Until this year, I followed the basic PR process when issuing a news release. Write a news release, upload to wire service, spend hundreds of dollars and hope it gets picked up. Not a very solid or results-oriented process. Of course, you have to build media relationships and target the news with the people who cover the category. That is another topic entirely.
A few weeks ago I discovered PitchEngine through Twitter. (These two services are my favorite new social media tools for 2008, by the way.) I read that you could create and issue a social media news release for free. Working for a small company, I will try anything that is free or a low-cost alternative to a pricier and non-proven model.
I have since issued about six releases and I am blown away by how easy they are to create, distribute and measure. You can provide so much more information the way people want to see news - visually with images and videos. Tie-in links to product reviews and case studies. A boilerplate created once for the company is saved for future releases. It is also served up in a neat, clean format that is sure to appeal to corporate brand sticklers.
My first release had over 200 views. I have since used PitchEngine over the other wires and I'm not looking back. I'm going wireless!
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