Using of Social Media Press Release Effectively

26
Jun

Effective Use Of The Social Media Press Release

Posted by Joel | (3) Comment

The Social Media Press Release (SMPR) is not a new concept but it is still worth the attention of even the most conservative PR experts and firms.

Social press releases are particularly important for all the online public relations experts, firms and online marketers. We don’t call SMPR a trend but rather, a tool. It is not there to replace or kill the traditional press release but it is there to improve upon it. It’s not an process to a traditional press release layout, but includes parts of the traditional press release formatted in a more simpler, comprehensive and ready-to-use manner.

SMPR includes the traditional press release format but also includes something beyond. The main difference is how it uses the burgeoning social media networks and applications. Compared to a “static” press release, a social media one offers:

Video

Audio

Weblogs

Comment areas

Discussion Forums

RSS feeds

Uploaded multimedia files

Embedded Links

Direct interaction with social networks like Twitter, Facebook, Friendfeed, Technorati and many more…

Because of these features, Social Media Press Releases offer a much easier way for news to be digested through online feeds. This mainly includes professional bloggers, who are becoming an ever more important source of “breaking” news.

Making use of Social Media News Releases Effectively

Here’s how you can make use of the the Social Media News Release effectively as discussed on Hubspot

1) Build a cool SMNR.

This news release can have as many features of the template as you want. Videos, links, images, sound, threaded discussions, voting, rating, throwing sheep, whatever you want. Bring it on.

2) Post on your website. Only.

Take that really cool version of the news release and post that version on your own company website. After all, don’t you want the coolest stuff on the web to be on your website? It’s also a good idea to use a blog software to post your news releases, it is simple and easy and produces an RSS feed automatically. Copy the URL where your cool SMNR lives, you’ll need it later.

3) Build a simple (text) version of the release.

Build another, simple version of the release for the wire service(s). This version should be all text, maybe 250 words as a summary to get people’s interest, it should also have 2-4 optimized links, including a prominent link back to the full, original release on your company website. The goal of this version is (a) to get people to click through to your website and interact there, and (b) build links for SEO purposes.

4) Use Press Release Grader.

Take that short version of the release you are going to send out over the wire and run it through the free press release analysis tool. This will make sure you don’t use any Gobbeldygook and your links are set up correctly, as well as some other basic checks. Fix all the big errors, and also check the word cloud to make sure the search engines will look at the release the way you want.

5) Use the wire service.

Send that simple, text based news release over the wire. No pictures, no videos, just text and links (using keywords with anchor text). Using only text will save you some money, and you will be sending people back to your own website to interact with each other to have a much richer experience. They get to leave comments (and see all the other comments from everyone else), view multimedia (posted under your own account) and vote for and promote (in other forms of social media) the one main version of the news release.