8 Press Release Tips – How To Get Your Release Shared More Often
When writing a press release, your audience is not the general population, but journalists. Therefore, your press release has to appeal to them as a professional looking for news or a great story. It then has to impress them to the point that they will be willing to share it with others by picking up your story and running with it. Here are 8 tips to get more shares.
1-Broad appeal
Your press release has to have broad appeal so that the journalist can feel confident that their readers will thank them for passing along the information. As you write a press release, try to answer the question, “Why should any reader care about this?” In this way, you can make the content more sharable.
2-Niche appeal
In addition to general journalists who work on a variety of stories with broad appeal, there are also niche and industry journalists who specialize in one area. Bloggers at influential niche blogs are also worth contacting, because your release is more likely to get shared by niche-journalists, and by busy bloggers who are always looking for interesting content to share with their target audience.
3-Emotional appeal
You have mere seconds to capture a reader’s attention via your headline. A headline should have keywords, a strong, active verb, and a hint as to what the release will be about in order to pique people’s curiosity and get them to read more. The headline is a promise that clicking on the link will be worth it. A headline that says: EXPERT Reveals a 10-step Process that will make you a Business Genius taps into readers’ desires to feel smart and powerful. The press release should then outline the 10 steps. Journalists will not only be glad to learn the steps themselves, they will be pleased to share them with their regular readers.
4-Make it newsworthy
Write a press release only when you have something newsworthy to say, such as a new product launch, milestone, or special offer. Don’t write a press release just for the sake of it. Too many that don’t jump out at the journalists will make them ignore you rather than be willing to share your content.
5-Don’t make it an ad
The journalist wants real information, not a long sales pitch. Their job is to report the news, not help you sell stuff. Having said that, if your product can really make a difference to consumers, they will share it.
6-Use active verbs
Using strong, active verbs makes the headline, and therefore the story, sound interesting, not dull. Compare these 2 headlines:
EXPERT tells you how to stop craving sugary foods in 1 simple step
EXPERT reveals secret to conquering sugar cravings fast
Reveals and conquering are both much more active verbs than tells and stop.
7-Add supporting media
Studies have shown that press releases that have supporting media are much more likely to be picked up and shared than those that don’t. Images, infographics and video clips can all help with shares.
8-Ask for the share
This sounds pretty simple and obvious, but you would be amazed at how many businesses neglect this step even though social media is one of the best ways to share content easily. Ask people to share on the biggest social networks that are relevant to your content. These will usually be Facebook and Twitter, but might also include LinkedIn, depending on the topic and intended audience.
If you’ve been struggling to get shares for your content, try these tips and see what a difference they can make.
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