Most importantly, only use press releases when there is real news to share
One of the biggest problems with press releases is that many brands use them to announce anything.
Has your company built 1000 followers on Twitter? This might be a major milestone for your internal social media team, but it’s hardly a story worth breaking out to the public.
Have you acquired a very well-known niche startup (and has big plans for it) or hired a niche influencer? This is something that deserves the attention of journalists.
Whenever you think about announcing anything via a press release distribution service, think about the update this way:
- Will journalists and bloggers find it interesting enough to report on? why? Will it lead to links and brand mentions?
- Will this story help you better manage your online reputation by associating your brand with well-known entities?
If you answered “yes” to one or both of these questions, this press release might be worth checking out.
Press releases are good for SEO many important reasonsincluding building brand awareness, creating niche associations with other entities (which will help Google identify you as a brand and create your own knowledge panel) and, yes, links.
But these links shouldn’t come from the press syndication network, but from actual journalists who will find your story interesting enough to cover.
Both PR and SEO professionals should no longer focus on quantity over quality.
Google has shown itself to support shareable content — something that people really care about, something that just can’t get by just having some good keywords in the right places.
In the PR position hierarchy, a dozen cheap low-level clips do nothing for a single New York Times feature.
To achieve the latter, both press releases and publicity must be newsworthy, as must outreach emails.
While there is no real formula for creating popular content, there are some important factors to use in a quality touchstone test—the same factors that journalists ask themselves when they’re being covered:
- Is it original and newsworthy?
- Does it include solid research?
- Does it solve the problem in a unique way, providing a real solution?
- Do I or anyone else care?
Press releases are still an effective marketing strategy, but only if you invest some time and effort in planning, writing, and distributing your company’s press releases.
Create more effective copy, build lasting relationships with media publishers and journalists, and aim to build brand awareness if you want your press release strategy to be a success.
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