PR Questions | How can a press release be an all-in-one marketing tool?

A reader writes . . .

I read with interest your response to the gal looking for help with her arts site. You say in your response:

As you may know, press releases have evolved from a simple
announcement to a select group of journalists to powerful tools that
merge search engine optimization, multimedia, social networking,
traffic measurement, online exposure and publicity all in one.

I’m wondering how a press release can merge search engine optimization, multimedia, social networking, traffic measurement, online exposure and publicity all in one??
I’m *guessing* that if the subject matter of the release is also used in web content, using key words and phrases that will be picked up by search engines, that’s how you’d get the search engine optimization…but how does a release do the rest?
Our pr agency sometimes wrote a press release in a “feature article” style so that it could be readily picked up by a feature writer for a paper or a trade magazine, but beyond that?
If you have a time to answer, I would appreciate it!

And, now for the answer to how can a press release be an all-in-one marketing tool?

Here’s an example of an online press release we distributed for one of our clients via PRWeb.

When you use an online distribution service like prweb.com, your release:

1. gets submitted to search engines-both regular and news;

2. allows for multimedia inclusions like video, images and audio;

3. shares easily on social networking via sites like Digg and Stumbleupon;

4. measures traffic with reports on number of reads from the distributor;

5. increases online exposure through industry-specific news feeder routes like RSS and of course,

6. gives you free publicity.

Here’s an article that tells you how to accelerate your public relations performance and results.

Let me know if you have any other questions and thanks again for your interest! This is a topic I love talking about. 🙂

Your Turn

What benefit looks best to you?