Some of you already use blogging platforms to publish press releases on the Web: these tools are cheap (wordpress is free), easy to use and the default reverse chronological order is a perfect fit for this type of content.
But, that’s not all.
Here are a few other reasons I highlighted in a recent email exchange with a reader working in an institution where press releases are posted via the website content management system:
RSS feeds – Some CMS will create RSS feeds for the pages they help produce, but that’s not the rule yet. RSS is at the heart of any blogging platform. Journalists, bloggers, but also regular members of your target audiences will be able to subscribe to your press releases’ RSS feed to receive updates whenever they are posted.
Tagging – More and more reporters and bloggers use social bookmarking websites such as delicious to research stories. They will search these sites for good resources or use them as a way to manage the flow of information, good links and great leads they come across as they surf the Web. Steve Rubel, the A-list blogger from micropersuasion.com, asked people to pitch him via delicious using the “for:” tag. There are free plug-ins available on blogging platforms that make this type of tagging a breeze.
Comments – I know, I know, this one is probably the hardest to swallow for higher ed PR and communication professionals. Inviting comments from the public? You probably think I have lost my mind. Well, I didn’t :-) These conversations are already happening elsewhere on the Web, so why not let people have them on your website. I’m not advising you to open comments and publish anything that comes — but if you make it clear that you will moderate comments and spell out the rules of engagements (bloggers who get some traffic do it anyway because of comment spam), opening comments about your press releases might result in great feedback and interactions with your constituents.
Trackbacks – When this feature is set properly, you get notified via the comment queue when blog posts include the address of any of your press releases. Even if you don’t let these go out of the comment queue, that’s definitely great intelligence delivered right to your blogging platform.