Wire Services in the Social Media Age

With the advancements and changes in the world of communications, many are pushing news and announcements through social media rather than traditional wire services.

Considering the results from wire services the best case scenario for getting news out is not to use one or the other, but both. Traditional wire services have an established presence and feed the media news and updates. Social Media is a fast new way to push news through Twitter, Facebook, Blogs, LinkedIn, Tumblr and more.

The best of the available wire services from our experience is Business Wire, for which we have seen noticeable results. Another good service with nice results is PR Web. Many like to use PR Newswire, but at Maxima PR we prefer Business Wire over PR Newswire. Some of the new services like PR Web are a little lower in cost than Business Wire or PR Newswire which are very close in pricing, but the reach of these bigger, more established wire services is significant and in most cases worth the higher price.

For the Social Media a well networked and followed Twitter account or accounts is key, along with a presense on Facebook, LinkedIn, Tumblr and other sites such as StumbleUpon, Reddit, Technorati, Digg, Focus, Small Business Brief, Wikipedia, YouNoodle, and video posts on YouTube. With Social Media you want to establish a presence on all relevant sites and services, and update on a regular basis, daily if possible.

When using wire services and social media sites and services, do your homework to choose and use the best of the services available. In some cases you may want to use more of wire services while in others you may focus on social media.

Don't Forget About The Little Guys - Small Press Are Great Targets

In the quest for news coverage with traditional media, social media and blogs, everyone is on the hunt for the big name or "Big Game" media, but many forget or ignore the little guys, and you should never ignore any press.

No matter how small or large, how focused or broad the coverage, how frequent or infrequent, all media are important and need to be on your target press lists. We all know how big and effective stories placed with the Wall Street Journal, Good Morning America, Mashable and Forbes are and can be, but Do Not ignore the small publications and blogs, as they can have a big impact on your clients and their goals.

Small or smaller publications and blogs such as Los Angeles Daily News, EE Times, La Opinión, SocialTimes, Network Computing, FierceMarkets Network, and many more, can be wonderful targets and provide your clients with needed exposure and publicity.

A simple piece of advice, always go after the big game targets, but never forget about the little guy, the smaller publications and blogs.

Some of the Top Technology Blogs for Media Lists

The number of blogs and bloggers in the world is staggering with what seems like zillions of blogs covering every possible subject in every location on earth.

A few great blogs and news sites for the tech PR crowd include:
TechCrunch, Mashable, GigaOm, Boing Boing, Gizmodo, Gawker, Engadget, The Next Web, ReadWriteWeb, Search Engine Land, Ars Technica, NY Times Bits Blog, WSJ Digits, BNET and of course CNET, Wired's Blogs, Fast Company Technology, LA Times Tech Blog, San Jose Mercury News SiliconBeat, Bloomberg Busuinessweek TheTechBeat, and for a little fun try The Daily Beast.

Blogs and bloggers are a wonderful source of news and along with those mentioned above there are many smaller blogs that are nice to target for media outreach for your clients.

Knowing and Understanding the Media: The Key to Successful Media Relations and Story Placements

Over the years many people have asked me what is it that makes a PR campaign a success, and what is the best way to handle media and media relations?

My answer is simple and very important:
Know and understand the media. Know who the media are, identify the appropriate reporters, editors, writers, producers and bloggers, and understand their beat and coverage. Know how they prefer to be contacted, by email, phone, Twitter, etc.? Understand them by researching their beat and stories they have written for last 6 months to year. Know them and know their beat, what they cover, and if you have a chance ask them what they are most interested in.

By knowing and understand media, what they like or don't like, how to pitch them or how not to pitch them, you will be far more successful with media and story placements.