The concept of online distribution is a broad categorization that encompasses a variety of different models for getting information from one place to another.  Deconstructing the concept of online distribution is vital to picking an online distribution service that makes sense so here is a general overview of the different models of online distribution:

Direct Distribution

Direct distribution means that a news release is pushed directly to an individual or group of individuals with little or no intermediary.  E-mail is the most common form of direct distribution because the content is moving directly from sender to recipient.  Fax, postal mail delivery and RSS delivery to a recipient’s RSS reader would also qualify as forms of of direct distribution.

Direct Distribution

When it comes to news releases, direct distribution facilitated by a wire system was the original method for distribution and still profoundly impacts the way that traditional wire services (PRNewswire, Business Wire) think about distribution.  It is also a component of the PRWeb approach to distribution, evidenced by our 30K media subscribers who receive e-mails and 250K subscribers who receive our content via RSS.

Indexing

Indexing refers to the practice of making news content available to searchers through various indexes and databases.  Unlike direct distribution, which can be classified as a push method, indexing is classified as a pull method because it involves getting the content placed so it can be found and retrieved by the end user. distribution/consumption process.

Indexing

It is funny to think about indexing as distribution but it is a primary driver of the recalibration of the overall news cycle because of the rapid adoption of search engines.  Today, over 150 million Americans use search engines every day and a significant percentage of this population are looking for news.  Getting news releases placed into this flow of online eyeballs is what differentiated PRWeb from other news distribution services and although most have begun looking at search as a key component, traditional wire services are still figuring out how to integrate search into their distribution strategies.

Syndication

Traditionally, syndication refers to the process in which an article (or sometimes a cartoon) is published in a number of magazines or newspapers at the same time.  When it comes to news releases, syndication means that your news release will be published on additional Web sites when it goes live, in addition to the news release site itself.

Syndication

Syndication is one of the ways that PRWeb is differentiated from free online distribution services because free services rarely any syndication of note (while PRWeb releases are syndicated on leading News sites).  By leveraging RSS and providing tools that make it easy for publishers to syndicate our content we have managed to build the industry’s leading syndication network with over 30K Web sites in total.

Hopefully, this has provided a general framework for how online news distribution works and when you are selecting a news distribution provider you should consider these various methods.

I was recently browsing through Twitter when I stumbled upon a posting that took me aback - someone had posted an RFP to build a mirror of PRWeb for a budget of $300.

It was comical in a sense but also interesting in that it served a hyperbolic function: it symbolized the process through which free press release services come to market.

Essentially, the process goes something like this:

1. Someone decides they want to create a press release distribution service;
2. They build a content management system that allows users to construct a document;
3. They get the domain indexed in Google News;
4. They start marketing themselves as a “free press release service”

Over the years, there have been countless free press release services spring up and some of them have evolved into pay models.  Some have even developed customer bases and brand equity.

I want spend a few minutes outlining what prospective customers should understand about these services and in order to do so I will first provide a framework for thinking about what it is a press release distribution service actually provides:

• Construction - All services provide a means through which a press release is transferred into a form that can be easily hosted and transferred via the Web.  This can take several forms.  Wire services will often allow a user to transmit a word document that will then be reviewed and uploaded via a back-end CMS.  Many of the newer services provide the user with direct access to a CMS where they can construct a release themselves.
• Distribution - Once the release has been constructed into a structured format it will then be distributed through a variety of channels.  What ‘distribution’ actually means is probably a separate post all together but for now we’ll just acknowledge that it has to go somewhere - to journalists, search engines, syndicate sites, etc.
• Analysis - Once the release has been distributed through the Web, the end user should have some sort of system that provides them with a sense of how much traction the release received.  Again, ‘traction’ is an entirely separate discussion that we will for the time being reserve for a later discussion.

So essentially, all press release distribution services come down to these three components.  Staying within this framework, the question then becomes, what is the difference between a free service and a pay service?

The answer brings us back to the example that sparked this post: anyone can theoretically build a CMS that allows someone to create a Web document.  A slightly more difficult task involves providing a user with some sort of analytics on traction of that document.  What differentiates free services from entrenched services is in the distribution of that document.  The development of a broad distribution network takes significant time and resources.

So the question that a customer should ask when choosing a service is “Where does my press release go?”  With the majority of free services, the release doesn’t go very far and that is because the distribution networks associated with these services are not very significant.  Now if the story has viral potential placement on a Web site and getting indexed in Google News may be sufficient for it to gain significant traction online however the truth of the matter is that the majority of news releases are not breaking Watergate and need to be distributed to the right audiences and that is where services like PRWeb come into play.

On the most recent episode of Webmaster Radio’s Cover Story, I spend some time chatting with Lee Odden from TopRank Internet Marketing on SEO, social media and the convergence of PR and Marketing.

