The Peril of Online Press Releases
The syndicated online news release is a great way to create “buzz” about your stationery store and announce important community events. For the most part, these online services are relatively inexpensive and in many cases are free. Writing a “good” press release requires a bit of skill since you want to avoid shamelessly promoting your business. After all, it is a “news release” and not an “advertisement” or political message.
While online services are quite useful in disseminating information to the search engines and local news services, you should be aware that there could be some unintended consequences. Specifically, your news message can be usurped by banner advertisements. Also, keywords in your release maybe hijacked by hyperlinks to redirect readers to a third-party website and, perhaps, that of a competitor. It is as if your news release were simply buried in the classified ads of your newspaper.
An interesting case in point is today’s news release by Blissful Designs, a UK company that provides online invitations and stationery. The article was syndicated by Live-PR yet it contains banner ads from online competitors and hyperlinked keywords that were added by Live-PR to redirect the reader to competitive websites. As the snap-shot below illustrates, the competitors get more attention than Blissful Designs.
Blissful_News_Release
As you can see, the two Banner Ads from Paper Divas overwhelm Blissful Designs’ news release. You have to question whether Live-PR was a useful way to promote their new website. If you plan to use a “free” or an inexpensive online syndication service, you may well end up promoting a competitor. Personally, I use PR-Web which allows the user to control how their ads will be displayed. It is certainly more expensive, but absolutely worth the protection that your message won’t be distorted by advertising parasites. Furthermore, the success of online printers is more often determined by search engine optimization strategies than by selling fine papers. Let the online buyer beware!
February 3rd, 2009 at 9:00 pm
[...] The syndicated online news release is a great way to create “buzz” about your stationery store and announce important community events. For the most part, these online services are relatively inexpensive and in many cases are free. Writing a “good” press release requires a bit of skill since you want to avoid shamelessly promoting your business. After all, it is a “news release” and not an “advertisement” or political message. While online services are quite useful in disseminating informat Source: http://www.stationersguild.org/news/2009/02/03/online-press-releases/ [...]
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