I am here composing this blog post from the Business Wire booth. Yesterday they announced the launch of EON, their SEO and social media distribution system which is powered by PRWeb. While you have been able to order Business Wire services through PRWeb for a few months now, you can now get the PRWeb services through the Business Wire EON service.
As the political season heats up, I have consulted with PRWeb's NewsCrafters and offer up:
10 Tips for Exercising Your Right to Free Speech via a Press Release
About Politics, Legal Matters and Other Sensitive Issues
1. Review your press release sentence by sentence, including the headline and summary, to ensure all statements about someone else’s wrongdoing and derogatory material about someone else are completely accurate, non-libelous and attributed to the primary source. You are responsible for the accuracy of your content on PRWeb. Attribution includes citing a court case number (or link to primary source) before naming someone in connection with an indictment, conviction, criminal investigation or criminal charge such as fraud or corruption, etc. Remember, a charge is an allegation, not a conviction. Accusing or implying that someone has committed a crime is not fair criticism in our democracy if the person has not been found guilty in a court of law, and inaccurately implying commission of a crime is not protected free speech.
2. Include an explicit explanation of why you have authority to release information (facts, data, etc.) on behalf of or about another organization or person or why you are an expert with credentials that make your opinion on these matters newsworthy. Personal opinions and attacks, anonymous rumors and speculation are not newsworthy and not appropriate for distribution via a press release. PRWeb does not accept press releases from anonymous sources and has a policy of rejecting press releases whose primary or only intent is to exact harm on another person or organization.
3. Use the third person and active voice. Refer to yourself by name on first reference rather than “I” or “we.” On second reference, use he, she, it or they. Refer to your audience and readers as voters, the public, viewers, citizens, the jury, etc., rather than “you.” Use active voice rather than passive voice for attribution. Example: “Campaign XYZ announced the receipt of a donation from ABC” is better than “A donation from ABC was received” -- assuming, of course, that you have the authority to release information on behalf of Campaign XYZ. (See Tip No. 2 above.)
4. Do explicitly state your expert status or authority to “report” political shenanigans or criminal behavior or to link to a Web site that is not your own. PRWeb generally does not approve press releases linking to Web resources that are not under your control. Nor can you use PRWeb to announce or discuss criminal conduct unless you are a member of the criminal justice system and/or have a case number. (See Tip No. 6.)
5. Avoid specific allegations of wrongdoing by others in your press release or the use of legal terms such as “evidence” and “complaint” in a general sense. It is better to summarize and generalize in a press release and leave specific charges and accusations to copy on your Web site or blog. For instance, your press release can say you and your organization are critical of certain actions or statements by political foes and that a full statement about the criticism or commentary is available elsewhere.
6. Please don’t refer to specific criminal charges or other types of legal claims unless you have the case number or unless you are a member of the criminal justice system. This guideline is put in place to ensure that these matters are accurately described and drawn from legal documents.
7. Don’t say a “complaint was filed” unless it is a legal or administrative complaint with an organization or entity with an indexing system (case numbers). Letters of complaint, letters to the editor and the like generally do not rise to the level of newsworthiness. If the court or administrative agency is not widely known, a brief explanation about the entity's jurisdiction and its capacity for investigations and remedies would be appreciated.
8. Do explicitly attribute to a primary source “facts” about someone other than yourself or your organization, especially those that are derogatory, imply commission of a crime, etc. Note that the passive “It was reported that …” is not primary or explicit attribution.
9. Keep it short and simple. Don’t go on about several different points in a press release. Focus on one or two newsworthy points and your expert status. Then direct your reader to a Web site where all the gory details are published.
10. Consider paying for a professional writing service from a PRWeb NewsCrafters editor if you are an individual, blogger or small organization without professional training in press release or news writing. Before an editor can be assigned to a revision, however, please supply all missing information (primary source attribution, case numbers, expert standing, news angle, etc.) and/or remove all inappropriate content.
Podcast Expo Fun
We were returning to our hotel from the Portable Media and Podcast Expo on Friday when I saw this fountain. I looked at Andrew and offered him $10 to run through it. He said yes.
Dry Andrew
Wet Andrew
Yes, I did give him the $10.
David
We are excited to announce that PRWeb is now part of Vocus, a leading provider of on-demand software for corporate communications and public relations.
