There's been a lot of buzz around the social media release (SMR) lately and since it's an upheaval and departure from a 100-year old tradition, I thought I'd share my experience with utilizing an SMR (or a variation of one) sprinkled with a few opinions for good measure.
The SMR made its debut back in May 2006 and yet, almost two and half years later, there still isn't a wide adoption of it from public relations or marketer's alike. Some larger companies are using the SMR, but that's about it.
If you take a look at the original design of the SMR, it really is a complete departure from what public relations & marketing professionals have had drilled into their heads for decades. And, if you aren't involved in social media, a lot of the sections might make absolutely no sense. What's more, if the reporters/journalists/editors you are targeting aren't involved in social media, they might not get it either.
Here's why:
Yep, the contact information, headline and subhead might all be the same and comfortable–but that's where the comfort ends.
The additional sections include:
- Core News Facts (akin to the who, why, what, when, where, how, but in a bulleted format)
- Link & RSS Feed to Purpose-built del.icio.us page
- Multimedia
- More multimedia available by request (i.e. download white paper)
- Pre-approved quotes (okay, this is familiar, but the quotes are not within context of the release)
- Links to relative coverage to date
- Boilerplate Statements
- RSS Feed to Client's News Release
- "Add to del.icio.us"
- "Technorati Tags/Diff this
If the above sounds like an alien language to you, you're not going to embrace it, right? And breaking that 100-year old tradition is scary. Agreed. As well, with an SMR, the reporter/journalist/editor might need to piece the story together themselves. With all the cutbacks in the magazine and newspaper industries, that's a lot to ask of someone who might already be overworked. Some times, they just like to publish the release as received. Of course, there are lots of times they don't–but let's stick to simplicity for now.
So, how can you make your news releases a little more social with a bit of a safety net (I mean, PR and marketing professionals are still held accountable for results last time I checked). Try utilizing PRWeb, Business Wire's EON, or a similar service that offers a version of a "social" release. You can use your traditional release style, but optimize it for search, keywords, media (i.e. a video, podcast, website, brochure, etc.), and sharing (the social part). That's a departure that's not so drastic, right?
Recently, testing the waters of the "social" release pool, we tested two releases, one major news release in a traditional format over the business wire and one minor news release in an optimized "social" format over PRWeb.
The results?
The minor release provided 1,330 Google hits and 258 media downloads while the major traditional news release received 243 Google hits and no media downloads (because there wasn't the option to use any). Again, no web analytics here for simplicity's sake.
Are these two releases apples & oranges? Of course. But when budgets are tight and you are looking for the biggest bang for the least marketing buck, my bet goes to the "social" release because it provides:
- Search engine optimization (you can optimize the release on the backend with keywords)
- Hyperlinks within the release (inbound links to your site do wonders for natural search)
- Tags (again, think searchable)
- Media (a way to virally spread your work)
- Sharing (a way for people to bookmark and share your news)
Is this a scientific approach? No. But, using a "social" release seems to provide more hits, traffic and shared media than a traditional, standard release.
Why is any of this important?
One, utilizing keywords might allow someone to find you that might otherwise not know you. Two, there is the potential that your news will be shared by people who do know you with people who don't. Three, you can make the most of the money you spent on media (videos, podcasts, collateral, etc.).
What do you think? Would you try a "social" release? If you have, what experiences can you share?
