Press releases are a form of online marketing that we don’t discuss very often. They don’t have the new and exciting appeal of social media or even search engine marketing, but they’ve been around a lot longer and are still working. In fact, they can play right into those other forms.

Twitter is everywhere you look these days. You don’t have to use it, but you can’t hide from it. If you live under a rock, chances are somebody’s sitting on top of that rock tweeting. It took a little bit for Twitter to catch on, but I think it’s safe to say that it has officially taken the world by storm. Let’s look at just a few ways it has impacted different forms of media and communication.

1. Instant Messaging

Covering industry news, naturally I read a lot of press releases. Sometimes they’re sent directly to me or our news team as a whole, sometimes I find them online through PR wires, and sometimes I will find them on the companies’ websites.

…use some of it as a reference guide instead.

I spend a fair amount of time talking with small and medium sized business owners about their web marketing. Often times these individuals aren’t ready to shoulder the costs associated with true goal-oriented web design, SEO, or PPC, so the conversation turns to, “what can I be doing in the meantime?”

Aside from blogging, posting on forums, and keeping their site content fresh, I always talk about online PR. Most of the time the people I’m conversing with have no idea that you can freely or cheaply distribute press releases online.

Would it surprise you to know that Google has dedicated less and less attention to “search” over the years?  Conversely, the company’s talking more about “revenue.”  These, anyway, are the conclusions that one might draw using Philipp Lenssen’s Google Press Release Analyzer.

Recently, I sat on a panel for PRSA Healthcare on social media. I brought along the PR blogger perspective, and sat on it with the VP at Technorati and Amy Tenderich, from Diabetes Mine.

Healthcare is different from other practices in PR. You have the whole direct-to-consumer guidelines from the FDA, and then you have a ton of other issues in dealing with the press and social media.

The most used content type among knowledge workers for business purposes has switched to press releases.