I think with the Internet, we should really able to relook at PRs, and as you said, PRs can be for both consumers and journalists.

However, its something I think a lot of companies still haven’t realised - the ability to link out from PRs.

While a good number of PRs from the PR sites like PRWeb.com do have links out, what I have observed is that if you surf on to a non-technology company website, most of the PRs don’t have any hyperlinks!

You’re referring to press releases that were written under the old rules–only for journalists, only when a company had “legitimate news,” releases no longer than one page, and with the “who, what, when, where, why and how” in the first paragraph.

But those rules can be thrown out the window. Today, thanks to the Internet, we should be writing press releases for consumers as well as for journalists. We can use releases to tell a story without the formulaic “5Ws” in the first paragraph. We can write longer than one page, and we can insert links so consumers can visit our website and enter our sales funnel, even if journalists don’t think our releases are worthy of their time and attention.

We can also post these same press releases in our website media room, and link to them from our blog.