How to Leverage Press Releases for Additional Content

How to repurpose content for the purpose of resharing content as a blog post, social posts, event ideas, pitches, webinars etc. We know that a key component to effective marketing is to create and publish lots of content. 

Looking at the CPRS Vancouver PRestige Awards as an example, we can start with this piece as a press release, use it as our primary content, and then figure out how to repurpose this content into a blog post. 

First let’s look at some of the tips and best practices about turning a news release into a blog article. 

Tips to turn a press release into a blog article

• First, choose the right press release to repurpose. What does that mean? It means to avoid press releases that are promotional in nature, only focused on you or your organization. A customer case study might be a good fit for a blog post. The purpose is to work with interesting content such as survey data, industry trends, and of interest to a larger audience. 

• Teach people something. Think about who your audience is and provide a post that is shareable because it provides insights or teaches them how to do something. The rule of thumb is to work with content that is informative.

• Use catchy headlines. If your press release’s headline sounds factual and boring, try changing it into a fun and interesting title. You are basically aiming to entice people to read the article so the more interesting the headline, the more likely someone will read your blog post. 

• Also most readers tend to enjoy blog posts that use some sort of a list, and one that provides step by step instructions, so having this in mind, when you are writing your next blog post, add key learnings or takeaways as they tend to do better. Keep these practices in mind when leveraging your press release.

• Press releases use a standard format and have an “about section” at the bottom and use contact information and a location and date of the news. All of this can be removed, as it is not a recommended practice for a blog article. 

Using the CPRS Vancouver PRestige Awards as an example, if we were to turn this piece into a press release, we would get a quote about the CPRS Vancouver PRestige Awards to begin with. We will use a factual headline for the release, and we will make sure to add the company info and dates at the bottom of the news release. 

We will also answer the 5 Ws (who, what, when, where, why) in the first paragraph of the release and then reinforce our points in the third and fourth paragraph of the press release. This is a standard format for writing a press release. 

Now if we were to turn this into a blog post, we could interview someone about the PRestige Awards and would turn that quote /interview into a blog article. As noted above we will avoid any internal quotes, but we can easily write a blog about it. For instance, we can look at the ‘new categories’ list and write a post discussing the different categories. 

We can further re-write a particular section and turn it into a social media post. For example, we would look at the submission due date, and turn that piece into a social post discussing when the award is due, and how long the process takes etc. You can also create content for each bullet point under ‘how to submit an application’ section. 

Create blog posts that serve your larger company goals

As much as you might read and re-read your blog posts after you publish them, you're not the only reader. Your blog post ideas should fit in with your niche, your business, and your organization’s goals. Writing across a variety of topics is interesting, but as we do here at CPRS Vancouver, it’s important that our blog posts are both engaging AND relevant to our members. You can also reference other leaders in the field or relevant resources via links, like How to turn a press release into a blog article, an article shared on Hubspot’s blog. Your audience will appreciate being shown other sources of information within the same ecosystem or to spark their own ideas, and it helps to give credit where it’s due. 

The reason you are blogging is to solve problems for your audience, grow your business, and make connections. Make sure your blog posts are aligned with your goals and people will come back for more!

About the Author

Wahida Gardizi holds a Master degree in International Public Relations and Global Communication from Cardiff University with a BA in Criminology from SFU. She runs her own consultancy business in PR and Comms and enjoys her time volunteering in not-for-profit organization YWIB. She has a drive and passion for continuous learning. Connect with her on Twitter: @wgardizi.