Let me get one thing straight from the beginning—in no way am I writing this post to encourage you to stop writing press releases. I’ve seen some people say that it’s okay to give up press release distribution in favor of using your blog as a news distribution channel. I highly disagree with this approach. I think it limits your reach and decreases the chances of you getting the coverage you want.
However, I’m absolutely in favor of using your blog to share news. When working in conjunction with press release distribution and other PR tactics, news distribution through your blog can be a very effective tactic.
But how do you transform a blog into a news publishing beast?
- Build your archive before you go live—Before launching your blog, you want to build up your archive to make it look like an already active news blog. The easiest way to do this is to take your press releases from the past several months and post them back-dated in your blog archive. This way, once your blog is live and you’re promoting it, reporters and customers have a good amount of content to sift through.
- Let the media know about your blog—Reach out to your media list to let them know about your blog. Inform them that you’ll be publishing company news on your blog on a regular basis, and encourage them to become subscribers. If you’re going to be publishing different types of news, you may wish to give subscribers the ability to pick and choose which news categories they’re subscribing to.
- Publish news on a regular basis—Building a loyal following on your blog will require you to post updates on a regular basis. You don’t have to post news every day, but you will probably want to update your news blog more often than you’d send out press releases. Because this is your news blog, you have a lot of freedom with the type of content you’re going to share. For instance, you could publish a Q&A with a different featured employee every month. Or you could mix in videos and infographics to make your news more appealing and interactive.
- Categorize your news—A reader might only be interested in certain types of news published by your company. For example, a person might only want to hear about product announcements, not employee profiles or customer success stories. It’s important to categorize your news so reporters and customers can easily track the news they care about.
- Promote your posts—This is a blog, so you should be encouraging people to share your posts. Every time you update it, take the time to promote your posts. Share them on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. Email them to people you think will be interested. Make it easy for your readers to share them.
- Interact with readers—The great thing about using your blog to distribute news is that you can get instant feedback from your readers on your announcements. This adds a personal, interactive element to your news distribution that you can’t necessarily achieve by just sending out press releases.
Do you use your blog to share company news? What tips would you offer?
This article is written by Mickie Kennedy, founder of eReleases (https://www.ereleases.com), the online leader in affordable press release distribution. Download your free copy of 7 Cheap PR Tactics for Success in Any Economy here: https://www.ereleases.com/free-offer/cheap-pr-tactics/