Maritime press release vs LinkedIn post: are you getting the most out of your news?

Are 100 likes really all your news is worth?

Imagine you have just secured your biggest contract to date. Perhaps it covers ten vessels. Maybe it is your first order in Asia. Or perhaps a major shipowner has selected your technology following a successful trial.

You publish the announcement on LinkedIn and it does pretty well. One hundred likes, some comments and a few shares. A couple of days later, the post has moved down everyone’s feed and attention shifts to the next story.

There is nothing wrong with 100 likes. But was that really all the news was worth? The same announcement could be relevant to journalists covering your market and end up in maritime publications read by people far beyond your LinkedIn audience.

A maritime press release puts your story in front of a different audience

This is where a maritime press release starts doing a different job. You give journalists and editors the opportunity to decide whether your story is interesting to their readers.

One announcement can then start travelling. A shipping publication might focus on the vessels involved, while a technology publication looks at the solution behind the contract. A regional title might be interested because the project involves a local yard, port or shipowner. Another publication might simply consider it relevant news for its readers.

You don’t need every maritime publication in the world to pick up your story. You need the right ones. That could mean reaching a fleet manager researching a new technology, a shipowner looking for a supplier, a charterer following developments in a particular segment or somebody who simply hasn’t come across your company before.

Journalists are still actively looking for good stories. Recent research, based on more than 1,800 journalists worldwide, shows just how important relevance remains. For 82% of journalists, relevance is a must-have before they will even consider covering a story.

So, despite the occasional claim that the press release is dead, there are plenty of journalists who would disagree.

There is also a difference in who is telling the story

This is something we think companies sometimes overlook. When you publish on LinkedIn, you are telling people that your company has done something interesting. When a maritime publication picks up the story, someone else is telling people about it. The facts can be exactly the same, but the context is different.

There is a difference between seeing a company say, “We have secured an important new contract,” and reading about that contract in a recognised maritime publication alongside the other developments taking place in the industry.

That independent coverage gives your announcement another layer of credibility. It also gives you something useful to share afterwards. A salesperson sending a prospect an article from a recognised trade publication is different from sending them a link to the company’s own LinkedIn post.

One piece of news can do much more work

This is why we don’t really see LinkedIn and press releases as competitors. Quite the opposite. If you have a good story, you have already done most of the difficult work.

Why use that story only once? Turn it into a press release and distribute it to relevant journalists. Publish it in the newsroom on your own website. Use the story for LinkedIn, perhaps with a more personal angle. Share the resulting coverage again. Give those articles to your sales team. Add them to presentations or proposals where relevant.

One piece of news can suddenly generate visibility across several different channels and audiences. At Marconic, our distribution network contains more than 750 maritime publications and 2,000 journalists worldwide.

Of course, sending a release to the media never guarantees that it will be published. Editors make that decision, as they should. But if you only publish the story on LinkedIn, you haven’t even given them the opportunity.

And then there is the longer-term value

A LinkedIn post is largely about the moment. It appears in the feed, generates engagement and gradually makes way for newer content. An article on a maritime news website has its own page, can appear in Google, attract links and still be found when someone researches your company months later.

Now AI search adds another dimension. People increasingly use tools such as ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity to research companies, technologies and markets. That makes the amount and quality of information available about your company across independent online sources increasingly relevant. We have written a nice blog ‘What is GEO and why maritime companies should care’ about that.

A press release that results in coverage across credible maritime publications can therefore do more than generate attention on the day it is published. It helps build a broader digital footprint around your company.

Of course, not everything is a press release

This doesn’t mean you should start sending a press release every time someone joins your company or you book a stand at an exhibition. There is already enough noise in journalists’ inboxes.

The question should always be whether there is an actual story. A significant contract, new vessel, acquisition, substantial partnership, new technology, strong research result, major appointment or important project milestone can all be good reasons to approach the media.

The office summer barbecue probably isn’t. Recent research found that 72% of journalists said fewer than a quarter of the pitches they receive are relevant to their work. Sending more press releases isn’t the answer. Sending better and more relevant ones is.

So, LinkedIn or a press release?

Both. We post our own news on LinkedIn too, and we certainly wouldn’t suggest stopping. But when you have something genuinely newsworthy, LinkedIn should be part of the distribution rather than the entire distribution.

You have already created the news. You might as well make sure it travels.