Public relations professionals design media blitzes to entice reporters and journalists to write and report on a product or a client’s story. The weapon of choice has always been the press release. Originally, press releases were strictly written previews focused on presenting cold, hard facts so that media officials could then follow up and write a journalistic-style story. However, in the last decade, the Internet has changed the face of public relations and news publishing theory as a whole. With the advent of web-based PR vendors such as PRWeb, Marketwire, and Vocus, press releases can be read directly by prospective clients and consumers. Not only does this remove media professionals from the equation, it changes the way a press release should be written.

Back when a press release was, well, just a press release, there were certain criteria involved. For one thing, the only people who actually read the press release were a handful of reporters and editors. When this happened, it was required that the client had important news to write a press release. Quotes from clients, analysts and experts were often par for the course to give the story relevance. And finally, the success of a press release can only be measured if the media picked it up and wrote an article based on it. This is far from the case in today’s Internet-rich culture.

In the age of Web 3.0, marketers are using a new strategy when it comes to press releases. Throwing out the PR rules of the past, PR professionals now write customer-facing pseudo-articles and web experts that masquerade as what used to be a press release. It is more or less as if the web has allowed companies to publish their own articles directly, without having to hassle journalists and other media officials. As such, basic press release writing has been replaced by customer-driven language. SEO keyword rich articles, RSS feeds and blogs are now as influential as the old school who, what, when, where and why of PR writing.

When writing today’s press releases, marketers use new strategies. For example, they don’t just generate press releases when a client has “big news.” Instead, marketing teams generate consistent content all the time, regardless of magnitude. Press releases are hitting the limit on everything from product features to landing new customers, from white papers to CEO public speaking engagements. Also, the content tends to be keyword-rich and can be linked to a website to amplify its proliferation in search engines. And finally, press releases are now written with the sales pitch already built in instead of being a medium that might, eventually, lead to a sale. In this new web-based PR, immediacy is king.

Internet has made life more immediate for everyone. Most of our daily information needs are derived from Internet searches. Companies no longer have to work hard to generate traffic. The traffic is already there, in large quantities. The key is to walk through traffic and get results, and expert web press releases are crosswalks.