THE PRACTITIONER

Many PR experts believe the traditional press release is dead.  Others believe that there will always be a place for traditional media. Face it, few tools are more old school than the information-laden, albeit newsworthy, press release. Others, like myself, prefer a hybrid approach of the traditional, social and digital. As it turns out, Todd Defren, the inventor of the social media release, agrees.

According to a recent Fast Company article, B2B PR: New Uses for Press Releases, the social media release was introduced in 2006 “when wire services like PR newswire didn’t include multimedia components in releases.” These wire services were not equipped to offer search-engine-friendly, interactive options for companies hungry to increase SEO and embrace the digital revolution. The social media release was developed to be reader friendly, and in many cases, less formal. For example, bullets can be used instead of paragraphs to outline key messages. Links may be included to offer additional information, graphics and whirly-gigs.

However, these releases were not without their fair share of issues. “There’s a challenge when you put releases over a wire service for downstream news outlets like MSNBC.com or Yahoo news to take content in any form other than straight ASCII,” said Defren. “A social media release that looks beautiful looks like crap when it goes downstream.”

To combat this issue, Defren suggests returning to old ways by using traditional release formatting. Fear not, social media diehards, Defren recommends including links back to a social media newsroom to give life to the one-dimensional release.

Google, a small company out of Mountain View, California, is also a big fan of the social media newsroom. Reuters has reported that the search engine giant decided against using a traditional press release to announce its earnings, and instead released a three-line statement that directed reporters and investors to a page on Google’s website:

“Google Inc has released its first quarter 2010 financial results. Please visit Google’s investor relations website at http://investor.google.com/ to view the earnings release.”

Google is in good company, with corporations such as GE, Cisco and Ford joining the ranks of devoted subscribers. These digital newsrooms provide interested parties with a bevy of valuable information in an engaging format. For example, a social media newsroom can contain relevant product images accessible via a link or a Flickr widget, white papers, case studies etc. Companies can also include categories and tagging systems that can help to organize content and increase SEO.

Does my agency utilize the social media release? Yes, on occasion, when appropriate. It can be a valuable message-dissemination tool, and very effective, depending on the audience you are trying to influence.  However, is it better than the traditional release? I’m not so sure.

In the back of my mind I cannot forget that no matter how a release is configured, and no matter how talented the writer, the release is still meant to convey facts.  The most talented PR professional can only hope to decrease the boring quotient by making it informational and interesting.  But can a social media release “engage” an audience? Perhaps.  A social media release can certainly increase a company’s website hits, and it might be able to generate new RSS feed subscribers. But isn’t the purpose of a news release to generate, well… news?

Are social media releases the way of the future? Perhaps the social media newsroom is the way to go? I would love to know your thoughts.

Steve is President of Wunderkind Public Relations. He regularly comments on public relations strategy, social media and trends impacting the communications industry. You can follow him on Twitter or connect with him on LinkedIn.