The Difference Between A Free PR and A News Wire PR

In the world of online press releases, there are two ways to get your news out – free PR sites and news wire sites that actually have credibility and publish to the actual news wire.

FREE PRESS RELEASE WEBSITES

Free press release sites are used for organizations, companies and individuals that do not want to spend money or are looking to generate links to their website. I have used free PR sites when I didn’t want to spend the time and effort writing a press release that had to pass approval for the wire. I have also used them to generate links to my websites, but I always use a couple of these free sites at the same time because, well, it’s free. It take a whole two minutes to create an account and post a PR.

One example of a free pr website is www.PRLog.com.

Benefits of a Free PR website:

• You can login, post your PR and it will go live immediately. Some, but few, will actually publish your website after they glance over it, but this is rare. Most do not monitor what goes up… it just publishes.
• It’s free!
• You can get some link juice love from SOME of these websites. Some of them have a no-follow, so be sure to check into that before you post there.

Downfalls of a Free PR website:

• It’s free. You can give people the impression that you are cheap.
• It doesn’t typically have an editor review, so if you publish something that has grammar issues, no one is going to catch it.
• They will publish anything, so the spammer next door and your PR are going to be on the same feed.

PAID PRESS RELEASE WEBSITES

Paid press release websites are actually connected to the news wire. Many of my clients have chose to hit paid PR sites and have paid as much as $6,000 to publish because it hits REAL news. My clients have experienced major radio, television interviews after my PRs hit these paid sites. One landed on Ryan Seacrest’s radio show. One had three major news stations, two radio interviews and two local papers cover their event. I could go on and on, but there is a huge difference.

Paid PR website are very picky about what they allow to be posted. They will review and consider publishing after 48 business hours. They take this time to review your PR and have to approve it or deny it based on your content. It’s what REAL news wires do. They don’t just publish everything that comes across their desk. They will check to make sure it is real news – promotional PRs don’t make the cut. They will also reject it for grammatical errors and if it reads more like an article than a news release. Here’s a screenshot of a recent PR I published. You can see here that it was submitted on the 20th of March. They approved it within three hours and scheduled it for March 22rd at 1am. There is no changing that date once it is scheduled.

 

As you can see here, I submitted my PR on the 20th and it went out on 22nd. The time stamp says it was early in the morning. They will not publish before 48 hours unless you pay a rush fee. I didn’t feel it was necessary.

 

Benefits of a real PR distribution:

• It hits the wire and ALL Major news organizations can pick up the story.
• It travels through Google news and other news related web-based websites.
• Bloggers often pick them up and “re-blog” the PR on their websites, therefore spreading the love about your new release.
• Sub-PR sites like Yahoo news and smaller REAL press release sites will spread the PR through their network with the major site you sent it through.

Downfalls of a Newswire PR:

• You can’t recall a PR after it has been submitted.
• You have to wait for 48 hours for it to publish if it is approved. If a disaster or event happens that makes the PR seem like bad timing or will take precedence over your PR, (we once published a PR for a client only to have Haiti hit by a natural disaster just hours after the PR went out) you can’t stop it or reschedule it.
• You have to plan ahead. Unlike FREE PR websites where you can publish immediately, you have to know what date you want the PR to publish and publish it days in advance.

I hope that explains the difference between Free and REAL PR websites and services. There is a HUGE difference.