Best Practices for Creating and Distributing Press Releases

December 6, 2016

Julie Kerr

Media releases are a crucial component of all business’ communication strategies. They adda certain amount of credibility to your company and are an effective way to share messages and updates with clients, stakeholders, and journalists alike.

In addition to following the proper structure of a media release — headline, subhead, dateline, opening paragraph etc. — keep the following tips in mind to ensure your company creates engaging content that reaches its intended audience in the most effective way.

 

Strengthening the components of your news release

Ensure each release includes the 5 W’s:

–        Who are the key players and who does your news affect?

–        What is the news?

–        Where is this taking place?

–        When is this occurring and does the timing of this release hold significance?

–        Why is this important or relevant to the readers, and why announce this?

However, answering those questions is only half the battle. These other components can play just as crucial a role:

–        Headline — ensure it is engaging, but not too lengthy. The idea is to grab readers’ attention but have it be short enough to be tweeted as is (i.e., 100 characters or less so audience can retweet with their own comments, hashtags or links)

o   Tip: If you are sharing data, include a stat in your headline. Facts always grab attention.

–        Subhead — this is what gives context to your headline, and is what will be displayed below your headline on search engines. This is what intrigues readers, so ensure it includes a teaser to the most relevant information in the release.

–        CTA — Include a clear call-to-action with a specific next step.

o   Tip: Include your CTA towards the top of your release, so it is more likely to been seen by a larger portion of your audience. Not everyone will read all the way through.

5 best practices

1. Create quality and engaging content. When creating the body of your release, ensure that you are writing relevant content for your audience. Before writing, ask yourself: who is your current audience? Which influencers do you want to engage? And, which audience are you trying to acquire? This will help to create more targeted communications.

2. Make it easy to share. By creating content that easy to share you are increasing your changes of communicating your message to a much larger audience. For example, as CNW suggests, include sharable elements, such as tweetable headlines, quotes, and facts or figures.

–        If you are promoting an event that has a hashtag, include it within the release

–        Use a relevant and popular hashtag in a tweet-ready headline

–        Make the quote concise so that it itself can be shared within a tweet (i.e., 100 characters or less)

–        Include the handle of anyone you quote in the release

–        Provide additional resources that others can link to and from

3. Include multimedia. “Articles with multimedia will drive an increase in views up to 279%” (PR Newswire, 2015). However, make sure these images or videos are relevant to the content of your news release. If you don’t have an image, include a link to a presentation or another article from your company that relates to what you are discussing.

Include an image caption explaining what the reader is looking at. This will add clarity for your readers, and value for search engines. Relevancy is key.

4. Create a solid distribution network. In addition to sharing on your channels, submit the release to other targeted sites that reach your desired audience. This will increase discoverability and credibility, which is not only important for readers but again will help influence search engines as they go through the ranking process. The more sites that feature or mention your release, the more site authority you will gain.

5. Translate. If necessary, translate your piece in order to reach a larger, more multicultural audience. This will add integrity to your company and differentiate you from your competitors.

This article was adapted from PR Newswire “Quick & Easy Guide to Sharing Your News Release With the World”.