Think of the Social Media Release as an Online Press Kit

The social media news release concept has been in a kind of development stage for several years. During that time, we’ve seen creative ideas and lots of confusion. The main point of contention is the mistaken idea that the social media news release should replace the traditional release. Nothing could be farther from the truth.

What is the Purpose a Social Media News Release?
The social media news release is really an online press kit. It provides your news in ways that assist journalists and bloggers to write stories about your news. It gives people tools to share your audio and video clips, download logos and photos, and immediately find key stats and quotes rather than sorting through prose. Since a sizeable percentage of stakeholders are generally online, they are more likely to get your news there.

How do You Use Both Kinds of Releases?
There is still value in the traditional release. Some trade publications in your industry may still practically print your release unaltered. And it presents your story in a narrative form. Storytelling is good. I’ve also found that when there are lots of internal levels of approval, the final traditional news release serves their purposes, while the social media version is more of an aid to journalists.

There are several places you can go to learn more. One of the best recent ones is an audio presentation delivered by Shel Holtz, ABC, co-host of the For Immediate Release podcast. You can listen to his engaging down-to-earth speech and see his ppt presentation online. It’s a great way to get a crash course on a powerful communication tool.

Monika Maeckle, Business Wire on New Press Releases

Live from the Seminar!
Monika Maeckle, vice president of new media for Business Wire is speaking right now about how to think differently about your press releases. Instead of a static document, press resources need to be enabled for searching and sharing. ONe of the easiest things a practitioner can do is to highlight items within the release using the usual formatting tricks in Microsoft Word. Boldfacing or italicizing text as well as using bullet points and subheads allow for better integration into search engines. Embedding links into releases is an easy and powerful tool to build credibility. Providing graphics, photos or videos -- in link form, of course -- will make your news more valuable to the reader. Now that Google is enabling its searches with photos, graphics and maps, this gives the press release writer the chance not only to tell their story, but to show their story. As Monika observes, press releases are traffic pointers. They should be pointing people to places they want to go and things they want to see. Business Wire hosts numerous, free webinars to assist practitioners with trying out all these new techniques. Check it out!

All the news that's fit to print...

I have a new role with my organization, Keeper of the Web Site. I have always helped keep it updated, but now it's my responsibility. Woot!

We've recently had an overhaul of the look and content, and I've learned how to upload most of the dynamic information easily. What I'd like to expand is the ease of our site as a resource for journalists and the community at large. Right now, there is a news release archive, and my contact information, but not a very extensive "newsroom" as a resource.

I registered today for PRSA's professional development webinar "Top Ten Elements to Have in an Online Newsroom" . I'm hoping it offers a lot of good tips. There are obvious elements needed for a successful resource (contact information, physical location of organization, executive information, news release archive, etc.). But, what are your suggestions for a really useful, efficient online newroom? Have you seen some good ones? Some really bad ones?

Show me yours, and I'll imitate all the good parts! If you want to see the site as it is now, here is the link. There is some content we have to keep on as part of the parent company, but I'd love your feedback on all aspects of the site, even if it's not to fulfill my current goal of creating a stellar newsroom!

Helpful Service Grades your News Release

Here’s a cool tool you might want to try out. It’s HubSpot's Press Release Grader. This is a free online service that evaluates your news release. Some results it will provide are: a “gobbledygook” score, readability levels, link analysis, word cloud and SEO score.

Todd Defren shares his summary on his PR Squared blog, as does Melissa Underwood of Ragan.com.

The grader’s web site even has provides a very helpful six-minute video overview that walks you through the process. Check it out!