Using Press Releases to Promote your Forum

First off - I want to thank minstrel for helping me write a stunning press release for my "Lincoln vs Cadillac" forum.

Submitting press releases has been discussed on numerous forums, and I thought I would give it a try.

With minstrel's help, I wrote a press release (he wrote most of it) and submitted it to PRWEB.com. I also made a $200 contribution to PRweb.

I set the release date for today, 10/07/05

SO far im already listed in such places as Google News (http://news.google.com/news?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rls=GGLD,GGLD:2004-42,GGLD:en&q=cadillac&sa=N&tab=wn) and Yahoo News (http://news.search.yahoo.com/news/search?p=cadillac+repair&ei=UTF-8&fr=my-vert-news-top&fl=0&x=wrt) -- Ill add more as I learn more. I am looking to see how valuable of a tool this could be.


Anyone else have any thoughts or experiences?

I wrote and sent one to the local papers about two years ago and it was printed. This was a free submission.

WOW interesting. I think I may start work on something for MY site. Thanks for the info Joey

prweb has free submissions and varying levels of paid submissions as well. I chose to go all out on this test to see what the recourse is.

One funny thing, I got a phone call from someone who saw the press release. He wanted me to spend $50k to advertise my site on airline movies. LOL

update us Joey, how is this working for you so far? I chose the free method on PRWeb quite a while back, but haven't pursued any other level yet.

I am in the process of a complete site redesign and server move for my site now, and an additional investement on a press release may be a good idea.

By the way, the press release is here:

http://www.prweb.com/releases/2005/10/prweb294206.htm

i had a pretty good press release written up for the launching of my forum. I shotgunned it out to online magazines, regular magazines, regular people in the industry etc etc... Did it bring waves of people over? No. Was it worth it and did I get more press as a result of it? yes.

So, yea PR's are good. I recommend them too.

It also pumps up your current members to see a site they like in the press. :) It can also help with advertisers (as in getting them)

Indeed, I use Press releases regularly and have made the media here in the UK on several occasions with various topics I am engaged in. As a result, I have been interviewed for radio, and am about to be interviewed by a major brass publisher for both a PodCast and full three page adver-feature.

PR's certainly work...

By the way, the press release is here:

http://www.prweb.com/releases/2005/10/prweb294206.htm

So basically if you want to , you can just write a press release on how your website is doing? how about writing a press release for a grand opening of a website?

Certainly. That's one of the common uses of a press release on the net - a new site, or a new service or product.

well thats cool, I thought PRweb would be fussy about that, cause I sometimes write press releases after I interview certain artists and it seems like alot of the times they always complain about something.

but its good to know I can do that, cause I just happened to open a new site :)

Go for it! :D

One warning though: We did that for the BoG forum when we launched it, using an email address we'd never used before (which was not published openly in the press release) and for the first time started getting spam emails. Possibly a coincidence since it was quite a new site back then but I have always wondered...

I published a press release when I opened my forum, but it did not bring in much member sign ups. I used the $80 version on PRweb.com and my press release made it even into Google News and Yahoo News. So, I hope at least to gain some nice PR backlinks this way. I will publish a second press release soon with an update about the growth and "success" to see if that helps attracting more members now that the forum shows some activity. Wish I would have a better way to attract more members that way.

Christoph

You can do it with the $30 submission one to that site and get in google and yahoo this is what i do as long as its a good PR and you get 4 **** then your in google as thats were they pick most of there PR's up from and most of the time your in yahoo for the same reson :)

I created a $40 Press Release! We'll see what happens with it!

*excited*

So, what is your experience with the $40 PR? Let us know.

Christoph

the $40 press release got me a good amount of PR and I was happy with it, I defintally recomend it if your short on budget but need to do something. It didn't get people signing up for my site but it got my sites name out there which is defintally good. :)

They have been used for 100's of years with great success, so it can't hurt, you should put up a news page on your portal where your news stories and press releases can be indexed as an information resource to your users!