Q1 2023: Trends and Top-Performing Press Releases

Some of the most engaging content from PR Newswire

By Glenn Frates | Published April 14, 2023

Every day, companies across the globe trust PR Newswire to distribute their stories to journalists, investors and consumers with a goal to bring more visibility to their brands. 

Over the past several years, we’ve seen this content utilize more and more engaging best practices, such as: 

• Taking a thought leadership approach
• Including more multimedia
• Embracing Google’s E-E-A-T approach
• Fighting a reader’s habit to quickly scan the page by keeping their eyes moving inward (e.g., with bolding/section headers)

As we venture into the second quarter of the year, I wanted to share some trends and examples of engaging content we saw on prnewswire.com during Q1 2023. 

Most Popular Content

What makes for a strong-performing press release? Sometimes, it’s a compelling piece of multimedia that results in a news release generating a lot of engagement (clicks, views, earned coverage) and sometimes the story itself is market-moving (like the SVB example below). But regardless of the story itself, we consistently found that releases incorporating content best practices were among the top of the pack for Q1.

Releases with the most views on prnewswire.com in Q1 included: 

• Biggie Deal Alert: Wendy's and DoorDash Team Up For 'Biggie' Power Hour Plays
• SVB Financial Group Announces Proposed Offerings of Common Stock and Mandatory Convertible Preferred Stock
• Uber Selects Oracle Cloud Infrastructure
• Dole Packaged Foods, LLC is Transforming into a Purpose-Led, Nutrition & Wellness Company with 11 New Product Launches in 2023
• PetSmart Searches for First-Ever 'Chief Toy Testers,' Offering $20,000 to the Pawsitively Purrfect New Team Members

Q1 Press Release Trends

Of the thousands of press releases distributed in the first months of 2023, a few recurring trends stood out.

More Multimedia

In Q1 2023, there was a 2% increase in multimedia being included in overall press release volume versus Q1 2022. Releases with high multimedia engagement in Q1 included: 

• Harley-Davidson Kicks Off 120th Anniversary With Reveal Of 2023 Motorcycles
• PEPSI® Unveils a New Logo and Visual Identity, Marking the Iconic Brand's Next Era
• For the First Time Ever, Cadbury Spotlights a Cat as the Winner of the 5th Annual Bunny Tryouts

Still not clear on the benefits of visuals in your release? Read about the reasons multimedia should be part of your comms strategy — not least of which is a significant boost in release engagement.

Brands are Boosting “Sustainability” News

Use of the keyword ‘sustainability’ saw an increase of 8% in Q1’23 versus Q1’22.  Standouts on this front included releases like: 

• Frito-Lay Transforms California Facility into Showcase for Sustainability
• Caterpillar Highlights Services, Technology and Sustainability at 2023 CONEXPO-CON/AGG
• John Deere's 2022 Sustainability Report Shows Progress Against Key Goals

Looking for more sustainability news trends? It’s a topic we’ve covered before in our bi-monthly news trend roundups. And it’s a topic we’ll be keeping a close eye on as companies announce their Earth Day/Earth Month initiatives.

“Unveiling” the Big Stories

Another trend that’s been relatively consistent throughout the past 5+ years is the success of releases that include action verbs in the headline – think phrases like launch, expand, reveal and unveil.  On the latter, standouts last quarter included: 

• PEPSI® x PEEPS® Get Back Together to Unveil the Iconic Limited-Edition Marshmallow Cola on Store Shelves, Just in Time for Spring
• Garmin unveils its Unified Cabin Experience at CES 2023
• Kellogg Company Unveils Names for Global Snacking and North American Cereal Businesses Following Planned Separation

A compelling headline is just one of the must-have elements for a successful press release. Read my previous blog post to learn about the rest.

There were thousands of press releases that crossed the wire during Q1 – more than I can cover here. And the trends vary widely by industry. For more insights around industry news trends, please visit:  https://www.prnewswire.com/resources/.

About the Author

Glenn Frates is Regional Vice President of U.S. Distribution at Cision. Glenn’s 20+ years experience in content distribution and best practices, global marketing strategies and large-scale operations management has provided him a broad perspective on what does and doesn’t work well in the Marketing/PR arena.