Not exactly a news item published on your website, but rather news worthy information is precisely a press release. It is written keeping in mind the media and the journalists.
It might seem of not being of much use, but has lot of benefits. It helps in increasing the visibility of the app. The story can get published in different publications. They increase your credibility and SEO.
How do you actually circulate it?
Below is the process: The most effective way to circulate a press release is to use one of the many online distribution agencies, most of which follow a similar process.
- Start to draft a press release based on the required format.
- Based on the topic and geography, you can choose media outlets to send the release to.
- Then it is checked and proof read for clarity and errors.
- The press release can be distributed through several channels like RSS feeds, news wire services, emails to journalists and websites.
- With the help of the reporting tools, track the reach and success of your press release.
With increasing price, the reach increases as well. Thus, making it easier to communicate the message to a larger audience. The distribution agency might dictate the format for your press release, but mostly they do have a common structure.
- Release Timing refers to the time of publishing the article. It is either ‘FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE’ (in all caps) or ‘HOLD FOR RELEASE UNTIL [DATE]’ for a particular date or time.
- Headline is the most integral part of the press release. The best way to grab attention. It is should be short, crisp and to the point. Try and avoid jargons, jokes and superlatives like fastest, largest etc. The trick lies in presenting the headline with strong action words and in present tense long with the required SEO keywords.
- In the first paragraph; we mention the location from where the release was distributed as well as the date which is referred to as dateline.
- Introductory paragraph or the opening paragraph gives an idea about the story. In this, you can include, various factual data like who, where, what and how. Also embed a link to the app related to your product or service along with some keywords.
- Second paragraph summarises the features and benefits of your app. This should include supporting data like research, facts and statistics. By adding a quote by some expert or company, can add a human touch to your story.
- An additional paragraph is basically the remaining copy which should not be more than about four hundred words. To cover other features and benefits, you can use additional short.
- Boilerplate is the text depicting the information about your company in maybe one or two sentence.
- Contact information should definitely be there in your press release. That is the main reason behind writing it i.e. to invite a journalist to contact you and take the story ahead. It should have the company name, email id and telephone number.
- At the end of the press release, put three hashtags centred on a new line which is what you call as ‘Close’.
The whole purpose of writing the press release is to inform the journalists and media in general. Hence, it is important that you should slot it in the perfect time and date. Avoid days, when there is some big event and with no relevance to your app. Though, if the there is some story that could help you too, go for it. One can co-opt into it as well. Human stories could also interest them a lot. If possible, include names of famous or influential.
