Not so long ago, if a story was in a newspaper it literally ended up as chip paper and people quickly forgot it – hence the expression.

Not now. With the age of the internet, stories are around for a whole lot longer, if not indefinitely.

Trawl a search engine for your favourite celeb, author, even politician (well, maybe not!) and you’ll find stories going back years.

This timelessness can be a huge advantage for businesses. It means that one press release, published in one or two newspapers or magazines, can be around for far longer than before. The PR effect is more long-term. Where once the story would have been and gone within a day, it now lurks ready to pop up again for anyone searching for information about your company.

With this in mind, what better time to try and get that good news story published? Think about what has been going on and what stories you can get out there. Have you won an award, or been a finalist? Have you taken on new staff, relocated, or expanded? Perhaps you have won a new contract, set up a new service, sponsored an event, or taken over another business?

You could even create a news story for the purpose. Ever wondered why companies carry out such strange surveys? Because newspapers often publish the results and details of which business or organisation commissioned them. This week the Daily Telegraph carried a piece about what most irritates people, based on a survey commissioned by – of all things - a flower organisation from Holland.

These sorts of stories are bread and butter to a local paper, which is always on the hunt for news. Editorial is free so all you have to do is write and issue the press release. At Word Worker, we offer a value-for-money press release writing service aimed specifically at small business. We write your release and send it to the right person, whether that’s the business editor, news editor, or features editor.

And if a release gets published, and stays around online, it could be bringing in new business for many years to come.