PRWeb's unrivaled online visibility technology perfectly complements Vocus' robust PR software suite. Together, these pioneering services offer the most effective way to generate publicity for your organization.
We realize that you rely on PRWeb to distribute your news and increase your online visibility. You may be wondering what you can expect as a result of PRWeb and Vocus joining forces:
1. The Same Great PRWeb Service. You'll continue to use PR Web exactly as you do now. Without interruption of any kind, you'll enjoy the same great features and customer support you've come to expect. You'll continue to work with the same PRWeb editors and customer support staff.
2. New Products. Soon, you'll have access to additional web-based software options that will enhance your ability to generate publicity, increase your online visibility and measure your results. New products include a premium database containing hundreds of thousands of media outlets and journalists; news monitoring and analytics, an online newsroom and personalized email campaigns.
3. A Global Leader. Vocus, Inc. (NASDAQ:VOCS) is a global technology company with the resources and infrastructure to keep PRWeb at the forefront of SEO news distribution. Vocus and PRWeb will now be working together to create the next generation of online public relations capabilities.
We sincerely appreciate the part you've played in making PRWeb the recognized leader in online news and press release distribution. We pledge to continue to bring you the most effective online news distribution in the business.
Sincerely,
|
David McInnis |
Rick Rudman |
Magic. Quixotic. Rock-n-Roll.
Do those conjure images of straight from Disney, or are you more The Matrix?
Here's why I ask: I just returned from the Wizard Academy, in blazing hot-wet Austin Texas.
They grow the ribs big down there. But Roy Williams, Chief Wizard, blew our brains up to planetary proportions. Pictures. Words. Rock-n-Roll.
What was it all about?
Turns out that we probably still are a bit nuts, but nutty people are right from time to time. For years, PRWeb has been focused on helping you reach your customer with your message -- directly, unfiltered by the media. We are the only newswire that offers interplay directly with the blogosphere. Why? Check out the latest PEW study today that reports (reported here):
"Bloggers are avid consumers of online media," said Amanda Lenhart, senior research specialist at Pew and one of the report's authors. "They are consuming online media in a way that even other online users do not," she added.
For instance, almost all bloggers -- 95 percent -- reported reading news online, compared to 73 percent of Internet users at large. The majority of bloggers -- 55 percent -- said they read e-mail newsletters or listservs, compared to 29 percent of all Web users; and 47 percent of bloggers reported reading other blogs for news, compared to 9 percent of all online users."
Now read this and we will do some basic arithmetic.
"Overall, Pew found that 8 percent of Internet users -- or approximately 12 million U.S. adults -- keep a blog, and 39 percent of Web users (57 million U.S. adults) read them. Last year, Pew reported that 7 percent of U.S. adults kept blogs and 27 percent of online adults in the United States read them."
Take 12,000,000 X .95 (95% remember that number from above?) = 11,400,000 people ready to devour your news. That is a pretty good number. Now consider the number of people that those 11.4 million bloggers reach when they weigh in on your news. Wow. Try that, using mainstream media.
-- Make Your Own Headlines
David McInnis, CEO
PRWeb introduces unique tagging technology to the press release industry.
Ferndale, WA (PRWEB) June 30, 2006 -- PRWeb, the leader in search engine optimized and direct-to-consumer press release distribution, today introduces new Web tagging technology to the press release industry. This enhancement to PRWeb's services builds on the company’s existing social media press release distribution platform.
PRWeb is the only newswire capable of delivering on every feature outlined by the SHIFT Communication social media press release template.
In addition to facilitating the development of a tag space unique to the public relations community, PRWeb is making it easier for users to generate tags for Technorati. Users will find this extended feature on the Advanced Options tab within their news management console.
SHIFT Communications’ social media press release template has recently generated an interest in developing press release content for this emerging space.
"If you spend the time to create a press release following the template outlined by SHIFT Communications, all you have is an electronic document unless you have a distribution platform that supports its features. PRWeb is that platform," said David McInnis, CEO and Founder of PRWeb.
A list of the enhancements released today includes:
• A new Technorati tagging widget has been incorporated into the press release submission form, thereby streamlining the process of creating Technorati tags. While it has been possible for users to create such tags for some time, this feature makes it easier for the average user to take advantage of this important tag space.
