Business Wire’s Free Webinars Offer How-To Tips for Press Releases

Seems folks just can’t get enough of Business Wire’s monthly webinars. As the social media vanguard embraces Twitter and pushes blogging into the mainstream, I remind myself and new media colleagues that a multitude of the clueless STILL seek basic understanding of the “new rules” for press releases.

Our clients and other issuers of press releases are busy people, with intense competition for their time and attention. Press releases are a small-but-important part of their universe. It’s no wonder, then, that a large percentage of corporate communicators need remedial help in understanding the new tools, technologies and best practices for today’s press release.

As always, we’re here to help. We don’t pretend to be objective since press releases are the very core of our business. We do, however, promise enlightenment and free learning during our weekly webinar sessions, which cover everything from how to optimize your press release for search to a step-by-step lesson on how-to Digg your press releases–and if you even should.

This FREE education is easy-to-access and awaiting your registration. Here’s the schedule:

Wednesday, June 4: Your text needs a partner: Using Multimedia to Drive Press Release Results

Tuesday, June 10: Be an SEO Hero–Optimize Your Press Release for Search

Wednesday, June 18: EON: Enhanced Online News

Friday, June 27, Lost in MySpace?

We hope you’ll join us.

Wire Services Don’t “Go To Technorati,” Nor Should They

Curious clients have posed the following question of late :  “Do you go to Technorati?”                                                                              

Well, not exactly.   ”Going” to Technorati is a misnomer, since what Technorati does is index blog content, not press releases.

Take the blog post you are now reading.  When I hit the “publish” button, the clever WordPress interface I’m using sends a message–or “ping”–to Technorati and other blog search engines.   When blog search engines receive the ping, they deploy a “spider,” or automated search program to come see what’s new.  

That content is then indexed against all the other content competing for your attention.  The order in which the blog search engine results are served up is based on hundreds of variables–things like in- and out-bound links, how many clicks those links are getting, what authority the blog has, how long it’s been around, how frequently it’s updated, and a slew of ever-changing factors.

So:  does Business Wire and EON Enhanced Online News “go” to Technorati?  You mean do press releases sent on Business Wire and EON: Enhanced Online News–or any wire service for that matter–show up in the Technorati blog search engine results?

Only if bloggers reference the content in the context of a blog post.  

The goal of the professional communicator should be to engage the blogosphere to write (preferably positively) about your company or organization.  Press releases, well-done, are a powerful tool for accomplishing just that.

Sorry, there’s no Magic Pixie Dust.  Wish there were.    We’re back to good content, well written, appropriately distributed.   That’s why you get paid the big bucks.

P.S.   Communicators who want to guarantee that their press releases are indexed by Technorati and other blog search engines should start their own blogs, follow best SEO practices, and figure out relevant ways to work their press release content into them.

How the Testy Topic of Tags Applies to Press Releases

Our first webinar of the year, Lost in MySpace?, hit a chord with clients. Almost 500 people showed up last Friday…and we’re STILL answering questions for those who attended.

The 45-minute presentation targeted those inexperienced in Web 2.0 and while we made some progress, it’s clear our clients are hungry for as much enlightenment as we can provide on how this organic landscape applies to press releases.

One of the thorniest issues seems to be user generated tags–NOT metatags, which are the coding on a webpage that helps search engines categorize the content for serving up to searchers. We had dozens of questions on tags.

What are tags and why should PR practitioners, marketers and even savvy small businesses care about them?

Fact is, Web 2.0 presents huge opportunities for your press releases to be shared, re-purposed, reformatted and reused–in other words seen and read–by the billions of people surfing and searching the Web. The more you embrace tools like tags, the more you facilitate that sharing and re-purposing, therefore increasing the chances of your press release being seen and your message communicated.

Tags help by making it easier for people to find, share and read the copy you so painstakingly have put together. Think of the Internet as this big, fat filing cabinet. In it are billions of documents or web pages. Consider your press release a web page–because that’s exactly what it is, once it slips from being a Word or Mac document to an interactive webpage hosted by Business Wire, EON Enhanced Online News, or posted on your website.

Continuing the filing cabinet metaphor, the press release is the document you’re going to file. How should you label it so you can find it later? How will others interested in that document find it? And, Mom was right: you’re judged by the company you keep. Think about the kind of content with which you want to be associated, because it will also come up when tagged like yours.

The tag is the the label you put on the page to facilitate finding, storing, and sharing of the content. The tag helps give your press release a life BEYOND that first news spike, since it facilitates the saving and sharing of it later.

For more press release tips, check out our delicious page. Also, leave us a comment with your take on tags.

