Why newswires suck for startup PR

Advice, Advice series

People involved in the startup world are some of the hungriest information consumers – including via social media. For those that understand marketing and PR, there is a worrying trend visible among early-stage startups: the use (or misuse) of the newswire.

Let’s get the record straight once and for all; newswires serve a purpose, but that purpose is rarely compatible with the needs of startups – early or even later stage. In fact, it is likely using a newswire is a minus, not a plus. Let’s dig into why.

They don’t actually get you placements (or SEO benefits)

Sending out a paid wire will not land you any real posts.

Tech, trade media and startup journalists don’t really read newswires. In a workshop on media and PR for startups from this year, TechCrunch’s Mike Butcher admitted he doesn’t care about wires. This echoes what most of our contacts in the media say. On the side of PRs, our contacts tell us they have never really experienced any tangible benefits when they used wires.

And why would these journalists from tight-knit communities and industries care? They expect startups to reach out to them directly with appropriately written material. Rather than reading wires, they are much more likely to read the most authoritative outlets in their own space. Most tech journalists will read TechCrunch and Sifted, and within each individual industry it is likely journalists read other existing publications.

Something that you probably were banking on was SEO benefits. But little did you know, wires don’t actually help with SEO. In 2011, Google decided that wires hosted on repositories were junk (among other content replication schemes), and started marking the links in a way that they don’t produce SEO benefits. If you’re an SEO specialist you might have heard of the Penguin and Panda updates.

It’s a cost of opportunity that keeps you away from doing real PR.

As well as getting you almost nothing in the way of placements, wires also distract you from focusing on what really matters. Spending money on newswires when the release could be sent directly to the journalists is a waste of money that could be well spent on an intern, a junior marketing person or even an agency. The money is simply better spent anywhere else.

In addition, wires skip the all-important foundational work that pays dividends going forward. Reaching out to journalists that have a vested interest in the industry can be the beginning of long-term relationships. Properly preparing for a funding or other milestone announcements is a small lesson that will set a precedent and give insight for the next time around. You can always hire an experienced marketing or PR professional later on,but there is no reason to have a PR drought until then, and founders should for sure learn to think with a ‘PR hat’ on for the future anyway.

It makes you look foolish in front of people that know how the game is played.

Have you ever seen a LinkedIn post in which the founder of a startup is celebrating that they were on Yahoo Finance or similar with a wire? When you click on it, it’s not a written piece, but the exact press release with press contact details in a section of the publication devoted to press releases.

Guess what, it’s not an article. Nobody at that publication looked at the release and said “what an interesting startup raising money, let’s write a story on it”. Instead what they said is: “these guys paid money and the release passed a spam score, so we can host it on our press release repository for a while”. Sophisticated investors, startups founders and others know the difference, and while it won’t destroy your reputation, they will see that you have a lot to learn in the marketing and PR game.

Another issue is that wires do get picked up by extremely suspicious, low quality publications that are programmed to automatically repost wires.

How to distribute a press release when you have limited or no budget

Spend some time researching the main journalists covering the type of announcement in your industry and your geography. Don’t leave it until the day of the announcement to contact them. Decide which outlet would make for a good ‘exclusive’ and reach out some time in advance.

You may assign the most time-intensive aspects of the project to a junior team member or hire a PR freelancer. Contrary to popular belief, working with agencies can yield good results even at the early stage and allow your startup to absorb PR know-how for the future.

The most important thing you need to understand is which options are the best for your startup’s current stage and situation, in order to make the corresponding, informed decisions. Founders should not shy away from PR work – together with fundraising and sales, PR and marketing are storytelling exercises they should be involved in. Those founders that excel in their PR tend to also benefit in those areas.

Why do wires exist?

Nowadays, newswires mainly help publicly listed companies comply with regulatory requirements. They need to put certain financial information on a wire. This is stuff that they are perhaps not too excited to send to traditional media, trade media nor tech media, but simply something that by law has to be distributed in a certain way to ensure access to financial information for the public.

It’s also something that has been zero cost for some of those repositories and allows them to monetise from any traffic by adding ads.

Conclusion

Wires are not really a benefit at all, in fact quite the opposite. They are a waste of money, but also crucially, a cost of opportunity to kickstart real PR. So, don’t be tempted by the idea of a quick fix, and start working harder, smarter and scrappier!