According to to most recent eContent David Meerman Scott writes about the newly found “hot property” status of news release distribution wire companies. The firms are offering more online services geared towards marketers and the new use of press releases as direct to web publishing.
Content is king on the Internet and so press release companies, because they serve up lots of “articles” are great sources for industry specific sites (Verticals). They often allow you to simply put a piece of code on your site to show the most recent articles for your subject. As a result they’re also great for the companies putting out the press releases because you can appear on lots of related websites, often as an article.
The new, bigger, companies being formed are creating single points of publishing to reach the ever-expanding publishing market. One press release, and you’re off. And if you’re lucky other sites will actually put your actual release to their site, which will eventually end up in their archive… That will help SEO. Of course the real goldmine is getting blogers and magazines/newspapers/radio shows to write about you and your service.
Just make sure your tracking your press releases to see which services get you on the right sites, and what kind of response those releases get you on your site.
The long and short is this: PR is becoming an active marketing tool, and if you play your cards right, an essential, track-able part of using the Internet to grow your business.
