Revolver

There’s a lot of confusion in the PR world about how to use press releases online. It’s fast becoming one of those things everybody knows they should be doing, but aren’t at all sure exactly what they’re supposed to be doing with it.

To maximise the effectiveness of any online campaign, there’s a few golden rules that any digitally-enabled PR consultancy needs to remember:

1) Digital press releases should do much more for your clients than traditional releases. It’s a simple matter to embed video, audio, images and links, and you should include such materials wherever possible.

2) Think laterally. Given the vast array of materials that can be included within a release, you need to expand your distribution beyond the standard slew of news platforms & press-related sites. A promotional video that’s being syndicated by the aggregators or embedded by bloggers stands a far greater chance of reaching its target audience.

3) Be nice to the SEO geeks and make them part of the process.  At the very least your digital press releases should be helping boost customers’ search engine rankings, so work hand-in-hand with your clients’ search marketing teams to make sure they do.

You can make things as complicated as you like, but that’s digital PR in a nutshell: Taking the basic techniques of public relations consultancy and using a combination of the available online tools to ensure your message reaches the greatest potential audience.

Well it’s game on for Apple and Google with the impending launch of Google’s Nexus One, considered by many to be the best retort to the iPhone.  This is countered by a prepackaged announcement by Apple’s CEO Steve Job, stating that the number of iPhone applications downloaded had passed the 3 billion mark and thus “see no signs of the competition catching up anytime soon.”

It’s quite evident that this press release was the latest in a series of quick-fire news leaks and releases out of Apple headquarters.  However, if there’s nothing to fear why deliver such self-serving swanking? Attention from the tech press is no doubt at stake with Google’s smartphone soon to be out of the bag.

As a cutting edge agency offering public relations consultancy, we are conscious of the need to have all our tools close at hand, thus the Google Android is the perfect offering for the digital PR crowd at Revolver.   

Nonetheless, the fact that Google and Apple are jousting with words and press releases makes the road ahead far more exciting to travel.  This is evident in the ChangeWave Research survey of 4,068 consumers in December 2009, revealing that an impressive 21% of people were looking to buy a Google Android, whilst Apple’s iPhone was only mildly ahead with 28%. 

So not such a clear win for the Apple giant just yet.