David Meermen Scott says what you call it makes all the difference. In his great book, The New Rules of Marketing and PR
David points out that the whole idea of a press release has been to provide a story to the media. The stories are designed to appeal to reporters and to editors. These are the traditional gatekeepers—the folks that keep your story from getting to the audience you want to reach.
But the Internet changes everything. David advises that you rethink your press releases to go direct to your audience. That’s why he advises you call them news releases. Sure, reporters and editors will still receive them and, just as always, might print a story. The news release, however, is also designed to go direct to your audience—the Internet way.
When you distribute your news release on the Internet, a service such as PR Newswire uses RSS feeds and other means to send your release all over the Web. It shows up in Google News when your audience searches for the right words. What this means is that Google is the new gatekeeper.
And that changes what you need to do.
Writing press releases (er, news releases) is becoming just like every other search marketing campaign. You pick the right keywords and you make the story interesting enough to draw links. And you think carefully about how to entice readers to use social bookmarking, social networks, and other social media to pass your message along.
“News release” is not just a new name. It’s a new way of thinking.
Thanks, David for pointing this out. If you haven’t read David’s book, what are you waiting for?
