Social Media Releases (SMRs): The cluster bombs of publicity?
A social media release or SMR is a PR tool that takes full advantage of the power of social media for publicizing an event on the web, be it a launch, a human interest story or any newsworthy item. The differences between SMRs and standard releases are significant just as the differences between conventional media (online and off) and social media are significant. In a guest post on Techcrunch, PR pro Brian Solis offers up a useful comparison of several types of press releases including SMRs.
Social media release utilize all the elements of social media including embedded video (demos, executive insight interviews, etc), blog-style writing, images in Flickr-style galleries, extensive linking, network profiles and more. They are typically hosted rather than sent- instead a link to the page (typically on a blog) with the profile is distributed. The social elements in the release are accessible for use by writers covering the story with links openly available. The releases are search optimized with standard keyword techniques.
The challenges involved in utilizing these releases are considerable given that there is far more production required than simply writing a release. However the rewards can also be considerable as these releases offer more value to the media and are, for now before they proliferate, unusual enough to gather some attention.
SM2 will index and discover these releases because they are a part of the social media eco-system that we already track. It will be interesting to track their adoption rate and correlate against our customer base because the people using SM2 tend to be at the forefront of recognizing the importance of social media in the PR and marketing spheres. SM2 can also be used to track the effectiveness of the social media release as its various elements are distributed virally.
Used effectively SMRs could become the cluster bombs of company news distribution, dropping into the social web and then breaking up into individual media elements aimed at all kinds of users.