Note: This is Part III in an seven-part series I’m writing about Press Releases. Press releases are possibly an overlooked item in the enterprise social media toolbox, so I’m going to cover a few points and talk about how I’ve used them successfully for client campaigns.

Search Engines Have Categories
Google, Yahoo and Bing all have a “web” search engine (also called “organic” search, the search field one sees when one goes to these sites to search for information).  They also have their “news” search engine and one typically clicks on “News” to see the latest in that category.

A press release written in an optimized-for-search manner and correctly issued in top performing  newfeeds will appear on page one of both News and information search engines.   The news search engines are continually adding new stories and keep a press release in search results for about 28 days.

The “web” search or organic search also returns the press release in search results within 24 hours of releasing the story. These stay on the search engines indefinitely.  They appear on page one and can stay there for months or years. Depending on what your consumer analysis reveals (your target market might not trust or care about press releases), including press releases in your corporate social media plan might be very beneficial for your message.  

Social Media Search Engines
Bing is the search engine for Facebook, so press releases can also appear in Facebook searches. Some of the new feeds are also tweeting the story and Google Real-time will show the blogs it also appears in. So you can actually get some social media action without asking for it, due to the search nature many social networking sites.

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