The much discussed and highly revered Cluetrain Manifesto is proving to be more relevant than ever. As Social Media becomes more pervasive in marketing, it’s imperative that we become gatekeepers to prevent opportunistic marketers from bankrupting the conversation economy. As someone noted, aren’t all marketers opportunistic? Yes and no. It’s the difference between leveraging an opportunity because you can bring value to the discussion vs. selling an opportunity simply because you can capitalize on it. Jakob Nielsen added a unique…
Marketwire Acquires PRNN – But is This Really Social Media?
Social Media is the new gold rush and traditional PR services are scrambling to stay relevant as new tools, channels, and experts are forcing a long overdue renaissance. Nowadays, the word “social” is getting tossed around by anyone and everyone as if it was a golden adjective with huge dividends for instantly inflating personal expertise and credibility – regardless of whether or not they truly understand and practice social media. And unfortunately, it’s bound to only get more polluted as…
New Media Release Cast 16 – Evolution of the Press Release
Chris Heuer, Shel Holtz, and I recorded number 16 in an ongoing series that discusses the New Media Release aka Social Media Release aka hrelease. In this episode, we were joined by Shannon Whitley, who is now heading up the Working Group for defining the hrelease standard. We discussed the state of the SMR, current examples of SMRs in action, as well as the plans for the Working Group moving forward. Whitley has been very passionate about the social media…
New Media Release Cast #15 Now Online – Evolution of the Press Release
It’s been a while since we last recorded the NMRCast, but with the growing discussions around the new media release, we felt it was time to reignite the conversations. The NMRCast was initially started to document the evolution of the press release in today’s social landscape. It reviews the strategies and experiments driving the social media release aka new media release so that PR professionals can learn from each other in order to improve how we share news and information…
Social Media Releases – Everything You Ever Wanted to (or Should) Know
The social media news release is rallying support. And more importantly, examples and discussions of usage are percolating throughout the blogsphere among PR practitioners and bloggers alike. It’s no longer a matter of if, nor when, but now a matter of practice and evolution in order to determine success and failure. As a recap, the Social Media Release has been pushed by many influencers, including Tom Foremski’s public outcry for the death of crappy press releases; Todd Defren who offered…
Attention Traditional PR, Step Away from the Social Media Release – aka hRelease
I came across a post that really smacked me in the face with a stinging sense of reality. You can’t help everyone grow; only those that realize they can. We just have to do a better job of reaching everyone else to help lay a more informative foundation for people to cause change. Regarding the Social Media Release, it’s not social media. The Social Media Press Release still adheres to the antiquated notion that public relations means appealing to the…
Social Media Killed the Press Release Star
A New Year is upon us and I think I’ll start off the New Year with a rededication to the Social Media Release (SMR), the Social Media Club, and why the hell all of this will matter to marketing, communications and PR professionals this year. The truth is that somewhere along the way, a few of those who “got it” embraced it as their own, those who are just now learning about it are “not getting” it, and a few…
Microsoft PR Sparks a Blogstorm of Support and Outrage
Image Credit: istartedsomething.com I just read over on Techmeme that Microsoft PR may be digging itself deeper into another potential PR fiasco. There is a blogstorm out there with dozens of bloggers, myself included, casting opinions. Many of which I don’t necessarily agree with. I had to find out for myself, so I contacted several of the privileged bloggers who already have the notebook as well as other PR leaders to discuss the topic. Welcome to Crisis Communications 2.0. Microsoft’s…
Blogger Relations – Forward Features My Latest Chapter in the Series
The latest installment of “Blogger Relations” has run over at Forward. Thanks to Erin Caldwell for publishing each chapter. The previous article discussed, “Reaching the Blogosphere – Finding Bloggers in Your Market” using tools such as Technorati, Sphere, Google’s BlogSearch, Blogpulse, Alexa, CyberAlert, BuzzMetrics, Cymfony, and Umbria. The new article explores how to identify the right bloggers for your market and how to best reach them and why they should even receive your news in the first place. Please vote…
Affluent Magazine To Run My Monthly Gadget Column
Ok, it’s definitely not CrunchGear , but it’s still a fun extension of PR2.0 and my work at FutureWorks PR. I’ve always had a passion for gadgets and new technology and have been recently featured in Entrepreneur, San Jose Business Journal, Tech Web, AP, among others over the years, for how I use technology in business. Affluent Magazine , The Authority on Lifestyle, recently asked if I would write a monthly piece to highlight the latest and greatest gadgets, so…
