News Direct Founder and CEO Gregg Castano talks about the innovative wire service's origins, goals, and extraordinary features.

To effectively communicate during a PR crisis, undertake 11 measures during the pre-, mid-, and post-crisis process, including developing a crisis management plan and adequate response, implementing corrective actions, and analyzing your efforts, among others.

Every comms pro can optimize their press release with SEO best practices, including targeting the right keywords, inserting calls to action, adding multimedia, writing catchy headlines, using links sparingly, and writing with human readers in mind.

As multimedia assets continue to grow in popularity among consumers and journalists, it’s important PR and IR pros take advantage of the benefits: improved engagement, shareability, SEO, traffic, and earned media pickup.

News Direct has also completely reimagined the news distribution workflow, adding flexibility and efficiency.

To gauge your PR campaign results, utilize key performance indicators such as total traffic, conversion rates, follower count, click data, earned media pickup, share of voice, and more.

When targeting your PR distribution, identify your target audience, determine the media outlets they’re using, find the reporters they’re listening to, and utilize a wire service to get eyes on your press release.

Communications professionals provide tips on pitching press releases to journalists and media outlets, such as targeting the right reporter, developing relationships, collaborating, using catchy subject lines, and much more.