16 replies to this topic

[kynduvme]

I was interested in getting into Online Press Releases after hearing about it in Jill's DVD lecture series. I was wondering for those who have done this successfully, which service you use and how you have benefitted from it.

[kynduvme]

I was interested in getting into Online Press Releases after hearing about it in Jill's DVD lecture series. I was wondering for those who have done this successfully, which service you use and how you have benefitted from it.

So NOBODY does this at all I guess. Interesting

[Randy]

I don't have Jill's DVD series, so I don't know exactly what it tells you to do. That said, I'm sure it works if it made it past the editing room. There is a lot you can do with Press Releases, so it kind of depends upon which approach you're using to be able to answer the question.

[tomsk]

I was interested in getting into Online Press Releases after hearing about it in Jill's DVD lecture series. I was wondering for those who have done this successfully, which service you use and how you have benefitted from it.

Do you mean that someone from the press has picked up an article?

[Jill]

So NOBODY does this at all I guess. Interesting

I would suggest contacting or reading Lee Odden's blog as he's the one that did that social media and press release presentation for the DVD.

I can't say that I'm a big fan of press releases for SEO purposes. I don't feel there's a whole lot of value in it for that, although I haven't tried all that hard. It seems too spammy to me, in general.

[kynduvme]

It doesn't "TELL YOU TO DO" anything Randy. It's an in depth discussion about the possibilites and benefits of Press Releases and how they can help and compliment your SEO campaigns.

[mortona]

Isn't "press release" just another word for "blog article"? I'm currently looking into how to optimize ours to help the site, but I'm still very, very new to the game. I assume its a matter of factoring in relevant keywords into articles. Is there anything special to note given that the blog is in a subdomain?

Thanks!

[Jill]

Isn't "press release" just another word for "blog article"?

No. They are not even close to being the same thing in most cases.

A press release is news that you distribute to the press so that they might run a story about it.

Blog posts...well, they're not that!

[mortona]

Well I mean in terms of content, I'd expect them to be similar (in our case at least). Our blog consists of articles announcing contests, new features, and changes to the app we serve. Are press releases supposed to be less public than a blog, and only intentionally exposed to certain people?

[torka]

No, press releases (or what I'm told is preferred by journalists: "news releases") are supposed to be very public. They are announcements of newsworthy events, new product releases, awards and honors, scientific discoveries, medical breakthroughs, etc. Basically anything that somebody wants to let the world at large know about. They are supposed to be factual and follow a fairly standard format.

The idea is to intrigue reporters, editors and television news producers enough that they'll cover whatever story it is being touted through the release.

Of course, it's up to the journalists to decide which of the zillions of news releases that show up on their doorstop (or in their inbox) every day are actually significant and interesting enough to make it into the news. So simply distributing a news release is no guarantee of coverage.

Blog posts, on the other hand, are articles -- i.e. creative works. Or, at least, that's what they should be, IMO. They don't simply announce news and events. They have no standard content or layout -- each one is as individual as the blogger who created it. They speculate, express opinions, try to stir up controversy. Their purpose is to stimulate conversation in the blogosphere and comments.

Another distinction: by definition, a news release has been, well, "released," so anyone who comes across it is free to reprint the news release word-for-word in its entirety. In fact, that's what some newspapers and news websites do regularly. The whole point of a news release is to get the news out, so it would be kinda stupid for somebody to issue one and then threaten a copyright lawsuit against anybody who actually published the news, ya know?

Blog posts, however, like other original creative works, are protected by copyright. You can't simply "lift" somebody else's blog post and use it on your own site without their permission. Under Fair Use, you can quote limited sections of a blog post, especially in order to comment on or respond to what was written, but you can't simply wholesale take somebody else's article (or blog post) and use it for your own benefit.

--Torka

[Jill]

Our blog consists of articles announcing contests, new features, and changes to the app we serve.

You could just turn your blog into a news release archive and leave it at that since it doesn't sound like it's actually a blog in the true sense of the word.

[kynduvme]

Frankly I reject the word blog in all cases, I think it's a trumped up industry buzz word that just means website that's updated regularly that allows people to leave comments etc nothing more.

A press release goes out to journalists' emails and proper news outlets with hopes to be picked up by local newspapers or news websites, again a blog is "hip" way to say 'my website that i update a lot ' IM HO (i know im going to get some flack for this lol) Just because you have a content management program like word press and your directory says blog to me does not distinguish it from a regluar website in any way

[Jill]

Frankly I reject the word blog in all cases, I think it's a trumped up industry buzz word that just means website that's updated regularly that allows people to leave comments etc nothing more

.

I disagree.

For awhile, what you say may have been true, but I think today most people know and understand what a blog is and how to use it.

It's most definitely not just a website that's updated frequently.

I would consider a blog to be more of a platform for putting forth ideas and seeing how the community responds to them.

[Randy]

Well, I'll chime in with my two cents. From the visitor perspective of course. As luck would have it this is something I snuck into my last little testing group survey a couple of months back.

In my little survey group the vast majority associated concept of blogs with being Info Resources. I didn't single it out quite that simply. I gave them a list of types of sites, using buzz words like store, blog, cms, directory, twitter, facebook, etc (there were like 20 of 'em in all) and had each test subject independently assign each of the buzz words to site type categories of e-commerce, info, personal, don't know.

A whopping 84 out of 100 marked "info" to describe blogs, or really their perception of the word blog, with the rest being evenly split between don't know and personal. Not a single person associated the word blog with being an e-comm site, even though we all know they can be.

And yes me being the sneaky little sob I obviously am, it a distinction something I not only plan to use in some of my marketing communications, but am already testing in a couple of markets.

[kynduvme]

.

I disagree.

For awhile, what you say may have been true, but I think today most people know and understand what a blog is and how to use it.

It's most definitely not just a website that's updated frequently.

I would consider a blog to be more of a platform for putting forth ideas and seeing how the community responds to them.

Websites alone are a platform for putting whatever whenever on the internet looking for a community response, they used to be called guestbooks then evolved to forums then some smart alleck came up with the word blog, made content management easier and thats what they are calling it. It's actually an interesting study in perception vs reality and the evolution of language in technology. It's a case of perception becoming reality I believe