New Surveys and Rankings Show Business Wire’s Strong Presence in Both Traditional and New Media

 

As the blogsphere establishes itself as a meaningful and reliable source of information — with some tech, media, and political blogs wielding as much influence as, if not more than, some traditional media outlets in certain areas — we at Business Wire are happy to see that we are still able to continually serve both worlds well.  

A recent journalist survey by the Arketi Group found that news releases are used by 90% of business journalists as sources for story ideas, sharing the top spot with industry sources. 54% of journalists mentioned they currently use blogs for story ideas, while 84% said they may report on stories that originated from blogs.  

A larger survey with a slightly different focus, conducted by PR industry news site Bulldog Reporter and online newsroom provider TEKGroup (fair disclosure: all the above mentioned companies have ties with Business Wire), shows that 69% of journalists follow at least one blog regularly, 44% visit social media sites at least monthly, 37% are subscribed to at least one RSS feed, and 20% actively seek multimedia content from companies at least once a month. (this survey also shows some different data on commercial wire services. Michael Tangeman of Media Mindshare makes a few interesting observations on methodology and findings).

Finally, the recently published Techmeme Leaderboard, which ranks websites based on how frequently their stories appear on Techmeme’s increasingly popular technology news application, places Business Wire as its 24th highest source for news (as of the writing of this post), with similar ranking to traditional news organizations as the Wall Street Journal and the BBC, and blogs such as Search Engine Land and PaidContent.org.  

In recent years Business Wire has put substantial effort into enhancing our multimedia capabilities for video, audio, and photo distribution; enabling our EON: Enhanced Online News search-optimized platform; introducing social media sharing features; reaching new-media sites and platforms; and creating robust RSS offerings. These initiatives are intended to help our clients reach end-consumers directly, interact with the blogsphere, and reach the young and young-at-heart generations of journalists who use new technologies and new media as tools and resources for their work.  We are thrilled to see that these efforts are paying off with both new and traditional media, as indicated by the Arketi and Bulldog Reporter/TEKGroup surveys and Techmeme’s Leaderboard. 

Malcolm Atherton, our eloquent and new-media-savvy account executive, who is one of the strong proponents of our digital media offerings, provides some great info in an interview with podcast site Rocky Mountain Voices during the recent Blogging for Business conference in Salt Lake City. Malcolm sums it all up fantastically. Check it out:

Posted by Ken Zamkow, Director of Product Development, Business Wire

Consumer & Lifestyle Media Panel Recap

We recently hosted a live media panel in New York for PR professionals looking to connect with high-profile consumer and lifestyle editors in the industry. Listen to the archived event and find out the latest on what top consumer media editors are covering

The panelists included Darcy Jacobs, articles editor, Family Circle; Kristine Kennedy, east coast editor, Better Homes and Gardens; Susan Avery, senior editor, Grandparents.com; Jenifer Braun, weekend entertainment and consumer lifestyle editor, The Star-Ledger; Sharon King Hoge, editor, Verdant; and Tracy Saelinger, lifestyle editor, Every Day with Rachael Ray.

The event covered an array of topics that proved to be insightful and very candid. The panelists addressed some of their own personal stories and offered details on how they prepare for upcoming sections, the latest trends they are monitoring and tips on how to pitch a story for better placement.

PR Week also covered the event (post one) (post two) and offered some handy tips discussed by the panelists.

A Couple of Upcoming (free) Webinars on SEO Tips for Press Releases

We’ve set the final 2007 dates for our free webinar series on tips to enhance the search engine optimization of your press releases. Here are the two event topics and their remaining dates:

• The Importance of SEO and Social Media for Press Releases (November 7, November 30)
• Optimizing Your News Releases for Search: Developing Effective Keyword Strategies (November 9)

The webinars focus on ways to maximize the search engine impact of your press releases, with tips on how to identify and optimize relevant and popular keywords and phrases. Discussion also focuses on best practices in release formatting of content such as utilizing text links and design elements to enhance traffic and interaction with your audiences. Click here for more details and for webinar registration.

Google Comments Offers New Opportunities for Communicators

  

One of the goals of our Business Wired blog is to provide readers with better tools for communicating their messages in the ever-changing media landscape. Today we are happy to highlight a service we’ve been following with much interest that we and our friends in Google News thought would be of value to Business Wire clients.  

Earlier this year Google News launched a comments feature that allows individuals or organizations that are mentioned in news articles to add their own comments. Comments are then served up alongside those articles on Google News.  

Josh Cohen, Google News’ Product Manager explains: “Google News has always tried to present as many sources as possible to give our users a wide spectrum of views on the news.  Comments is an experimental feature that we believe will continue this goal by letting readers see exactly what people in a story think about current news.  We think this will help us increase the number of diverse and meaningful points of view on the news.”  

