Does News Syndication Increase Website Visibility?

Do you believe that news syndication is an ideal backlink generator? Search engines view backlinks as a “vote” for your site from another and the more backlinks the higher the visibility of your website.

Let me tell you this:

• Syndicated content is usually not stored in an archive. After a couple of days or weeks, your news (and possible backlink) has vanished.

• A syndicated press release is often located on a deep-linked page (not the homepage) which is cluttered with ads. Such pages have a low PageRank and the backlinks are of low value.

Most syndicated websites are anything but biotech-related. Traffic from irrelevant websites will not generate leads or sales. Only a few biotech websites post syndicated news and could produce high value backlinks, provided:

• The embedded links have not been stripped by the posting process (which is often the case) and

• The news was really stored in an archive (which is not often the case).

One of the big generic wires charges around US$250 for the lifetime hosting of press release that includes (permanent) backlinks to your website. If news syndication (a syndication network can easily include 500+ websites)  were really such a reliable backlink generator, a single PR distribution would be worth more than US$50,000 according to this pricing model!

The Value of Free PR Tracking Reports

Does your wire service provide a free report with links to the ‘published’ release? What are these reports worth?

Many PR practitioners do not understand the difference between a (free) tracking report and a (costly) clipping report. The tracking report is based on news syndication and gives you the instant gratification of seeing your press release go live. A clipping report monitors your media coverage to find what’s being said about your organization, competitors or industry. For such a service you have to pay an extra fee that can easily exceed 1,000 USD per month.

What generic wire services say about their free reports

It ‘delivers links to your press release where it appears on third party web sites. The service samples a fixed set of web sites and provides immediate evidence of your press release’s online visibility.’

You receive ‘tracking over [our] proprietary global network of websites [to which] your release was distributed.’

Has an editor really seen the press release? — Who knows? Who cares (except you)?

One generic wire service even admits that syndication is suitable for people who are ‘not interested in reaching journalists and media directly.’

PR Metrics
For companies who cannot afford expensive clipping tools, the only true metric is whether you get media pickup (check Google!) and feedback from your network and customers as a result of a press release. News tracking reports are nothing more than a proof of distribution.

If You Want to Hit the Trade Media, Don’t Rely On Syndication

One of the big generic wire services writes on its website that its syndication service is suitable for people who are ‘not interested in reaching journalists and media directly.’ When syndication is not optimal for reaching the media, why do the big wire services rely on it?

First of all, syndication allows the easy (and free) generation of news tracking reports. Everybody wants to know who has picked up the news and such reports provide just what people want to see! The reports look terrific and give you the instant impression of a great pick up. But be careful: Such reports have nothing to do with a true media monitoring or clipping report. They are just a proof for distribution and beyond that meaningless.

Syndication reaches a network of websites but not necessarily those websites that are relevant for you. For reaching the trade media efficiently, heed to the advice of big generic wire services and contact the editors and journalists directly via e-mail. But this is exactly the weakness of the big wires and where B3C newswire can support you with!

Syndication: A PR Distribution Mechanism

Syndication is a form of licensing news content to a network of websites. Some media websites embrace syndication because it lets them provide authoritative content on their sites without developing it themselves. In times of low budgets, this is a resource-saving idea. But does it benefit the company issuing a press release as well?

Syndication does not target media directly
Syndication is suitable for people who are ‘not interested in reaching journalists and media directly.’ This is at least what a big generic wire service writes. This means that syndication does not automatically have your press release reviewed by an editor. If a generic wire service has 500 websites in its syndication network and every website posts (syndicated) press releases, then – theoretically- your news has a high reach. But in truth, syndication is of limited use only as 1) most syndicating websites are irrelevant to the biotech industry and 2) people preferably rely on newsletters, feeds or apps for news. This is why it is so important to target the editors of the trade media!

Syndication reports can be misleading
If you are a client of one of the generic wire services you often receive a free news tracking or release monitoring report that contains links to the published press release. A closer look reveals that many links do not originate from the media websites. For example, links that contain financialcontent.com, studio-5.financialcontent.com, or even the domain of the generic wire service in the URL. In those cases the news is not really published on the media website. It just appears to be so, and anyone who believes that this link is a clipping has been fooled.

Syndication is an easy and cheap way of news distribution
News distribution through syndication can be easily automated. Automation leads to the reduction of staff that was once needed to create a data base of editors, news preferences, etc. with the aim of building and maintaining media lists. This does not necessarily mean that generic wires do not employ people to do this kind of work anymore. But I have the impression that the process of news distribution through syndication is prevailing more and more. The more traditional, one-to-one news delivery via e-mail is much more labor intensive, but it is also much more effective and that’s why we adhere to it.

How can all this help me increase media impact?

Generic wire services distribute your news to a wide variety of websites that will publish your release verbatim. You’ll receive many hits due to their huge content syndication networks. Basically, what you will get is a bunch of copies of your press release on the web.

Some of these generic wire services have been around forever, are well respected, costly, and produce great reports for clients. And for public corporations they are a legal must. But for reaching the trade media efficiently, there is no other way than sending the press releases directly to the editors that requested them.

Therefore, start building your own media list, retain a PR agency (especially useful for ongoing media relations) or use a specialized PR distribution service such as B3C newswire.

This is the last post of this series. I hope they have been helpful. Please feel free to comment by clicking the comment buttons of the posts or get in touch with me directly if you have any questions.

Best regards
Sabine Duntze

Press release versus news release

The traditional term “press release” implies the target group, namely the print and online media. The editor or publisher has the final say of what is published. However, the term press release is more and more being replaced by the term news release. Why?

According to PRWeb, with online news releases companies don’t have to send releases only when something significant has happened or will happen, and only to journalists. They can appeal directly to the end user and the buyers. This means that news releases can be used as a marketing tool.

This is a big commercial opportunity for the generic wire services and online PR distribution companies.

News that editors usually would classify as inappropriate for publishing can now easily produce hits in the Internet. Thousands of websites will publish such releases verbatim – thanks to news syndication. The monitoring reports show every place the release has run, including top news sites – excellent for showing to clients! If people are searching the Web for your exact subject, they’ll probably find the release. That’s the theory.

But this is not always the case. Searching the Web for specific keywords mentioned in a press release (and with keywords I don’t mean the company name) will produce many results but rarely the news release.

So every company has to decide for themselves if the B2C distribution model via syndication is useful for their business.

In the next post:
How can all this help me increase media impact?

The value of PR measurement reports

Generally, press releases in the print (trade) media appear 4-8 weeks and in the Web 1-10 days after PR distribution.

Generic Wires’ posting reports seduce by delivering a huge number of ‘results’

The measurement reports of generic wire services are available shortly after a press release has been transmitted. They provide data from a broad spectrum of syndicated network recipients. Accordingly, the reports display a huge number of results. However, many of these ‘clippings’ are worthless because

1. Nobody sees them because they are posted on completely different domains (other than the media’s website) or on sub-domains dedicated for syndication. These websites have the same look as the media’s website but a different URL. Have a detailed look on your report!
2. They are located on a hidden place on the media’s website and invisible to the website’s search functionality and
3. Posting does not automatically mean pick up in newsletters and print magazines

In contrast to such posting reports, the clipping reports track what has really been published. Such clipping reports, for the trade media, still must be done manually. Naturally, they reveal fewer – but more meaningful results.

Currently, there is no service available that is able to provide a comprehensive tracking of the biopharmaceutical trade media. Unfortunately, the few that exist have only a mediocre reach.

In the next post:
Press release versus news release