• The user interface includes a Tag Suggestion utility that analyzes press release content to facilitate the automatic generation of effective tags that match press release content and keyword density.
• A separate PRWeb tag space has been released. It merges tag data from user-supplied Technorati tags with auto-generated tags identified by PRWeb’s keyword density and identification technology.
• The newly created PRWeb tag space provides visual clues to both density and popularity. Tag fonts are sized according to the number of press releases associated with a particular tag. Tags are then colored based on click popularity. Red tags are most active, and then followed by green and blue tags, respectively.
"We continue to expand the PRWeb platform to ensure that we provide the most viable technology to meet the changing Internet landscape," said Al Castle, PRWeb’s Chief Information Officer. "PRWeb is the only newswire capable of delivering on every feature outlined by the SHIFT Communication social media press release template."
About PRWeb International, Inc.
PRWeb, the Online Visibility Company™, is recognized as the Internet's leading online news and press release distribution service worldwide. Since 1997, PRWeb has been changing the way businesses, marketing departments and public relations firms think about press releases. While press releases were a tool once used exclusively for communicating with the media, PRWeb was the first company to develop a distribution strategy around direct-to-consumer communication. PRWeb is also the first company to build and offer a search engine optimized platform for press release distribution. For more information, visit PRWeb's corporate site at http://www.prweb-inc.com.
Contacts:
David McInnis
Founder & CEO, PRWeb
360-312-0892
# # #
Searchles (pronounced circles) is an interesting concept. I think I have seen similar things in the past couple of months along these same lines from everyone but Google. Where are you Google? Maybe they have something in the works. I must confess I haven’t checked out the Labs page in a while. Feel free to enlighten me. This is actually really nifty stuff.
I like Searchles primarily for its promise to deliver a social media generated content index. It’s not perfect yet, but then again Google wasn’t perfect on day one either. Remember back that far?
Here is what I like. I have embraced social networks as my preferred method of gathering information. I even contribute in my own small ways from time to time. Social networks form what I call my “human powered search engine”.
Here is a comprehensive list of features you will find at Searchles.com:
- Automatic integration of YouTube and Google Videos
- Personal Flash tag clouds you can install on your MySpace page
- Create groups on any topic to share URL’s with like minded people
- Discuss URL’s with friends
- Save URL’s to Searchles that are accessible from anywhere
- Tag URL’s for easy recall
- Searchles automatically downloads documents and indexes them for maximum searchiness
- Connect with your friends and URL’s will be automatically shared
By the way, if you haven’t seen Dumbfind it is by the same folks. Check them out and let me know your thoughts.
Did you see the new Netscape Beta yet? It looks promising too.
-- David
First, this was fun. We will probably do this again. The idea was simple. We announced that we had released a bunch of enhancements (between 0 and 10) to the PRWeb site. Why not tap the blogging community and our user base to point out what these enhancements were? To sweeten things up a bit we offered $1,000 bounty to the first person to identify all 9 (yes there were 9 for those interested in the number). Read the press release.
We have one blogger that was successful in identifying all of the newer features that PRWeb added to its mix. The only problem we had with the experiment was our rapid development pace. We actually announced (or otherwise made available) other features after we announced the experiment. To be fair we only required bloggers to identify the new features as of the announcement date.
Arun of Secrets of Press Releases correctly identified all 9. Arun, please contact PRWeb so that we can send you your winnings.
For those of you that want full details on the experiment you can read the press release.
prweb direct to consumer newswire david mcinnis press releases seo press release seo
It's actually an acronym for Word of Mouth Marketing Association. I'm in a "WOM Statistics" breakout session as we speak, and the guy behind the mic is Howard Kaushansky of Umbria. He's sharing how Burger King is really making some noise in the media by extending their Subservient Chicken campaign to a motorcycle rider (sorry, no link. Oh, I'm wrong, here it is: Huckin Chicken). Add to that the Coq Roq gig they're doing on MySpace.com, and you have a number of elements playing together to help collect and generate buzz. Take a gander and please feel free to comment and let me know your thoughts on this.
So, what does this have to do with PR? Lots.
With the ability to create social dialogue with press releases, you have the heart of a viral program that you can jump-start right here. Why and how?
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