Social Media News Press Release

Posted by Marshall on August 18, 2007 | Link It

WebitPr has created an enhanced Press Release that embeds multimedia (video/audio) and 2 way communications; this looks promising but I need to look into it further.

I heard about the Social Media News Press Release from Shel Holtz who wrote:
"..UK agency WebIt PR has produced a video detailing the elements of its social media news release service and uploaded it to YouTube. The video gives credit to Tom Foremski’s post calling for the transition to the social media release as well as SHIFT Communications’ initial template. Webit PR’s Stephen Davies has blogged about the video. Nice work! "
I'm most interested in the two way communications part - and here's how that plays out (highlighted in yellow) in the list of what a Social Media News Press Release does:
"..Characteristics of the webitpr Social Media News Release:

  • Social bookmarking options to allow users to 'tag' the SMNR to popular social bookmarking sites.

  • The use of hyperlinks in the copy body.

  • RSS feeds to allow subscribers to receive updated content in real time as it is published.

  • Optimised for visibility in search engines.

  • Links to related news for further background info.

  • Incoming blog links.

  • Technorati tags.

  • The ability for people to register and leave a comment on any particular SMNR - creating a two way dialogue unlike the 'top down' delivery method of the traditional release.

  • The ability to brand the SMNR with the client's logo.

  • The ability to ‘domain map' the release to the client's website URL (E.g. http://news.clientwebsite.com) giving the SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) benefits to the organisation.

So that means if I create a Social  Media Press Release via this service that anyone who reads it can leave a comment that others who read it will see (though it's not clear if I can edit out those that might be offensive); that can be very interesting if the press release gets a lot of attention and people do make comments onto it.

I'm also interested in how the Social Media News Press Release is tracked, which seems much superior than what PRWeb.com and businesswire,etc, offer:

"….Monitoring

Another factor that differences us from our competitors is our ability to track where your SMNR has been discussed, referenced or used in editorial. Because the internet is a medium that knows no geographical boundaries, a SMNR can be picked up and used by any blog or online publication around the world.

Some online publications, however, may not always reference back to the original release making it almost impossible to find without the appropriate tools and software. We have always provided inclusive coverage monitoring within our press releases services that covers both social media and the regular online media. This means we can provide the sender of the release with updated details of where the SMNR has appeared and the sentiment of discussion it has generated.

Whoa!  The Sentiment your Social Media News Press Release generated?  I've never seen a report like that before……I want to see what this looks like.   I hope that WEbitPR reads my post and contacts me (my guess is they will…since I am commenting on their Social Media News Press Release page which actually is also a Social Media News Press Release made to look like a page….and since that's the case…my post about it ought to be appearing in some report that represents sentiment about the release and what's in it.

I'll be curious to see what the Social Media Press Release report says that my sentiment is about the Social Media News Press Release about SMNR.

Filed in Social Media
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2 Responses

These are the current comments for "Social Media News Press Release"

Adam Parker
08/19/07 @ 8:34 am

Hi Marshall

Thanks for the kind words and the links. This video didnt actually go out via a SMNR, we just uploaded it to YouTube and our Social Media Manager, Stephen Davies wrote about it on his blog. You can find an example of an actual release we have distributed on behalf of US agency, Converseon (in fact the one you see in the video) “>http://blogit.webitpr.com/?ReleaseID=6166“> here.

On your monitoring query you will see from the example that as well as including blog reactions from sites linking back to the release - nothing new here by blog standards, but still not standard for distribution companies - we are also displaying all relevant editorial and blog coverage of this release that we have identified via our proactive coverage monitoring which combines technology with human input. It doesn’t rely on trackbacks or manual embedded links, but is webitpr, as part of its realwire service, actively seeking for relevant coverage for a period of time after the release is sent. This is all part of our human approach to online news distribution that doesn’t just rely on technology - though we do use it a lot obviously!

This means that all participants in the conversation - the organisation who sent the release, the publications and bloggers talking about it and the visitors to it - can see what it is being said in both the “traditional” online media and the wider social media community. This was a part of the SHIFT template and unlike our competitors (some of whom you mention) and other services that claim to be SMNRs, is something we have always included in our distribution service. The difference is just that this reporting used to only be provided back to the paying users of the service. With the SMNR the public reporting provides the benefit of our work to the readership which we are really excited about.

With regards to sentiment at the moment we are expecting the users of our service to review the coverage we are proactively identifying as we think it is in the spirit of the SMNR for them to be reviewing and getting involved in the conversation themselves. However we do have plans already in the pipeline to apply our human approach to actual measurement of sentiment not just identification - watch this space.

On the comments point our SMNR has a number of features that make it uniquely capable of handling a true conversation.

1. The SMNR can be “hosted” on a sub domain of the organisation’s own site e.g. news.domain.com - example.

2. Comments are open to all - though it does currently require a very basic registration, name and email to prevent spam - and there is a notification and approval process in place that the organisation using the service can access themselves.

3. The organisation can now - and this is a brand new update that is just 2 days old! - identify someone who is going to monitor comments and include a picture and a biog on the SMNR so people commenting then know who will respond rather than putting comments on a faceless website. This idea came from Constantin at Converseon.

I hope that this lengthy(!:)) comment answers all your queries. But if you would like anymore information please feel free to email me.

Thanks again
Adam Parker
Chief Executive, webitpr



Stephen Davies
08/19/07 @ 10:22 am

Hi Marshall,

Thanks for link, analysis and very kind words!

It’s the two-way communication that excites us most too. PR is supposed to be about two way dialogue but the traditional press release is very analogue in nature so the SMNR is an excellent way for an organisation to bring its news to life.

Plus, it excludes all the spin often noted in press releases to contain only the core facts. Much needed given the transparency of the online world.

The multimedia element is quite exciting too as PR has never been known as a multimedia-using profession. It’s core work is in the written word but it’s something the profession is going to have adjust to in the online world. And it will, one step at a time I think.

If you would like to see one of our SMNRs you can take a look here:

http://blogit.webitpr.com/?releaseid=6166

If you’re familiar with a standard press release you’ll see some elements of one in there but with the added functionality the SMNR gives.

An issue we’ve faced however is that, although users have the ability to comment on the SMNR itself, they generally don’t. I blogged about it here in fact:

http://www.prblogger.com/2007/07/smnr-update/

Someone (Constantin Basturea) suggested in the comments to my post that the reason no one was commenting was because there is no designated responder on the SMNR. We’ve since implemented a new function that shows the reader who is moderating the comments along with their bio. So if the CEO of Company X is willing to moderate comments for a specified time this should help generate a discussion.

Re: Sentiment. This is done manually unfortunately :-( because, as of yet, there’s no tool that will do it automatically. Well, at least I don’t think there is?

Anyway, thanks again and let me know if you need to any other info.

Stephen

P.S. First time I’ve came across this blog. Subscribed!



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