Press Release Distribution

Press release distribution is the process of sending press releases or news releases to a target audience particularly to a targeted media outlet, so that it can be written in a story and published on print or electronic media or broadcast over radio or television. The traditional process involved mailing, faxing or e-mailing press releases to a target audience. The evolving Internet technology has changed press release distribution processes. Today, press release distribution services use one or all of the following Internet protocols or technologies for press release distribution: FTP, XML/RSS, Email Alerts, Social Media, Sharing or Viral tools and Search Engines

Press release distribution via FTP allows press release services like EmailWire.Com to transmit news releases through file transfers protocols to media outlets where news is received, parsed and published on targeted news websites – where readers or subscribers of these sites read.

XML/RSS feeds, like FTP feeds distributes press releases to predestined or targeted web sites where the news is also parsed and published for consumption. RSS feeds, however, allow end users with client software called readers to subscribe to feeds for their consumption. Many news aggregating services pull news with RSS feeds from various publishers and resell headlines to websites, intranets, and indexing services. One of those aggregating services is Moreover.com. The company uses RSS to gather “450,000 news articles from 31,000-plus sources daily, and 300,000 blog/social media posts from nearly 275,000 sources about virtually every industry reviewed, filtered, and refined daily.” Emailwire.com uses aggregating services and XML/RSS feeds for press release distribution.

While XML/RSS feeds are means of distributing news to internet, intranat and end users, email alerts are another means of sending press releases to target audiences. Journalists or end users subscribe to news of interest on press release distribution services like EmailWire.Com, and the news is transmitted to their email boxes based on time intervals of their choice. Major search engines such as Google, Yahoo allows their users to subscribe to news through their personal e-mail accounts based on keywords. If a press release from EmailWire.com is indexed on Yahoo and the press release has relevant keywords that match subscribers' interest, the end users receive news in their e-mail boxes. EmailWire.Com uses e-mail alerts to for press release distribution.

As Email alerts have become a means of press release distribution, Social Media is changing the way press releases are distributed over the Internet. A plethora of web 2.0 publishing tools make this process viral. Blogs enable individuals to publish content online, then came XML that allows individual blog publishers to grab or scrape content from news sources or press release sites like EmailWire.com to update their sites. With million of blogs online, publishers begin to find means of sharing content. Sharing tools were born and placed on blogs or websites where readers are able to send content to friends and and colleagues. One of those content sharing tools is Twitter. Online users use Twitter – a micro bloging tool to send short messages in text, images or video to followers or subscribers. EmailWire.Com uses social media and sharing tools like Twitter for press release distribution.

As many Internet protocols such as XML, FTP, Email Alert, Social Media and sharing tools are helping press release distribution services to spread the word, indexing plays a great role in enabling journalists, consumers, businesses and experts or any target audience to find information for their use. Search engines such as Bing, Google, Yahoo and yes, Twitter indexes press releases that are published daily. That is why it is very important for those who write press releases should use relevant keywords in their press releases – this how they can reach their target audience.

Related Press Release Distribution Articles:

• Press Release Distribution Defined
• Press Release Distribution with Images for SERP and Branding
• Press Release Distribution with Video News Releases (VNR)
• Press Release Distribution with Email Alerts
• Press Release Distribution with Social Media
• Press Release Distribution with XML/RSS Feeds