Media releases are a highly effective way to promote your nonprofit organization. No longer are media releases the exclusive domain or are they solely written to attract the attention of reporters, producers and editors working at newspapers, magazines, television or radio stations. Well written, interesting, timely and keyword rich media releases can attract and inform current and potential donors, board members, volunteers and staff, all without costing a lot of time or money.
Your news may not make the pages of the Edmonton Journal, the Calgary Herald or the evening news, but an online keyword rich media release attracts news aggregators such as Google News, Yahoo News and Bing News, and increases your odds of communicating directly to the people most likely to be interested in and be willing to support your organization.
In order to effectively promote your news (or have the readers share your news with their followers, fans and friends), to journalists and browsers alike, you need to convey your message in a story that readers will find helpful, interesting, provocative, stimulating, sad, hopeful, inspiring or a solution to a problem that many people share. Such media releases could announce new services, events, milestones, major awards, successes or opinions about major trends in your community. See 50 more reasons why you might want to send out a media release.
21 Ways to Promote Your Media Release to News Reporters and Beyond:
- Create an online newsroom to post and archive your media releases
- Include a link to your online newsroom in your organization’s email signatures e.g. “Keep up with what’s new by reading our media releases” with a link to your newsroom
- Build links to your release in your newsroom from your website or blog
- Share your media release on Facebook
- Promote your headline on Twitter with a link to the media release in your newsroom
- Post your news on Google +
- Share your news on LinkedIn company pages
- Ask others to share your news by forwarding the email release and linking to it your online newsroom
- Include the link to your media releases and online newsroom in your email newsletters
- Send your media release to influential bloggers in your area
- Include your organization’s Twitter username
- Tweet about the release throughout the day it’s distributed
- Include an image in your release so that it’s more likely to be shared
- Pin an image from your news release to Pinterest
- Embed a link to your Flickr account and post hi resolution images related to the release
- Add a link to a video on YouTube about the topic of the media release
- Like the Facebook pages of the media outlets that you are trying to reach
- Follow the reporters on Twitter most likely to be interested in your news
- Make your media release mobile compatible
- Include social media buttons in your release to direct readers to your social media accounts
- Use a media release distribution service that allows online posting on their website to gain quick visibility on Google. Yahoo, Bing and other search engines