So how is this different from any comment section or discussion board? Well, on Google News only persons or organizations who are specifically mentioned in the story can comment. Google News then contacts the person submitting the comment or others in their organization to verify their identity. As a result, each story is expected to have only a handful of highly relevant comments that give readers a more in-depth look at topics in the news. Cohen adds: “their insight will both help readers understand the news, and cover views that may not be well-published or well-understood within the current coverage”. 

For PR professionals and marketers, this is an excellent opportunity to provide greater detail or clarifications when their press releases receive media pick-up. Also, it creates a new channel to follow-up on a press release with updates, success stories, or links to other relevant stories. Finally, it is another form of reaching out to your audience and participating in the conversation. While these comments differ from commenting on blogs or engaging in social networks, they can be a valuable part of the new communications mix.  

So how can you comment on a story that is relevant to your company or client?  According to the instructions on Google News you should send an email to news-comments@google.com containing the following information:

1. Your comment (hyperlinks allowed, but no attachments)
2. A link to the story you are commenting on
3. Your contact details: name, title, and organization
4. A way to verify your email address

Verification is one of the central components of Google’s comments feature. Therefore it is highly recommended to provide as much information that Google News staff can use (for example adding contact details of persons who can verify your credentials, or, if you are submitting a comment on behalf of a client, demonstrating that you are indeed authorized to speak for them). Keep in mind that Google News will not edit comments once the sender is verified, so they will be posted exactly as you emailed them. 

So the next time your press release or related articles are shown on Google News and you feel you have more valuable input to share, this can be a great new outlet. Please look at the Google Comments instructions page for more details. 

As usual, we’re happy to hear what you think. If you’ve already used Google Comments or would like to share your own thoughts about it, feel free to comment below.

“The Older the Berry, the Sweeter the Link Juice”

Quite a bit of nattering lately regarding the advantages of youth and exuberance versus age and experience in the organic context of social media. I won’t take sides, but suffice to say I agree with Bill Sledzik who noted: “The older you get the more you appreciate how much more there is to learn — and experience.”

Along those lines, it turns out that when it comes to websites, older is better.

 Yep, that’s right. The fourth most important overall factor in SEO is the AGE of your site, says a 43-page report titled “Search Engine Ranking Factors V2,” and issued by seomoz.org.

According to this exhaustive document, the age of your site commands “exceptional importance.”

“Young sites must prove themselves before they can start ranking for much anything important; middle-aged sites are left to fight it out on their own; and well-aged sites enjoy a halo I wish I experienced in my personal life,” said Caveman, a renown SEO consultant and search engine marketer. And how about this quote from Todd Malicoat: “The older the berry, the sweeter the link juice.”

Since Business Wire was the first wire service to launch a website, way back in 1995, I guess that gives us some SEO street cred.

The seomoz.org report collates the collective wisdom of 37 organic search engine wizards. The report claims to relate 90 - 95% of the knowledge available about the 200+ ranking elements for Google and other search engines. Give it a read.

Shorter Headlines Can Lead to Google Juice

Lock up your long-winded headlines. Google alerted us this week that press release headlines should not exceed 22 words. That’s eight words shorter than what we were told months ago. “An ideal headline should be between two and 22 words,” advises the search engine giant.

While there are no guarantees, certain practices maximize your chances of getting Google juice. Having something to say, for example–something that is “news,” not “olds.” Writing clearly is a good bet. Keeping it brief is also advised.

Unlike most of Business Wire’s distribution which is pushed out via our patented NX system, there’s no such thing as a “feed” to Google. They are invited in to spider our news and do so every few minutes. And, because of the amount of fresh content we post daily, Business Wire is considered an authority site.

Every now and then, a release fails to post to Google News. The reasons are a mystery. Google deliberately protects its algorithms, the instructions written by programmers for the robots that match web content with search queries. Presumably, this secrecy serves democracy, accuracy and as a deterrent to hackers gaming the system.

So, even with best practices and timely technology, guaranteed Google juice doesn’t exist. With Business Wire, your chances of being indexed by Google are extremely high. But, a random bullet point, a link in the headline, a formatting glitch–can sometimes keep your release from being scraped into the news bucket.

Any wire service that says otherwise is not being honest.

Tips on Writing a Press Release for Features Editors

We’ve written a new tip sheet to help guide PR pros in writing an attractive Features press release. The piece provides a paragraph- by-paragraph breakdown on what to include for features editors. Or new Features Topic Series program just launched, with outreach to journalists with 2007 Features issue dates (pdf) and PR pros, with 2007 deadlines, and a new brochure with 2008 deadlines (pdf).