Twitter has obviously been a hot topic of conversation over the past year or so and seems to be steadily growing in prominence.  In fact, we even rolled out a feature in January called TweetIt that makes it easier for our customers to blog about their news.  My own personal indicator is that many of my friends who work in non-online industries have joined Twitter and begun to ‘Tweet’, which has lead me to think more seriously about the service.

Last April, Silicon Alley Insider reported that Twitter was seeking Series C funding and its valuation ranged between $60 million and $150 million, which certainly seems interesting to me given that absence of a top line.  However, the obvious valuation is in the ad worth of Twitter, although more recently co-founder Biz Stone has been talking about charging corporations for commercial accounts.

The inclusion of ads seems a dubious direction.  If they do start injecting ads into the feeds, it seems a matter of time until a differentiated service springs up and a mass user migration takes place a la MySpace to Facebook (albeit I’m sure News Corp still saw a significant ROI on their $500m investment). Even without the injection of ads, it seems a matter of time until the spammers jump on the bandwagon and start diluting whatever value exists in the existing communication.

From my perspective the broader concern is over the qualitative value of communications facilitated through Twitter.  I honestly believe that anything over $30-40m seems a bit high based on my belief that a great deal of the communications happening on Twitter are too glib to have any meaningful impact (although I will admit that there are definitely a handful of people who are leveraging the tool in extremely intelligent ways).

Although I believe it does have value as a tool for B2C communications or influencer-to-consumer communications (I2C communications), the general consumer chatter reminds me a bit of a global chatroom where a majority of people who don’t really know one another exchange very brief remarks without a sustained sense of community.

I believe what is missing here is a broadscale study into the behavioral impact of communications facilitated via Twitter.  I hope whoever is currently speculating a purchase of Twitter is considering this component.

At any rate, I’d be fascinated to hear what other people have to say about the value of Twitter…

It has been over a year since we released PRWeb in Plain English, a short video clip produced by Common Craft that did a great job simply and succinctly explaining how PRWeb works.

For the past several months we have been working on a follow-up that explores the context behind how PRWeb disrupted the newswire industry and created a new model for how news is distributed online, one that is now being emulated by traditional newswires as well as a myriad of start-ups.

With that being said, I hope you enjoy our new video, How PRWeb Changed the Press Release.

There tends to be a good stream of coverage in both traditional and online media of PRWeb however every so often an article comes along that is really worth sharing.  Rae Hoffman, Principal of Sugarrae Consulting, has recently authored a well-written and comprehensive review of PRWeb that is worth a read for anyone interested in a broader understanding of what it is we do and what we offer.

From the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press:

The internet, which emerged this year as a leading source for campaign news, has now surpassed all other media except television as a main source for national and international news.

The flip-flopping of print and the Internet as the main news source for the broader online population was inevitable given the rapid proliferation of broadband access as well as the vast intrinsic advantages of online versus print.  There is probably a natural inclination to think that the elections had a lot to do with the trend however a quick glance at the top news stories for 2008 indicates that four of the top five stories (followed very closely) had to do with the economy.

I wonder if the urgency that has surrounded the financial crisis was a catalyst for the shift to online from print as more people decided they wanted their information in real-time as opposed to the next morning.

The research does raise some interesting questions such as A) What are the sources that people are turning to online?  Are people just turning to the online version of mainstream publications or are they turning to news aggregators and/or blogs?

This time of the year it seems as though there is an endless array of parties and social gatherings to fill up your evenings.  Some of these gatherings are going to involve your co-workers or friends and family, who you already know and love (or at least can bear).  However, everyone knows what it is like to attend a gathering where you may only know a few people.

In these situations you have several options.

Some people will be a wallflower and sip their drink in the corner or glom on to the one person who they know throughout the night.  There are also those who will go out and try to meet as many people as humanly possible and exchange cards as though they were at ad:tech.  Finally, there are those who will engage with a more limited array of people.

Now consider the process of link building (which is quintessentially a social practice).

Those who take a blitzkrieg approach to fostering social connections are the rote link builders.  At a party they are going to be the people that tell the same story or the same joke and work the room in it’s entirety with little or no regard for the people they are actually interacting with.

From a link-building perspective this would be the people who use boilerplate communication and try to hit as many people as humanly possible (aka the spammers).

Those who are sitting by the wall sipping their drink and watching the party are only slightly better off.  These are the non-link builders who still don’t understand the importance of social engagement in the online world.  They may be the most fascinating person in the world yet may go through the entire evening without engaging in one interaction and at the end of the day they may have even gained less social capital than the spammers.

Finally, there are the balanced socializers - those who truly make an effort to engage with others at the party and ultimately forge meaningful, sustainable relationships based upon their interactions.  They realize the true secret to link building - that it is more about quality than quantity of interaction and that developing a handful of meaningful relationships is far better than developing a copious amount of irrelevant relationships.

Within all this, the role that a newswire plays is to provide you, the attendee at the social gathering, with a platform.  It is as though the host of the party comes by with a microphone and asks you to perform a toast.

