Today, along with Shel Holtz, Chris Heuer, Todd Defren, Shannon Whitley, and the Society of New Communications Research (SNCR), we are officially announcing that the IABC will take a leadership role in the Social Media Release Workgroup.

Through cooperation with IABC and SNCR, the Workgroup receives an incredible boost in resources and visibility to help define real world standards and provide usable and helpful resources for PR professionals to understand the intentions and role of SMRs and how to create and distribute them.

Tom Foremski of Silicon Valley Watcher, and the gentlemen who started it all with his post, “Die Press Release, Die, Die, Die,” commented in the IABC press release, “It is great to see all the work that has gone into transforming the news release into something that reflects the use of the many new media technologies that we use everyday.”

My quote, “The social media release is a catalyst for not only providing a new tool to share news, information and content, and also inspire conversations, but also creating a forum to discuss how to improve press releases in general. The whole point of this working group and aligning with the IABC is to create an official standard and process that the entire industry can understand and support, from creation to distribution to building stories.”

SMR Working Group Membership includes:

• Chris Heuer, founder, Social Media Club and principal, The Conversation Group
• Tom Foremski, journalist
• Shannon Whitley
• Brian Solis, FutureWorks
• Shel Holtz, ABC
• Laura Sturaitis, Business Wire
• Jiyan Wei, PRWeb
• Dan Zarella, social media consultant
• Todd Van Hoosear, communicator and social media practitioner
• David Parmet, public relations counselor
• Jason Ryan, New Zealand public sector communicator

Don’t get caught-up in dissecting the SMR template as it exists. No need to debate bullets versus paragraphs or multimedia versus Social Media. Many of the examples out there really aren’t exemplary of a truly “social” press release nor its full potential.

Think bigger. Think differently.

Think about how the SMR represents a new tool and channel for you to share information and spark discussions between you, influencers, and the very people you want to reach. This is an additional service to everything else you would normally do as part of your PR campaigns. Social Media has just added new highways for reaching people and therefore requires different tactics, approaches, and tools to do this the right way.

Remember, nothing beats relationships. And, press releases aren’t a strategy, whether they’re social or traditional.

As I’ve said before, the future of the Social Media Release is in your hands! We haven’t even tapped the potential for this yet

Shel Holtz provides the most in-depth assessment of what this news means from an industry perspective.

More on Social Media Releases:

The Definitive Guide to Social Media Releases

Social Media Releases in Action

Social Media Releases, Everything You Ever Wanted to Know

UPDATE: Audio and slides from the Webinar are here.

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