I don’t republish company’s press releases on this blog. Last week I received an email asking:
“We are interested to publish our company news in Extranet Evolution; I could not navigate the place to find the details of how to submit the article. Please send us the details.”
I responded and patiently explained:
“ExtranetEvolution is a blog, and so doesn’t have a news-posting service. However, if you have something that you think I should write about it, please email me a copy or send me a link to the relevant page on your website.”
Nonetheless, I still received a news release attached to an email asking me to “publish this article in your website”. It had some relevance to project collaboration, but not enough to excite me to write about it (and the writer’s apparent ignorance of blogging didn’t help).
(By the way, if you want sites that will automatically publish your company news, there are quite a few free press release sites around – typing “free press release” into Google gives over a million results – as well as some good paid-for services – PRnewswire is one I have used in the past).
Blog engagement
By all means, send me your news releases, but make sure they are relevant to the blog. Actually reading the blog would be a good start. It can help sometimes if you identify a previous post on a related topic and perhaps drop me an email or a Tweet to explain why your release is relevant. You can also use my blogs’ comment facilities; I monitor all comments, so can pick up on interesting snippets added through that route.
I often link to news releases and reproduce extracts from them, but – just like mainstream media outlets – I am selective about what I write about and how I present it. Also, as I’m not a full-time blogger, I pick the topics I judge most important in the time I’ve got available to write about them. Remember these things and I’m sure we’ll get along famously….
2 comments
1 ping
Paul-
I think that might have come from our marketing team. We read your blog all the time, comment some as well, and aren’t looking for Free Press Releases. We are routinely solicited to write and speak and have been published more than 10 times in construction periodicals, indicating at least some level of interest in what we do for the AEC Community.
We already use PRNewswire, and have an extensive network of sites (including you) that we like to keep informed specifically because we know they are not auto pick up and might be interested (like we are) in staying informed of any tidbit shaping the future.
Everything we have done for the past 9 years is related to technology services for the Construction space (our entire focus is construction), so we think it is relevant. Understanding that is our perspective, perhaps not yours, feel free to give us direct feedback if you would like to stop receiving the info, more closely work together or understand our contribution to the community you blog about.
We clearly understand blogging, and 1000’s of other technologies (which you will realize if you tie tie my comments on your site in with the releases you receive from our company), but at a minimum, perhaps we can rephrase the submission to you to better match the intent.
Happy Blogging-
Thanks-
Wes
I deliberately didn’t mention who sent the emails, and the quoted ones were not the only ones I’ve received that seemed to expect publication would automatically follow.
I follow a wide range of companies and many have their own blogs. I welcome recommendations about good websites and good blogs, and when I find ones I like I tend to add them to my RSS feeds (I currently monitor over 200 different blogs direct via my feed-reader, and get numerous additional recommendations through a range of Google Alerts, plus Twitter and other sources.
From this monitoring, I pick up a lot of useful information, but I always welcome a thoughtful email that shows someone has taken the time to read my blog and suggest a topic that might be useful.
[…] which I have routinely binned. However, I did write about one persistent offender (see Not a free press release service), eventually writing 10 ways for PR or marketing people to engage with me, the blogger in this […]