EXCLUSIVE! New Media Release group includes amateur

It looks like that my 15 minutes of fame has arrived. The satirical PR blog Strumpette has continued its slightly peevish campaign against social media with a  new video featuring a Brian Connolly interview with the Social Media Club's Chris Heuer. But wait, there's more!

NOTE: This interview was made possible by the New Media Release Workgroup and the tireless efforts of Shannon Whitley, Alison Minaglia, Andy Arnold, Dan Zarrella, David Weiner, David Parmet, Jason Ryan, Michael O'Connor Clarke, Paul Dyer, Paul Pritchard, Steve Kayser, Susan Watiker, and Todd Van Hoosear. Special thanks to Todd Defren for inventing the SMPR.

... says Brian.

Well, I'm honoured to be in the same list and it would be lovely to think that the work will now come flooding in, but the truth is a bit more prosaic. I'm not worthy.

I didn't join the working group because I'm a guru or aspire to guru status, but because I felt I didn't know enough about social media releases. I still don't and that's why I continue to follow developments at close hand, rather than making snarky comments from the sidelines. Certainly, social media releases, rich media releases, press releases - call them what you will - are an easy target and people talking about them can have a tendency to be, erm... unfocused on occasion.

Am I an evangelist? No. Am I interested in new ways to do my job better and help my clients get their messages across? Of course I am.

» Measuring the influence of social media

Edelman and others have released a good white paper that looks at the challenges and possibilities of measuring the influence of social media. The white paper is an attempt to further the discussion started in July last year on Edelman's  Social Media Index (SMI).

 » Distributed Influence white paper (or son of SMI) sixtysecondview: Sixty second interviews from pr, media and politics

Technology makes way for people

I've just heaved a huge sigh of relief. No, not because it's Friday, but because Geoff Livingston over at the Now is Gone blog has posted a story that restores my faith in PR. It is about how social media and traditional PR sit together quite nicely thank you and that effective use of the old and the new depends on your relationship with people.

It has been a depressing couple of weeks to be in PR. The mainstream press in the US and high profile bloggers have highlighted various stories that (justly) raise concerns about the tactics used by PR people and online marketers. It reached the stage this week that I was almost afraid to pick up the phone and speak to journalists because I was afraid of what the reaction might be.

Geoff's post underlines how good PR - and good business generally, I would add - is about good hands-on, craftmanship. Know your tools, know your materials and know your customer. It is slightly ironic that high technology is taking us back in this way. But for me that is waht web 2.0 is about - the machinery getting out of the way of the people.

By the way, I did pick up the phone and call plenty of journalists this week - and they were without exception kind, courteous and willing to talk about what they needed for their publications.

Old-fashioned PR with a web spice

Heather Yaxley has a great post on her blog about why Social Media isn't the be all and end all of PR.
I have to admit to moment of euphoria where my enthusiasm with the social media release tends to overshadow everything.
Today was a good counterpoint to that. Today was a good solid - traditional - grind of a day building up a media list of relevant journalists for a new client. Where I have bought in lists in the past for some clients, this time it is all handbuilt and checked with phone calls to the editors to check if they are interested - before the release goes out.
Although I haven't been able to get through to everyone and have reverted to emailing some of the really busy ones, it has been a good learning experience in an industry that I don't know well enough yet. Chatting to editors, if you can get their attention, is a rewarding experience and best done before the "are you going to use it?" phone call - which incidentally I hate (along with all other PR practitioners I should imagine).
While this part of the job hasn't changed for years, I did it by cross-referencing database info with internet searches, and logging the time and contacts with two different web-based applications. Which brought it home to me how social media really is important but still just one tool in the toolbox.

Just so we don't get too cocky...

Social media releases - now in Denmark!

Enough talk, time for action. I've been following the ongoing discussion about social/new media releases for a while, but I thought it was about time to get involved. So here is the link to Denmark's first social media release for Velorbis bikes. Perhaps not the first - and I'd be happy to hear of others. Leave a comment if you know.

Its built up on the Shift Communications template using PRXBuilder (thanks to Shannon Whitley). I have tried to include as much as possible to try and make it as useful as possible for journalists and bloggers alike. That means links from the release to the Velorbis web site, YouTube video and links to pictures, others resources, blogs and articles.

It also has links to send the story to social bookmarking services and the most important - the opportunity to comment and take part in the conversation. It is social media after all.

It isn't the first I've sent out - the others were for another client, b2bCRM , but they didn't quite have the richness of detail of this one, but the next ones will.

Web 2.0 = PR 2.0

Just came across this survey here on the Lewis PR website that claims that "web 2.0" has made PR a more visible process.

"The study showed 96 per cent of companies recognise the importance of PR. In addition, almost two thirds recognise that Web 2.0 has made it a more visible process. 60 per cent believe that the advent of consumer journalism had made PR business-critical, with social media seen to be having an impact on profit and consumer satisfaction."

Social media gets ready to take off

There's a great disscussion going on at the moment about the nature of Social Media Releases (SMRs). There are several great bloggers involved - leading lights of the SMR movement, even - and the quality of discussion is very high.
Have a look in the sidebar for the links or go here:
http://www.briansolis.com/
http://www.pr-squared.com/2007/10/the_future_of_the_social_media.html
http://www.livingstonbuzz.com/blog/2007/10/18/storyboarding-another-view-on-how-to-use-the-social-media-news-release/

There's so much happening in this area that it is hard to track, but if you keep an eye on these three blogs then you won't miss much.

I have been a little suspicous about calls for the death of the press release - as it strikes me that it is a case of killing the messenger not the message, to paraphrase Margaret Thatcher's press secretary. But I think in the latest version of the arguments we are moving further away from the focus on format and more towards content and context. Social media is getting ready to take off.