Difference between White Paper and Press Release?

[David]

I've got competitors that use white papers to explain what they do (and I think I should as well, it looks impressive)

Rather than me directly rip off what they did I'd like to know what WF thinks.

Is a White Paper similar to a Press Release?

From what I've learned re: Press Releases we should:

• Write in the third person ( everyone knows it's us doing the talking but we're supposed to pretend someone else is talking us up)
• It should start with "for imeadiate release"
• It should have a snappy title just like a forum post, email subject line, or digg post

I just ran out of ammo... I'm sure there's more to PR than what I just revealed that I know.

What are the differences between them?

What goes into a professionally crafted White Paper?

Why do they call it a 'white paper' anyway?

I do local SEO and the locals often have no clue what SEO or SEM is.
(and it's certainly easier to compete locally than it is to compete nationwide or worldwide)

Thanks gang

[Dan C. Rinnert]

A press release is typically an announcement. Dana_W is the expert on that, but she's one of those morning people, so you'll have to wait a few hours to get a response from her.

A white paper is more of an informative piece. Often, it presents a common problem and how to solve it. Usually, that means solving it with a product or service you can buy from the company that released the white paper. It can go into specific details about how their product or service solves the problem.

A white paper will be more of an in-depth look at a product or service's solution to a problem or series of related problems. A press release is typically shorter and more geared toward announcing something, such as a new product or service.

Often, white papers will be distributed freely as a means of generating leads. Prospects will read a white paper and, hopefully, contact the vendor about the product or service offered if it is something that solves a problem they have been experiencing.

In Internet marketing, some people now refer to eBooks as white papers because of the negative connotation that "eBook" is believed to have.

[Dave777]

David,

Here's a great resource and well known expert regarding white papers! I'm sure you'll get lots of excellent white paper info and ideas from Michael A. Stelzner...
Writing White Papers: Biography of Michael Stelzner
Michael Stelzner's Writing White Papers

Dave

[marciayudkin]

Why do they call it a 'white paper' anyway?

I tracked this down for my book Persuading on Paper.

It comes from the 19th century British Parliament, where goverment reports were issued on blue paper. However, when those reports were revised, they were issued on white paper and called white papers.

The term white paper came to be used to mean a position paper.

Then it was taken over by the tech industry, which now uses it to mean a semi-objective informative piece that discusses a problem and influences readers to believe that the sponsor has the best solution to it.

Hope that helps!

Marcia Yudkin

[Justin Mandel]

The 2 are similiar in some senses but vary greatly.

A press release typically is only a 1 page blurb (can be more) written to get someone online to a website or offline to inform the media about you so you can get into newspapers, TV, and radio. A press release can be added to a website which helps add a professional touch to it and gives the media a way to find out more about your products and or services.

A white paper on the other hand is a "tell-all" document written to give the nuts and bolts on the subject matter so customers can discover more in detail about the subject that has been written about so they can make more of an informed decision about a possible purchase. So as you can tell a white paper is far from a simple 1 page document like a press release.