Is the practice of sending traditional press releases still viable, or even enough? More and more people are turning to social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook and Digg for news. The power of online and digital social networking is bar none. Hence, companies and even more so, PR outfits, have to rethink their strategies and adapt to new realities.

What is a SMR?

In the U.S., companies like Cisco System, Kodak and the European arm of General Motors, began experimenting with social media news releases since 2007.

A social media release (SMR) is like its traditional cousin but much, much more concise and includes social media capabilities i.e. bookmarking networks, contextual tags, the ability to track and host conversations, and links to other social networks.

Social media releases are not only written for journalists but bloggers and, when written properly, they can reach the very people you want to reach. They are designed to get the conversation going, providing readers with the ability to disseminate information and multimedia, bookmark and share the content.

How to write a SMR

There are a couple of ways to write a social media release. One option is to write a brief statement peppered with key words. Include new media elements such as integrated resource links, video, images, bookmarking (for e.g. Delicious) etc. This will enjoy greater eyeball with journalists and bloggers. Inserting key words also carries valuable search engine optimisation (SEO).

Another alternative is to create a dedicated blog-like platform. Platforms like Wordpress or Blogger, are already socially-enabled and feature integrated comments, RSS feeds, social bookmarking, trackbacks, tags, etc.

For example, social media releases that were issued by Cisco Systems and GM Europe have links to all of the popular social networking sites. Cisco’s statement was also sprinkled with key words for better SEO, while GM Europe’s news got the conversation started via a hosted network like Ning, or a discussion forum on Tangler or Google Groups.

Kodak’s social media release meanwhile, were embedded with soundbites, images and audio that could be easily downloaded by a broadcast or web journalist, hence dispensing with the traditional beta or DVD copies.

Where to post your SMR

The best place to publish a social media release is on your company blog or social media newsrooms like Digg, Reddit etc., which is hosted on a blogging engine (WordPress, Blogger etc.) It is important for the social media release to be published via a social platform for blog search engine optimisation (BSEO).

By placing content across social networks, properly tagging them by inserting key words, and linking back to your social media release or blog post, can effectively increase visibility to what you have to say.

Having said that, you still have to make your story newsworthy and relevant.  A bad press release is still a bad press release regardless of the tools you use.

For more information, please contact Manifesto