DISQUS

Ignite Social Media: Social Media Press Release - What’s more important, the look or the data?

  • Todd Defren · 2 years ago
    You make some good, interesting points here, but, I hope you're also continuing to read related posts at my blog (PR-Squared) and Brian Solis's PR 2.0 blog, in which many of these issues have been discussed, and will continue to be on the menu.

    Here's a couple of example posts (which contain associated links):

    http://www.pr-squared.com/2007/06/one_year_late...
    http://www.pr-squared.com/2006/09/top_5_princip...

    I basically agree with most all your points. The reality, though, is that we are trying to EVOLVE the format, knowing that the tools/technologies/metadata, etc. will likely not bear fruit, until/unless a critical mass of mainstream companies show keen interest in adopting the concept.
  • Jim Tobin · 2 years ago
    Todd,

    This is a very interesting topic for us, so we'll definitely keep watching. In our experience, a lot of the traditional distribution methods aren't ready (yet) for the SMPR.

    Plus, it seems that you need to have two versions (the traditional) and the bulleted. We're working on an iteration that combines both into one. Perhaps I'll send it to you for your feedback...

    ~Jim
  • Todd Defren · 2 years ago
    Go for it! We've often said that offering a "template' means, "Take what works, change or forget about what doesn't."

    A lot of folks have gotten hung up on the bullets. I see no reason why folks can't use a traditional narrative format, but also incorporate multimedia, links, social media elements, etc.
  • Jason Ryan · 2 years ago
    Nice post, Mike.

    hRelease is a microformat (data standard) and so the focus is on semantic markup - which supports discoverability, accessibility and ease of syndication.

    It doesn't mean agencies or individuals can't present the content in ways that appeal to them but, like the rest of the web, presentation can only be guaranteed at the point of delivery, not receipt.

    So Todd is quite right to encourage people to get over the bullets. For our releases, we opt for the narrative form, semantically marked up.
  • brian · 2 years ago
    this is a very interesting article. i've experimented with SMRs both with narrative and bullet points, and i agree, the SMR is meant to be flexible.

    we're communicators at the end of the day, and some people will like bullet points, and some will like narrative forms.. but essentially, the core message should clearly come through.

    As any journalist who crosses over to PR knows how other journalists will pick up a story, so too do we as bloggers who turn PR, will have some knowledge as to what makes content interesting.

    so in essence, when i write an SMR, my thinking is akin to just 'blogging it'.
  • Jim Tobin · 2 years ago
    Mike does raise some great points. It just seems that some of the traditional news distribution points wouldn't even know what he's talking about yet.

    And you're right, Brian, there are lots of similarities to a blog post, but I want to find a way to serve both (all?) masters, so we can write the thing once and have it work across the audiences...
  • Mike Lotz · 2 years ago
    I think traditional news distribution points are realizing change is coming fast and they need to be on board.

    For example, look at Business Wire - "Your news, sent to your target audience, precisely timed. Stylized with dynamic XHTML formatting. Optimized for maximum Internet visibility. With photos and multimedia for powerful integrated marketing." and PR News Wire

    hRelease is great step forward to enable a simple way to markup news, allowing authors to share news through blogs, personal and corporate websites, web feeds, and any other online repository.