Getting Media Coverage

Getting covered in news media, whether print or online, is a great way to get publicity for your Web site. A brief mention in a mag like Newsweek or the Wall Street Journal could result in enough hits to crash your server. Of course, there are tens of thousands of smaller publications, from local computer user-group newsletters to obscure e-zines, many of them starved for content. An article about your site in one or more of them could be well worthwhile.

How do you bring your site to the attention of writers and editors? By sending out press releases. A press release is a brief announcement of some newsworthy event, which may be sent to an editor or writer by mail, fax or email. There's a real art to writing them and submitting them, which is far out of the scope of this article. If you go to Yahoo and search on "writing press releases," you'll find that there are lots of guides out there.

Press releases have a standard form, so learn it and write your press releases this way if you want them to be read. And remember that press releases are supposed to be about newsworthy events. Just the fact that your company has a Web site is unlikely to be considered news by itself. Always try to play up the "newsy" aspect. Point out what is unique or innovative about your site.

In addition to generating immediate publicity, an article about your Web site can yield pithy quotes that you can use in your future marketing efforts. If a major Internet magazine says that your site is "beautifully designed and extremely useful," then you'll want to trumpet the fact. If they say that your site is a "perfect example of amateurish design, and it's extremely hard to see how anyone could find it useful," then you may want to employ a handy little thing called an "ellipsis" (...). "Major Internet mag says our site is "perfect...extremely...useful."

Of course, even if some journalist does write an article from your press release, it's unlikely that you'll ever know about it, unless you use a "clipping service." A clipping service consists of unfortunate people at a public relations agency whose job it is to scan thousands of periodicals, looking for mentions of companies represented by their agency. When they find one, they relay it to the client, perhaps providing useful quotes, and proving that the P.R. agency has done its job. By now it should be apparent that the whole business of trying to get press coverage is an involved process. If you have the budget for it, you may consider hiring a P.R. agency.

Traditionally, publicists did a lot of research on the media that they worked with, and tried hard to make sure that press releases got sent to the people most likely to make use of them, even timing submissions to try to get them in at just the right moment. Nowadays, alas, many simply build the biggest email list they can, of anyone with the word "editor" in their title, and spam all their press releases out to the whole list.

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