New Media Public Relations

New media hasn’t simply changed the rules of marketing, but also of communications or public relations. Companies and businesses alike have always scrambled to buy not only their customers attention, but the media’s attention as well. Well folks, things have changed. You don’t need to buy anyone’s attention anymore. And you definitely don’t need to hold off on writing any press releases until something “news worthy” happens. You can spin practically anything into news. The following are a few things you should keep in mind when engaging in new media communications:

Bloggers Are Part of the Media

In fact, a lot of people trust bloggers more than they do traditional media outlets (i.e. newspaper, broadcast news). They do have a major influence. Therefore, it’s just as important to pitch your press releases to these people as it is to actual publications.

Consumers Read Press Releases Too

By distributing your press releases through the web via various distribution services (i.e. PitchEngine, IdeaMarketers) or posting it on your company blog, your allowing for potentially anyone to pick up your article and post it on their blog or site. Therefore, you want to ensure that your press releases are written in a language that anyone, even the average consumer, can understand. You may also want to create a “Press Room” or “Media Room” and post your press release there, so that anyone interested in learning more about your company can do so.

Press Releases Are Great for Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

For those who don’t know, SEO is just a fancy term for actually ranking on the first page of search engines. Press releases are one way of accomplishing this. Again, by distributing your article, posting it in your blog and/or “Press Room,” you’re planting seeds throughout the web that can then be picked up by search engines. The key is in writing press releases replete with keyword-rich copy. This doesn’t mean repeating the same word every opportunity you get. But take a moment each time you’re about to write a press release and consider what are the key phrases or words that are relevant to the release or your product/service that people might search for. Then strategically place them throughout the release in a way that makes sense and flows.

As important as it is to reach the media, the web and various social media platforms have now made it significantly easier to reach your buyers directly. This isn’t to say that we no longer need the media, but that our methods in reaching people in general need to evolve.