Quick question – have you checked the weather today? Are you up to date with global news events? Did you seek them out intentionally, or were updates like these delivered to you through your television and your radio? Perhaps, like most of us, you found out because your phone told you all about it. News distribution has taken on a new face in the age of digital transformation. Amongst a chorus of digital notifications, how can publishers optimize the distribution of their own news?
We’re sharing some useful tools for improving news distribution by driving organic traffic and engagement. The way users seek out and consume news content has changed significantly in the last decade of digital transformation. Staying competitive means shooting straight at your target market. But, before you let that arrow loose, you’ve got to make sure you’re pointed in the right direction.
What is news distribution?
News distribution is the process of disseminating news content to various public relations channels, including media outlets, blogs, and social media. In the good old analog days, news distribution was pretty simple. It described the highly coordinated and collaborative process of getting the newspaper from the press to the reader’s front door, normally within an 18-hour cycle. This intensive process involved a lot of moving parts, but it was a relatively simple route: press release – newswire – media outlets – newspaper landing on the front porch in the early hours of the morning.
Things look a little different these days, to say the least.
In the digital age, news releases happen at hyper speed. People no longer have to wait for paper deliveries or the five o’clock news to find out what’s going on in the world. The slap of a newspaper landing on the porch has been joined by a chorus of tweets, beeps, and buzzes as an ever-expanding array of digital devices is updated with a never-ending news cycle.
Consequently, news distribution now means disseminating news content to a much wider range of media outlets and audiences, typically with the use of commercial newswire services like those offered by Business Wire and others. These services include sending press releases to major media outlets to ensure 1) maximum coverage and 2) exposure to the right target audience.
So, in the digital age, the way audiences access and consume news content has changed pretty radically – and that’s affected how news releases work in the first place. News distribution is no longer confined to newspapers and television media types circulated by traditional media outlets. Now, multimedia content is also circulated by blogs, PR outlets, news apps, and social media platforms.
In summation, two factors have had a major impact on the way that news distribution works:
- There’s a demonstrable market preference for multimedia content over text-based news content.
- Digital technologies have influenced the speed at which news is disseminated to its target audience.
Although the landscape of news distribution has undergone a dramatic transformation in the last decade alone, there are still many benefits associated with the process.
What are the benefits of news distribution in the age of social media?
If everyone’s eyeballs are on Twitter for their news updates, are there still any benefits to news distribution? Happily, the answer is yes. Diversifying your distribution options is a smart way to get your news content in front of your target audience. Using news distribution strategies – especially with the aid of newswire agencies with years of experience – has several advantages. News distribution can:
- Turn a press release into news stories with the expertise of newswire agencies, igniting conversations across industries and media platforms of every kind.
- Get a higher return on investment by generating maximum news coverage with minimal effort.
- Ensure that major media outlets are paying attention to your news.
- Increase the visibility of news for your target audience and reporters alike.
Plus, if you use good SEO (search engine optimization) practices, your publication will list on the first page of search results – and that’s a good thing. Organic traffic (site visits from sources other than paid advertisements) improves credibility and generates more clicks to articles.
Topline summary? Just because news distribution looks different now than it did a few years ago, that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t be using news distribution tools to put interesting news content in front of interested eyes.
5 tools to help with news distribution
To that end, we’ve compiled a list of tools which help with news distribution. You’ll see that the focus is on platforms which assist in turning a press release into a news story – after all, it’s a pretty good place to start. However, we’ve also included an innovative solution to distributing the finished product amongst the segment of your audience that is proving difficult to convert from occasional readers to subscribers. Consider it an Easter egg for news distribution.
Here are four newswire platforms that help with news distribution:
- Business Wire helps you reach press release and disclosure targets by increasing visibility with multimedia content and tracking performance analytics.
- News Direct is a distribution platform which features a flat-fee pricing model and a proprietary Digital Asset Direct release option which enables users to send standalone multimedia content to premier media outlets without the need for a text release to embed it.
- GlobeNewswire offers a range of targeted distribution options that empower you to boost online visibility by sharing news with media outlets, investors, and consumers alike.
- Cision’s PR Newswire features several products and resources for publishers and journalists alike, making it an ideal press release distribution network.
Once you’ve got your press release to a newswire agency that can distribute a hot news story to the right media outlets, you’re golden. Or are you? As we pointed out earlier, the journey doesn’t end there. With the diversification of news-sharing platforms, the competition for your target audience’s attention grows fiercer and fiercer. Remember that cacophony of beeps, tweets, and buzzes we mentioned earlier? How are you going to break through that chatter to ensure your story is heard?
We just might have the answer for you.
Invisibly: a new (and better) way to distribute news content to discerning audiences
Getting your story from press release to news feature is an important part of the process, but we both know that the success of publishers rests on long-term relationships with your target audience. Especially the quotient of your target audience which consumes your content, but never seems to commit to a subscription. We call them “the never-subscribers”.
Invisibly is a new, innovative way to connect prospective audiences with your publications. It’s simple: users exchange their actively consented data for access to your premium content. By offering them free access to content that they already like, Invisibly makes it that much easier to convert never-subscribers into subscribers. And just like that, you’ve got another revenue stream pouring into your accounts.
Audiences are accessing and consuming content in increasingly new ways. Invisibly is a discovery mechanism that puts you in touch with tens of thousands of prospective subscribers. Together with our growing roster of news publications, Invisibly is building a new and better data ecosystem for publishers and people alike.
You could be a part of it. Simply get in touch – we can’t wait to meet you.
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