Social Media Press Release –What do you think?

Hi Jeremiah (et al.) - Glad to see the debate & conversation around our Social Media News Release template continues. You can see more reaction here: http://del.icio.us/SHIFT.Communications.

(This page was originally set up just to track reaction to the template, but has morphed into a more general purpose PR 2.0 tracker.)

FWIW, our mission was to make "NEWS" (and the content/context attached to it) more accessible to all sorts of media, including traditional journalists and bloggers, as well.

I have written approximately 1 gajillion posts about the template at PR Squared, if anyone's interested in the specific elements or associated "deep thoughts." ;)

Thanks!!

David

I don't believe social media should be limited to only PR pros. In my opinion, PR is now more than ever about enabling the right people in the company to use social media tools.

There's a few reasons for this --a PR pro can't possibly do, understand, or tackle all of the tools.

Two, the right people speaking with these tools will lend to quantity of voices, authenticity, and product/service knowledge that few may really have.

The role of the Press Release is the hub, or center of an announcement --social media should extend from that message using a variety of messages and tools

This is brilliant. In a single sheet, it's a crash course for PR professionals. The press release won't go away - it's even more valuable now, given their visibility in search engines and news search sites. Arguably, in some ways, they're just as credible as news sources that quote them or repurpose them.

Given that releases will be around for awhile, how many PR pros do you think really get what everything on this page is all about? If they can understand this, they're halfway or more to understanding the new demands of their job.

Cameron

I think that's the question that needs to be answered.

Is Social Media a "Push" or a "Pull" Medium?

I'm under the impression it's not about imposing one's message on a community.

I really like the pre built Delicious (claimID would work great too) page. It could include links to all the information that's intended to fit on the template. Then you just send out a brief pitch and a link, if the person is interested they can visit the Delicious page and discover the information on their own.

That template just seems like your trying to "push" too much information.

If I understand the target audience for this, i.e. bloggers, etc., then this format doesn't seem to work.

My guess is that "social media" really just want a short email with a brief pitch. If the pitch/news sounds interesting, then he/she visits the website to evaluate it (if it's new or updated) or a page with links, feeds, multimedia, etc.

So I agree with Darren that there's too much information. I disagree with his thinking that one should drive editors/writers to research through links; they don't have time to do that unless you've got them hooked on the story first.

Darren

Thanks, but I didn't make the template. I'm curious what other social media folks think.

I really like the template you have created. I really think it's a fantastic idea but looks like there may be too much information crammed on one page. If you're serious about this, I would give more room for people to write facts, but other than that, it's a fantastic idea.

You can leave a lot off of the typical/standard release because thru del.icio.us and other websites, you can drive editors and writers to research.