The toast is an opportunity to share a little of yourself with the entire room at one time.  It can be a social catalyst if you have something worth sharing (it can also be terribly embarassing if you don’t).

However, the toast is an overture and not the coda.

You give your heart-warming toast that has everyone in the room tearing up.  After you give the toast is when the work actually begins.  The toast has brought you to the the forefront of the party but that doesn’t mean that you have created a sustainable bond with everyone.  People may come up and introduce themselves to you but you still have to interact with them and show them why you are worth creating a sustained bond with.

In the world of news, those people are the bloggers, journalists, consumers and other stakeholders out in the world and ultimately it is those links that are going to have a bearing on your search capital (or your social capital if we’re still in the metaphor).

So to wrap things up in a neat little bow, the news release is a catalyst, not the finality.  Link-building is an ongoing process that requires a dedicated and diligent effort - news releases should play a prominent role in the overall process however their real value is in getting your news in front of the people that matter to your business.

I’ve recently fielded several questions stemming from the article on social networking in the New York Times that came out last week. One in particular caught my attention and I’d like to address it a bit more comprehensively.

The question was from a guy about to launch a Bed & Breakfast in Colorado and was interested in knowing whether social media could be an appropriate marketing tactic to target “people interested in traveling for pleasure and honeymooners.”

There are probably other tactics that might be more effective at driving new customer acquisition at the outset. For instance, there is probably a traditional public relations strategy somewhere in your plan that would look to target domestic travel channels and channels for newlyweds and honeymooners. I would certainly think social media could play an important role in your public relations strategy because I’m sure there are loads of non-traditional media influencers who are worth targeting. In fact, I’d even consider doing an event where you get together a list of key influencers in your space and simply comp. them a weekend. There may be also a SEM strategy that drives customer acquisition in spaces like “bed & breakfast” & Colorado. What’s more, social media can probably be used as a tactic to facilitate this broader SEM strategy.

However, the role I think social media can play outside of PR and SEM for your business is to facilitate engagement between you and the individuals in your personal social network.

First, let me clarify what I mean by ’social network’ because I’m not referring to MySpace or Facebook. The first step is to detach the concept of ’social networking’ from any of the various forms it takes. These are tools that facilitate interactions in real breathing, living social networks however they are not themselves social networks. They can facilitate strong network connections and create weak ones but they aren’t places where true, meaningful interactions take place (in general) and solid network connections grow.

Your social network is the Web of connections you compile over time through meaningful interactions with others. In the case of your business, it will be the customers you acquire and the influencers you come into contact with as the result of your broader marketing efforts.

Your social media strategy should be aimed at facilitating engagement with these people.

Now the nature of who these people are and where they interact is key because knowing this will allow you to match your tools to your network. For us (PRWeb), Twitter is an important tool because the adoption rate of Twitter is high with many of our customers. Through our Twitter account we are able to send out quick, informal announcements to a large segment of our social network. However, my instinct would be that Twitter might not be the best tool to facilitate network connections among travelers and Honeymooners who have visited your B&B in Colorado (at this point in time).

I’ll end with what I believe to be a good example of a brick and mortar that has a social media approach that works well with its business, Barrel Oak Winery in Delaplane, Virginia. Their primary channels used to communicate with their social network include their Web site and e-mail list.

Now, the way social media has played into their overall marketing efforts has been as a component of their PR strategy. Early on, they reached out to various influencers who cover what’s going on in the DC-area (which is how I came into contact with them originally) and invited them to visit their winery. They created strong relationships with these influencers and have gained considerable blogosphere press as a result. One of the keys here is that they understood the underlying importance of forging strong network connections through offline interactions. Since they have forged some strong relationships with local influencers, a next step for them might involve launching a blog that allows them to provide updates to those local influencers who are already part of their social network.

The underlying takeaway from all this is that Barrel Oak didn’t simply launch a blog, Facebook page, etc. They took careful measure of what the existing environment was like and used tools (e-mail / Web site) appropriate for their social network. Social media did play into their overall strategy but more as a component of their PR efforts.

Article from AllBusiness that was syndicated on the New York Times Web site about using social networking sites for Marketing and PR:

Social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace have become the party lines of this young century. They are inviting and intriguing and a powerful communication tool. Learning how to use them wisely for marketing can increase your business profile.

Jiyan Wei, product manager at PRWeb, an online press release marketing service, is a fan of social networking sites. He has formed a group on Facebook for PRWeb that includes journalists, bloggers, and others in the media industry who use PRWeb as one of their sources for information. Rather than sending this group traditional, impersonal press releases, he uses it for smaller announcements. “If we’re going to have a booth at a trade show I’ll send out a note to the group and invite them to stop by,” he says. “Often someone will post a casual comment or ask a question. If it’s too long, I take the conversation offline.”

Read the Full Article on NYTimes.com