Duncan Riley, whom I greatly admire and respect, offered a very enlightening response to a recent question posed concerning the distribution of Social Media Releases on Gooruze, a new social network dedicated to helping marketing, advertising, search, and PR professionals learn, share and grow together. Disclosure, Duncan and I are among the eight founding “gooruze.” His points are very important and worth sharing as they will make us “think” about how, when, where, and why to use social media releases,…
The Future of the Social Media Release is in Your Hands
Todd Defren and Brian Solis. The Social Media Release (SMR) is gaining traction and visibility and is now looked to by many as the savior of the traditional press release – which may honestly be too great a task for any one tool. But, at the very least, the discussions around the SMR are fueling the evolution and improvement of the press release overall. Each day new examples are emerging and will only continue to be showcased as Social Media…
The Future of the Press Release – Part II, It’s about people
In the first post of this series, I asked for your help in laying the press release to rest – as it exists today. Unfortunately, today’s release has evolved into a collection of posturing, hyperbole, and canned quotes that have very little impact on the ability to generate significant news coverage. One of the most important takeaways of the last article was that a significant percentage of customers are reading press releases directly through search engines as well as Google…
The Future of the Press Release – Part I, Acceptance
The press release is on life support and I’m rallying a team of supporters to euthanize it – not to put it out of its misery, but to keep it from contributing to the misery of reporters, analysts, bloggers and the people who read them. The process of writing and distributing a press release can be excruciatingly painful and is almost laughable when you read the final product. Company X Launches World’s First, Industry-leading, Innovative Thingamabob that will Change Our…
PR and Social Media are Still Oil and Water
In many ways, the recent discussion of Marketwire’s acquisition of PRNN and how it was positioned as an example of the pioneering developments in Social Media and news distribution reminds me a bit of PRWeek’s claim that PR was entering an era of PR 3.0. Attention, executives at wire services and industry magazines, before you jump into the comments section here, believe that I fully acknowledge your good intentions. However, perhaps your excitement and enthusiasm may have clouded your judgment…
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…
The Social Media Manifesto
In the past, I’ve spoken at PR, tech, and communications events about Social Media and how companies can engage in the conversations taking place with or without them. As much as I wanted to look into the future, I was rooted in the present as a means to connect it to the past. There are just too many new things to introduce to people and even more reasons why they should care. The discussion usually centered on the tools enabling…
Social Media Killed the Video News Release Star
Source With Social Media Releases (New Media Releases) in the spotlight again, I felt this was the ideal timing to introduce you to the Video News Release (VNR) redux. Ready or not, start brushing up on flash, screencasting, video production, online video networks, and Web marketing. Online video is the next frontier for the communications industry adding a new layer of engagement to any existing PR, marketing and web initiative. In my opinion social media has reinvented the VNR, putting…
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…
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…
