Have you ever had a story you wanted to tell about your organization but couldn't figure out how to spread the word? You could write up a press release and send it to leading industry periodicals like Meeting News, Successful Meetings or Trade Show Week. However, it is up to that magazine whether or not to pick up the story. If you just went with the majors, your news might just end up in the waste bucket. This is especially the case if you're a smaller company or your news is important, but not earth shattering.

Thankfully, the Internet (again!) has provided some new avenues for getting your important story out. There has evolved on the Internet a number of web sites that are "clearing houses" for press releases. These sites will take any legitimate news story and post it on their web site and distribute it to their e-mail subscribers. What's even more exciting is that there are web sites that specialize in specific industries. In our case, there are now clearing houses for tourism, hospitality and meetings.

Conworld has been around for a while. The site calls itself "The Global Meetings Industry Portal" and serves as a searchable repository of (paid) listings for meeting service companies around the world. It also has a dedicated area for industry news that is always kept up to date. All you have to do is send an email to the editor to be included in the listing. Your story then gets posted on the site and is included on its widely read e-mail newsletter.

Another fine site is MICE-Contact which also has a well distributed e-mail newsletter called "MICE Business Travel News". It has a very nice Press Release section, including searchable archives. For those who are into "cutting edge" technology, you can even setup an "RSS Feed" on your desktop. RSS Feeds are programs like your Instant Messenger software that handles news posts as they happen. This way you don't have to search the Internet for your news - it simply arrives on your desktop as it happens.

This author has been particularly pleased with a service called Hospitality 1st. While it also has web pages for press releases and RSS Feeds, it's biggest asset is a service that is available for a modest fee. By enlisting in this service, Hospitality 1st will create a very nice page on Google that has your news story. This news web page will then in turn be picked up on Google News. When your press release is picked up by Google News it will automatically receive high rankings for the relevant keywords for the first few days of its release. (It's freshness as a news story helps with the high rankings). From my personal experience, my press releases through Hospitality 1st have done wonders for my company's search engine rankings.

There is one more thing. By using these clearing houses, your story gets legitimacy and even "buzz". The major news periodicals use these web sites as sources for their stories. By being there, your news may be picked up by the "big fish".

So what are you waiting for? Get your story out!

K.C. Hopson
President, EventRebels
kchopson@eventrebels.com