Blogs vs News: When Content Is (and Isn’t) Press-worthy
- Skylar Barsanti
- Jul 31
- 7 min read
I once worked for a marketing manager whose big idea for every campaign started and stopped at “Let’s send a press release!”
This was the same self-described “B+” manager whose idea of project management was a giant whiteboard that sat in front of her office.
By that point in my career, I’d worked in local newsrooms with dozens of press releases. Today, I’ve used good press and storytelling to help small businesses capture media attention several times. So I can pretty confidently say that, then and now, only sending press releases for every little thing isn’t a good idea.
But without fail, one of the most common questions I’ve faced in my decade of marketing experience is “Should we write a blog or a press release?”
And to that, I say, it depends, but also, whatever you’re looking at probably isn’t newsworthy (at least not without some development).
So let’s take a look at where marketing meets journalism and help you get closer to producing the right asset for the right information.
Blogs tell the stories of products and processes
If you think you want to write a blog, ask yourself, “Am I telling the story of a product or process?” If you said yes, you’re closer to your answer: blog it.
Blogs are where you have the space to show your expertise, talk about your business goings-on, or explain how or why something works in greater detail. You can add personal anecdotes, quotes, media like photos and video, datasets, and more.
How long should blogs be?
Blogs don’t necessarily have to be long — this is something a lot of business owners and new marketers struggle with, thinking blog equals novel. Throughout my career, my teams and I have defaulted to a minimum of 800 words for a decent blog.
Now, there’s a case for seeing them as low as 500 words. Anything less, and whatever you’re saying could probably be edited down into a social media post or email. Sometimes, you just need enough space to answer a question or show how a process works.
For example, one of my clients has a relatively complex sales process for new students. The program they use isn’t super intuitive and has a lot of quirks. Both of which can prevent new students from completing a purchase.
A blog for this topic might take students through the basic steps and point out any nuances. It’s the kind of blog that might work well in a welcome series or other onboarding material. The client could finish it off with simple screenshots to help users follow along.
And that’s it. As a business, you don’t have to be a content farm to make effective use of a blog. And as useful as new blogs can be, today, updating old content and re-posting or promoting it has just as much merit, especially if a product or process changes over time.
Evergreen (aka relevant forever) vs non-commodity (aka relevant today) content
In the past, my teams and I worked super hard to keep our blogs evergreen. By “evergreen,” I mean a reader could consume a blog at any point, and it would be relevant. So, for example, we wouldn’t reference major holidays or events unless we wanted to risk something feeling outdated.
Things have changed in that area. Now, with AI search, it’s more important to have content that’s up to date, taking current events and changes into account, and showcasing information only we have.
This idea of not writing evergreen blogs comes from the new-ish concept Google is calling “non-commodity content,” or content that’s hard to replicate across websites because it has exclusive ownership of someone’s expertise, proprietary data, or other secret sauce.
I say it’s “new-ish” because using information other people didn’t have, even in small doses, was my first content marketing team’s reason for being back in 2016-2018. We knew owning our information was essential for standing out in a saturated market. It just took Google 10 years to start saying it out loud.
Quick and dirty blog topic examples
These days, in a lot of cases, blogs exist to target specific keywords related to the business or a product. Blogs are still massively important for building up your topic authority — and therefore appearing high in a search result.
But if you just need some ideas to get started, steal my list and try any of the following:
How-to x.
Day-in-the-life diaries of a [person]
Benefit listicles
How we did x
What you can learn from y
The best ways to z
How we pulled off our biggest event
Why you should join us at our biggest event
Our favorite ways to do x
Product hacks more customers wish they knew
News and press is short, sweet, and for someone else’s audience
News, particularly news or press releases, is information that you want someone — a journalist, reporter, or influencer — to talk about or publicize to their audiences. Think big changes and general public interest.
Depending on your industry, news is something wider audiences can be interested in, not just prospective buyers. And typically, news or press releases don’t leave space for opinions or flowery language.
They’re short, simple, and say what has or is happening in a way that makes it easy for someone to reprint or report on. If you’re publicizing a new community partnership, opening or closing a location, going through an acquisition, making major board changes, or the like, you could have press material on your hands.
When press releases actually work: One marketer's/former journalist's experience
Press and news releases sound really cool to someone who hasn’t yet figured out how to take their ego out of this part of the marketing process. That’s not to say that even small things can’t be newsworthy. But not everything is. It all depends on how often you have news and how you deliver it.
In my experience, press works when:
It does the reporter’s job (or part of it) for them. The best press releases are the most complete ones. Including the right elements makes it easier for reporters or influencers to fill in the remaining blanks and, ultimately, get something to press quickly.
It sticks to the facts. Good press answers essential questions, and says enough to be understood without putting words or opinions in someone’s mouth. At its core, news is there for people to see the facts and draw their own conclusions.
It isn’t too frequent. Not every day is a news day, and that’s ok. Don’t be like my former manager. Understand that when everything is “news,” nothing is. Save your press for truly important or groundbreaking events. Being in the news and using news to influence public perception are two very different things.
It goes to the right audience. Avoid mass-sending your release to every outlet but curate lists of outlets, influencers, and sources whose audiences might be interested in certain facets of your business. For example, news about a new location might go to a list of infrastructure or city planning reporters as well as influencers that frequent the area.
What’s in a press release?
Unlike blogs, press releases tend to be short in structure (no more than a page and a half), usually beginning with a “what’s happening” statement, followed by why it’s happening, why it matters, when people can expect change, and concluding with a quote from an expert on the topic.
If you’re putting together a news or press release, consider major questions:
What is happening (or has happened)?
Who is or will be affected by this?
Why is this happening now? (Or why does this matter to the audience?)
Where is this event happening?
When can people expect change or a next step?
Who is the best person to speak on this? (Quote them!)
Blogs and press: It’s ok to have both
When you’ve found you’ve landed on a truly newsworthy piece of information, an effective multichannel marketing strategy would say it’s ok to write a blog (or several) about it and distribute a press release.
At the onset of news, part of your strategy could certainly be how you’re going to stretch it. Let’s say you’re on the verge of launching a new community partnership. It’s a big deal, and you or your business has put a lot into it.
For something like this, you might lead up to the partnership with a series of blogs that highlight why your niche and your partner’s niche work well together. Stories like these can help build your authority and start to form the reasons why people should care.
With those materials made and the story and value proposition fresh in your mind, announcing the partnership to members of the press becomes a matter of pulling the who/what/where/when/why you’ve already talked about into a press release and sending it to relevant news agencies or influencers.
And if that sounds like a lot to keep straight on your own, it’s also ok to ask for help!
Marketing support that meets you where you’re at
Hi! I’m Skylar. I spent over a decade in the corporate marketing trenches before I started working with independent business owners. Corporate life has its charms, but there's a specific kind of reward in making content in service and watching someone go from "I don't need all that" to seeing real, measurable movement.
The business owners who insist they don't need strategic marketing help are usually the ones who are stuck. They know they need something. They can start any day now, but “any day” turns into “never” fast.
Ultimately, they're closer to meaningful change than they think. If you're a business owner or small business leader who knows you need marketing support but hasn't taken the step yet, connect with me!
I bring a decade of corporate-level marketing experience — writing, editing, strategy, across nearly every format — to businesses that don't have (or want) a corporate-sized marketing team.
Yes, my clients are marketing their businesses. But they’re also building new skills, getting ahead of competitors, and establishing authority, while freeing up time to actually run their companies.