Small business marketers used to pay little attention to the press release as a marketing tool – it was a tool for the big boys who had the budgets to hire public relations firms.

Like everything else these days, the web has changed that. Small business owners and marketers can now put their news directly in front of their customers and prospects with online press release creation and distribution tools. Below are some of my favorite tools for creating and distributing press releases.

Instant Press Release – this tool from Duct Tape Marketing gives you a guided template for creating and formatting your press release properly.

Once you create your press release, it’s time to distribute it. New sites and services for distributing press releases are popping up every day. Here are a few of my favorites:

PRWeb – distributes your release to every major news site and search engine on the Web.PRWeb has a variety of pricing plans to meet your needs.

PRLog – a nice, free, press release distribution site. I experienced good search engine results with press releases I’ve posted on prlog.

PitchEngine – Combine the press release with images, video, and social networking tools and instead of a press release you have a one-page website to tell your story.

Pressitt – Another social media news release tool. Nice free way to distribute press releases that get picked up on social sites.

Use these tools to get your message out, get links back to your website, and earn trust – and more PR!