Distribution of press releases is certainly not Public Relations any more than submitting a URL to a search engine is SEO.

Good PR is about matching a journalist or prominent blogger’s need for compelling editorial with a great story idea at the right place and time.

Paying a blogger to write a review is advertising or advertorial at best. It’s not the kind of editorial that comes from media and public relations.

That said, paid review services certainly have a place and can be great promotional tools.

Calling press release writing and distribution public relations and then comparing it to a paid review service is an apples to oranges comparison.

Public relations involves messaging, researching editorial calendars, reviewing past articles of target journalists, creating a pitch in a way that shows that writer you are a resource for them to get their job done and look like a rockstar to their editor.

Interestingly, this activity is missing from most SEOs description of public or media relations.

Blogger relations is another matter and your suggestions are excellent.

It doesn’t matter if 10,000 new visitors come to a site from a mainstream pub or a high profile blog. Paid reviews and PR (I mean real PR) are simply tools and the opportunity for search marketers is to choose the right tool for the situation.

Being featured on a well read and popular industry blog may gather much more media attention than the cluttered world of mass press releases.

Very good point indeed.

I wonder how many Tech & Business journalists monitor TechCrunch and similar sites for news story ideas.

More competition = tougher to get noticed = need to be more remarkable.

Who says the media doesn’t pick up stories from blogs?