The Social Media News Release is a press release format designed for the online media world. Its origins can be traced back to Tom Foremski´s and his post Die! Press Release! Die! Die! Die! in 2006, where Foremski called to the traditional news releases useless and artificial and challenged the public relations industry to adapt them to the new realities. The appearance of the Social Media News Release (SMNR) and News Room, is consequence of three changes: the social and sharing nature of the web, the new role of the press releases as a communication tools for the consumers, and that many publications are running thinner in their editorial resources, so less people need to do more work.
There are two main differences between the traditional news release and the SMNR:
- the audiences are diverses, while the traditional one only is interested in t
he journalists, the SMNR wants to achieve the journalists, social media users and bloggers/podcaster. This new way of distribution allows better reach and more effectiveness, because the messages are not filtrered by the gatekeepers. - the template is different too. The traditional news releases only is formed for traditional elements (headline, core facts, quotes and contact details), while the SMNR (image of the right side) has the traditional elements, plus hyperlinks (in the copy body, previous coverage, etc.), multimedia elements (video, audio and image) and social media capabilities (social bookmarking, Rss feeds, Technorati tags and comments).
Some pros of this kind of news release are: optimised for search, conversation and sharing, tells the entire story through multimedia, provides context and makes better impression visually.
This kind of news release is posted in the Social Media News Rooms. In the News Rooms, the journalist can achieve all the information about the company that he could need in few time: SMNR, coverage for the media, access to the different accounts of the client in Twitter, YouTubeChannel, Flickr, etc., here the information releases available online forever. One example of this kind of news room we can see it in Electrolux.
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Social media news rooms/releases appear to be a way of making life easier for the PR practitioner. It is a definite plus to have one online space that integrates all the organisations social media outlets, enabling them to create the best possible image which will hopefully bring them more positive publicity. As you mention, it's also good that the public have access to these pages and that bloggers can use them to publish content which gives an alternative to the "professional journalists" view. I wonder if print media journalists find the increasing use of the social media newsroom a threat though?
ResponderEliminarPeople are talking about SMNR as being a useful tool as u can provide all the background information through all its technical features, like links...but this raised me a question...isn't the journalist supposed to do all the research on the topic? Maybe that is why PR practitioners are not looked at well, because they provide too much information.
ResponderEliminar[original tombstone graphic by Chris Dichtel for the Silicon Valley Watcher.]
ResponderEliminar