The Public Relations Blog

Give your news maximum reach with newswires

When you’re ready to hire a PR firm, it’s often for increased news exposure or earned media coverage.

Many PR terms and phrases are tossed around, sometimes incorrectly, and it can easily get confusing. It’s important to understand the purpose and differences between various newswires and how they can help you achieve your goals.

While this is all fine and dandy, for most companies, the bottom line is ... well, the bottom line. You need to know what various services cost and what you’re getting for your money. Being able to distinguish between PR tools or press release syndication services, including Business Wire, Cision PR Newswire, Cision PR Web, GlobeNewswire, and other news distribution services, will ensure you’re speaking the same language when it comes to purchasing PR agency services.

Earlier this year, the New York Times published an article about The Council of Public Relations Firms, which lists more than 100 PR agencies as its members. The association met in an effort to not only redefine its own image, but attempt to redefine public relations in this new digitally-focused age. What concerns me as a 20-year veteran of the communications and public relations profession is the fact that our industry--as evidenced by the article--is amid an identity crisis.

Facts about ROI and the benefit of hiring outside PR help

Many companies are either unaware of or unappreciative of the value of a good PR firm. Businesses in every industry – large and small – can benefit from outside PR assistance.

PR work isn’t just something that you pull down from the shelf and dust off only during a crisis or the occasional promotional campaign. To realize the true benefits of PR, you may find it more beneficial to hire a PR firm instead of trying to go it alone with just your in-house operation or, worse, going without.

Learn the true benefits of PR for saving money and increasing profits

Super Bowl ads cost an astonishing $4 million for a 30-second spot. All that, and you still have to hope that most of your target audience isn’t using the bathroom when the commercial airs.

For a lot less money, you could hire a good PR firm to analyze customer behavior, help build relationships with customers and get your message to your target audiences throughout the entire year. When you learn all the true benefits of PR over advertising, you may find that you can use it to better maximize your budget and increase both customer engagement and brand recognition for your company.

Historically, headline-seeking journalists have struggled with reaching live spokespersons for interviews and with extracting necessary facts from press releases shared in newsrooms. Happily, though, times have changed, spurred on by the burgeoning digital realm and the creation of the online newsroom.

Big and small businesses alike can turn website real estate into useful bits and bytes for the press. Downloadable videos, news releases, photographs/executive headshots, biographies, movie trailers, application reviews and the like appear with ease online for immediate viewing and download. It is this website subsection that we refer to as the online newsroom.

If you ignore the gay market, you may be doing so at your company’s peril

There once was a time when companies didn’t go out of their way to attract African Americans or teenagers. To ignore these markets today seems almost unthinkable.

Today, some companies have come under fire for creating policies and crafting campaigns that appear hostile to the gay community. Now more than ever, it’s crucial to ensure that your messages are inclusive and that the gay market feels welcome doing business with your company. You can adopt these strategies immediately to make sure you’re not unknowingly excluding any prospective gay customers.

Learn how AP style relates to your company’s success

You want to give your CEO recognition by citing his title every time his name is mentioned in an article or press release but your PR advisor nixes it. Her only reason: “It’s not AP style.” If you aren’t a journalist or PR professional, most likely you have no idea what AP style is or why it has the power to stop you from writing as you please.

PR can help you give journalists what they want

Press releases are a necessity. Without them, the only way to get the media interested in covering your company would be for you to walk into a newsroom and scream at the top of your voice for someone to listen to you.

Many companies know the value of a press release but still get it wrong and wind up not getting coverage. To be more effective and get results, let PR show you what you can do to make your information more appealing.

By Jason Mudd, APR

One key phrase oft repeated inside newsrooms is “If it bleeds, it leads.”

To those outside the communications profession, that may sound utterly offensive, but realistically, news editors, writers, journalists and programming directors know that when it comes to news, people listen and watch more intently when it’s negative. In fact, bad news far outweighs good news by as much as 17 negative news stories for every one positive one. Scholars have studied the psychology behind this, too. The human brain evolved in a hunter-gatherer environment where dramatic events required immediate attention for the sake of survival, and we still care (worry/fear) more about the threat of bad things affecting us than hearing about good things. When the news is negative, people take notice.

Use PR to improve your media relations strategies

Many companies spend countless hours crafting press releases, only to have them thoroughly rejected by the media. If only you could know what journalists want and how to capture their attention to get news coverage for your company.

At a recent Public Relations Society of America conference, in a panel discussion that Nasdaq Corporate Solutions hosted, several journalists were on hand to explain exactly what they want to see in news releases and pitches. By following this advice, you can increase your chances of acquiring positive media coverage.