It’s time to expand media relations

 

I’m still amazed at the number of communications people who talk about social media and claim to ‘get it’, yet still cling to the traditional press release as a centrepiece of their activities.

Hello!!! The public is changing quickly and the target of communications activities is no longer just the local journos, whose ability to influence is waning fast.

In this light, it’s encouraging that social media news releases continue to be discussed across the industry. I particularly liked this recent definition of a social media news release:

” a release designed specifically with the blog, citizen media and social media communities in mind.

It does not include the ’spin’ of the traditional press release, but provides multimedia content in an accessible format that can easily be repurposed and shared on blogs, websites and social networks. Unlike the traditional press release, the content of the social media news release is deconstructed so that the core facts, quotes, contact details and boilerplate are all individually segregated to allow users to disseminate its various elements.

It can accommodate links to relevant websites, images, audio and video (including embedded social media video including YouTube) – and any amount of background information.  Ideally, the release is tagged for distribution to social networking distribution sites and RSS feeds.

 Come on communicators, get out of the comfort zone and see if you really believe in social media.

Bank uses social media release to promote cricket series

Check this social media release case study from South Africa http://www.bizcommunity.com/Article/196/18/23647.html

What is a social media news release?

Like a normal media release, only smarter.  

Don’t believe me? Fair enough, the traditional media release has served communicators well for decades.  But, when you think about it,  the traditional release is about the only communication tool that hasn’t evolved. 

We’ve done a bit of tinkering at the edges:  I remember the days when media releases were sent by mail; then by faxstream, email and sometimes by SMS. At one stage, we double spaced the lines so journalists could ‘mark them up’ with scribbled instructions for type setters. 

Times change and communicators are no longer involved with traditional media only. Regardless of where we are on the globe, it’s possible that our employer or client is the subject of discussion on Blogs, news web sites operated by traditional media companies, and social media outlets covering any manner of subject.  Joining and influencing that discussion requires not only a change of thinking on our part, but also a change of communication tools. Hence the social media news release.

The media release that we have known and loved for so long will still remain a key way of communicating with traditional media such as newspapers, radio and television. However, increasingly, it will need to be complemented by a communication channel tailored specifically for on line publishers.  This may be a jump in thinking for some, but it is really only an extension of the way in which communicators presently tailor announcements and responses to different types of traditional media.  

If you provide information to on line news rooms and bloggers, it makes sense to talk in their language by adding social media features such as hyperlinks, multimedia, social bookmarking and tracking.

Eventually, we may be using these techniques to bypass the media entirely and go straight to the people, but that’s a story for another day. 

Ian Roberts