So you’ve written a compelling press release about something happening at your company.  Awesome!  Now what?  Since it does you no good if your news doesn’t actually get read by the folks you’re targeting, It’s useful to understand the options for press release distribution available to you.

You have your news, but without getting it into the appropriate media channels, it’s not worth much.  You need to get it to journalists, editors, bloggers and websites to make a splash:

Traditional Media. Newspapers, magazines and journals are always in need of fodder to publish.  Sending a release to an editor or journalist is easy, but getting results can be difficult, especially the more popular the publication.  Editors at Fortune Magazine, for example, are inundated by press releases every day, so chances are slim they’ll actually be interested in yours.  If, however, you send it to the Dog Walker Association Journal (completely fictitious as far as I know), they probably don’t get nearly the number of releases, so your chance of getting coverage in your niche is much better.

Blogs. Bloggers are as much journalists as the folks working at a “real” publication these days.   You stand a good chance of a blogger being interested in your release than a busy magazine editor, if you do it right (see tips at the end).

For both traditional media and blogs, you need to research the appropriate contact (the editor or blogger who covers your industry) and reach out to them personally (email usually works nicely).  Be polite, introduce yourself and your product and explain how readers will benefit by using it.  Make this first contact (and every contact for that matter) about them, not you.

Websites. Press release distribution services like that of PRWeb.com are able to reach a network of websites within a niche to automatically publish your release to the industries you designate and news sites like Google and Yahoo! in an automated fashion.  The service can be costly with prices starting at $80 per press release.

Check out this video by PRWeb.com illustrating how their press release distribution works:

Which do I recommend?

All of the above. Work on developing a network of contacts both within traditional media channels (to benefit from their reach) and popular blogs in your category (to benefit from their influence).

A pleasant side effect of your PR efforts is the boost in search traffic.  Creating relevant backlinks to your website increases page rank and gets you on Google’s good side.  Track your website referrals through your analytics program to figure out what’s working.

Tips:

• Make sure you contact the editor or journalist that covers your topic – don’t bother with the general inbox.
• Please check your spelling – especially of their name!
• Make the introduction personable – No “Dear Sir”
• Read the publication (blog, magazine, or newspaper) you’re pitching to – make sure it’s a good fit.
• Proofread.  Proofread.  Proofread your press release.
• Include contact information including web address, phone and email.

Forrester’s 2009 report about sponsored conversations defended pay-per-posts as a valid approach to drive buzz for companies.  The analysts define  sponsored conversations as:

A marketing technique in which marketers provide financial or material compensation to bloggers in exchange for their posting blog content about a brand.

Each blogger has an audience, the members of which implicitly trust the opinions of said blogger.  Put simply, if the blogger endorses a product or company, their audience will be more inclined to buy it.

Sponsored conversations accomplish a couple of things for your company:

1. They get to show the hands-on experience of using your product, which can’t be otherwise seen through advertising or in-store sales.
2. They widen your exposure for a relatively low investment.

The key to making the arrangement work for all parties is disclosure and authenticity on the part of the blogger and sponsoring company.  Bloggers should be allowed express their honest opinion, so there are some obvious risks.  For one, your whole plan could backfire if you get a negative review.  To be honest though, bloggers, by nature, tend to be genuine types of people, so they probably wouldn’t accept the assignment if they didn’t already have at least a neutral opinion about your brand or product.  The risk is there and it’s real so it’s good to plan ahead in the event such a scenario actually plays out.

I personally have reviewed everything from my delectable (no, really) Epson Workforce 600 to books. I find it’s a great way to engage with a brand and understand how it can help my audience.

So what do you think? Is your company embracing this new form of promotion? Will you start?  Let me know in the comments.

If your company has invested the time and/or money in social media monitoring, it’s important to make sure you’re tuned in to ALL the conversations that matter to you.  In our experience, this activity is often housed within marketing departments – and that probably makes sense since that group is generally responsible for all customer communications.  However, if you’re only monitoring brand and product, you may be missing a whole lot of other chatter that affects the business.

Social media monitoring can be used to inform loss prevention, corporate communications, employee relations, and public relations teams as well.  With this in mind, we’ve put together a list of categories you should consider creating monitoring terms for.  You should adapt this list to your particular business.

1. Company name
2. Company URL
3. Product names
4. Product URLs
5. Employee online activity
6. Employee professional and personal blogs
7. Public facing figures
8. Competitors
9. Industry websites/blogs
10. Relevant Wikipedia Entries
11. Third Party Influencers
12. Key Stakeholders

We don’t think this list is nearly complete, so if you have suggestions for adding to it, let us know in the comments.

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A few years ago, it was sufficient to put out a press release or hold a news conference in light of a company crisis or bad PR.  Not so in today’s connected world – news spreads fast via Twitter, Facebook, blogs and online social networks in general – especially the scandalous type.  Remember the Domino’s Pizza fiasco?

To summarize, Domino’s employees did what underpaid, bored restaurant employees do… they played with the food. And recorded it. And put it on YouTube. Their negligence cost Domino’s quite a bit in revenue and brand appeal. Unfortunately Domino’s underestimated the viral community we live in and their attempts to quell the hype didn’t even come close to getting the job done.

Domino’s should have reacted the minute they found out about the employee videos. To avoid making the same mistake of being unprepared, take these 5 steps and be ready to deal with negative publicity if and when it comes knocking:

1. Have a plan. Get your strategy together before bad things happen so you don’t have to scramble when the moment arrives. Assign roles and responsibilities to key staff and make decisions about which media platforms you will leverage.

1. Monitor conversations. This can be as simple as creating a fewGoogle Alerts profiles for your company, brand, products and key company employees.

1. Set up a Twitter profile. You’ll be that much quicker on the draw if you’re tapped into a conversation agent where you can communicate in realtime. You’ll be glad you took the time to cultivate a group of followers that are readily available to listen to your message. Domino’s scrambled to get enough followers to make a splash a little too late.

1. Establish media contacts now. Build relationships with folks who can help you spread the word you want spread. If you want to give an exclusive interview to tell your side of the story, you’ll know just who to call.

1. Get closer to your employees. Don’t allow there to be a disconnect between corporate and staff in the field. These employees are the face of your company, you should work hard to make them feel like a part of the whole – like they belong to something bigger.

Create clear guidelines, workflows and processes with the help of any employees who have specific responsibilities to carry out. Make sure everybody is clear on exactly what their job is and how it fits into the overarching strategy.

Your best chance of minimizing the damage is to plan ahead. Get started today.

Here’s a real life illustration of what Geoffrey Moore wrote about in his book “Crossing the Chasm”. Although it was written almost 2 decades ago, the principles that explain why some products become mainstream while others fizzle are sound.

Here’s a dude who seemed a little radical, perhaps eccentric at first (could also be classified as innovative in marketing circles). But then people began to groove on what he was selling. They began to buy into his “product” because it filled a void they hadn’t realized existed. In this case we’re talking about dancing, self expression – does your product or brand aspire to meet the unarticulated needs of its’ users?

Is the momentum of that which you’re creating — as the song says — “unstoppable”?