about search engine optimization.
However, if exposure, disclosure or page views are your goals, you must heed content discoverability and make your release SEO-friendly.
A list of search engine violations and penalties shows ways your content can fail to attract attention online. This applies to all your owned media content—including your website and news releases.
What makes some releases more successful than others in terms of drawing traffic? They’re written with healthy SEO features. These successful news releases appeal to Google’s latest algorithm, which rewards high-quality, unique and non-spam content.
Follow these five simple steps to create releases that can rank high in search results....
New webmaster rules from Google just killed PR agencies according to Tom Foremski's post "Did Google just kill PR agencies?" last month.He highlights a Google webmaster update warning about black hat, linkbait press releases and other similar improper SEO content practices trying to manipulate search engine results.Look out PR agencies Foremski warns....
...This is the first of a three-part series we’ll be running this week. Check back tomorrow and Thursday for discussions about what you can do to improve press release visibility, and how distribution of press releases factors into the visibility equation.
SEO vs press release SEO When it comes to press releases and SEO, there are two sides of the coin to consider: web site SEO, which is concerned with building visibility for a website for specific keywords used by Internet searchers, and press release visibility, which focuses on optimizing the visibility of the specific message. That said, the two are not mutually exclusive. Good PR messaging can definitely be incorporated into the successful SEO strategy. The credibility of earned media is beneficial to not just a brand’s reputation, but for the brand website as well. And, as you’ll see below, the two work hand-in-glove to display online content to its best advantage....
A few months back, the popular rock band Stone Temple Pilots made a major splash in the news when it announced it was firing lead singer Scott Weiland. The group announced the shocking news in a one-sentence press release that read: “Stone Temple Pilots have announced they have officially terminated Scott Weiland.” Now, we’ve debated the topic of press release length on my blog, and though I’ve always believed that short and sweet press releases work best, I’ve never tried to argue that press releases should be just one sentence long. But the truth is that this single-sentence press release was incredibly powerful, and there are a few valuable lessons we all can learn from it....
...I was recently sitting in a webinar on news releases with my co-workers when the presenter recommended we tweet our news releases to promote them. I felt like gasping out loud. I tried to hold back and finally I just couldn’t. “I just have to say I do not agree,” I blurted. Our intern looked up curiously and asked why. My reasoning? Would you sit down with your friends and read your press release to them? No. Would you read it to a group of prospective new business clients? Would you pass it out to people as you walked down the street? NO. Or at least I hope not. I have been asked many times to tweet a news release and every time it makes my blood boil. That’s not social. It’s not a conversation. It reminds me of the annoying person that only likes to talk about themselves, constantly. No one cares. It’s like shoving dry cereal down someone’s throat without stopping to offer them milk. And my favorite reason, “if you tweet it the media could see it.” Oh please, I assure you the media isn’t going to pick up your news release because you blasted it on Twitter....
What’s the difference between a social media press release and the more traditional version? This is one of the most common questions we receive here at PR Newswire, and the answer is simpler than you may think. At the outset, the social media news release (SMNR) — originally conceived by Todd Defren of Shift Communications — looked pretty complex, incorporating a host of multimedia assets as well as links to related information, such as other press releases from the company and quotes from experts. The emphasis on the format intimidated many, and frankly, continues to do so today. The difference between the two release types, in our mind, is pretty clear. A social media release at its most basic is easy for readers to scan, includes elements (text, multimedia, etc.) that are easy to share, and offers readers ready access to a collection of associated, relevant information. A more traditional message lacks these features....
A study by PR Newswire found that utilizing multimedia with the a press release increases the visibility of that message. In fact, the research found that the more multimedia that is used, the more views on average the news release receives. Up to 77% more, in fact...
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Press releases aren't necessarily dead but they do have to be much better. Journalists offer a collection of 9 tips to get it right.