Press Releases – no longer just for PR professionals

Like the commercial for Reese’s peanut butter cups – “You got chocolate on my peanut butter” no “you got peanut butter on my chocolate,” – no matter how you say it, on the Web the line between Advertising and PR professionals is a bit blurred at times.

Historically you were either Public Relations or Advertising. Any press releases that were sent out came from the PR people. And when they went out, they were sent to a specific list of press people. But with the increase of going digital I am sure that every PR department has a certain amount of internet use involved when they send out press releases. And there is a wealth of support out there for PR professionals that need to get their information out but, like everything else, money talks.

David Meermen Scott

Don’t despair if you aren’t part of a large corporation or PR firm, it is possible to get your information out there for no money. You just need to craft your release and start searching for free sites. So that is what I did to promote David Meerman Scott’s book The New Rules of Marketing & PR which is being used as the textbook for the New Media Driver’s License class through Michigan State University and Walsh College Novi.

In Scott’s book he states “None of this is true anymore [the old rules of PR]. The Web has transformed the rules, and you must transform your PR strategies to make the most of the Web-enabled marketplace of ideas.” He also goes on to say “If you are smaller and less famous but have an interesting story to tell, you need to tell it yourself.”

Since I was new to the press release arena I actually started to investigate first what services I could use so that I was sure I formatted my press release correctly. As I started to register with some of the free services I did encounter a portion of the set up that did stall me. Most of the sites wanted you to be part of an actual business, and since this was an assignment, I did not posses that bit of information. The Free Press Release and My Free PR sites did not require a company name so they were the lucky sites chosen.

My post on Free Press Release.

So I posted my press release on Free Press Release adjusting some of my verbosity since at places there was a character restriction.  As I check the activity of my release I see that it has  been viewed three times. I hadn’t posted that it was out there (the reason for this post) so maybe I got hits from people other than Derek.

My post on My Free PR.

I also posted my press release on My Free PR.

I do not feel my posts are perfect. I have a problem with how they look. On Free Press Release in preview mode of my draft it looked like the contact information was being added automatically. But once I published it, it did not include any contact information. I also noticed what you “pay” for free posts, they add ads to your posts.

My Free PR post has contact information, a link back to my blog but once again visually it needs some work.

Oh well, guess I won’t get famous with this one. And I think I should remain the “advertising” person.

Enroll Now