How to Use Social Media Releases
Learn how social media releases can enhance your PR efforts and amplify your messages.
Aliza Sherman
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How to Use Social Media Releases
Are you using social media releases yet? Come on, all the cool kids are doing it. And we all want to be cool, now, don’t we?
Back to social media releases–or social media news releases as my cool British friends tend to say. What are they and why do you want them?
What Is a Social Media Release?
I’ll be the first to tell you that you should never ever do something just because it’s cool–especially in social media. But aside from being cool, social media releases are a strategically-developed tool that gives oomph to your news announcements. A social media release at its most basic is a press release enhanced with multimedia and social media sharing features.
Where Did the Idea of Social Releases Come From?
First there were press releases on paper that we folded carefully, slid into an envelope and mailed to the media. Then we got all giddy over faxing our releases to the press. Whoopee! Then came email, and we got aggressive with our press release dissemination, causing messaging overload and glutting people’s in boxes with big attachments. Wow, we sure were crazy in the old days.
The concept of social media releases is credited to the smart people at a company called Shift Communications who thought about the fact that social media gives us the ability to upload video, audio, and high resolution images that could augment our releases. Plus they realized that with social networks, we were all participating in channels where the reach of our communications was becoming exponentially greater because of all of our new friends, fans, and followers.
So the people at Shift Communications created some initial ideas for templates that would integrate multimedia and social media features into plain vanilla press releases, and voila! Social media releases were born.
How Do Social Media Releases Work?
Social media releases, or SMRs as the acronym-happy like to call them, are hosted on the Web, which means no more paper cuts or killing trees and no more glutted email inboxes either. A typical SMR contains the main text of the press release, surrounded by the following elements:
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High resolution images, often presented in a slideshow fashion;
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Embedded video players if supporting video exists;
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Embedded audio players if any audio exists;
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A place to summarize the release content in a Twitter-friendly fashion;
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Several summary facts that distill the press release into bite-sized pieces;
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PR contact information enhanced with everyone’s social network accounts, such as LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook;
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Tools for sharing the release throughout key social networks and social media channels, including Digg, Twitter, Facebook, and via email as well;
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A short URL generator; and
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A comments section.
Comments section, you ask? Yes, SMRs not only allow the reader–any reader–to share the release with their friends, fans, and followers, but they can also leave comments on your release. SMRs can cut out the media middle man and put your messages straight into the hands of your audience. Wow! Powerful stuff.
How Can You Create a Social Media Release?
Though anyone could certainly design and program an SMR on their own website, why waste time and effort reinventing the proverbial wheel? There are several SMR generators out there you can use either for free or for a fee to get some additional benefits. My favorite SMR generator is PitchEngine–and not just because the founder of the company is based in Wyoming where I used to live and work. And not because–disclaimer, disclaimer–early on he gave me one free account as a thank you for all the grassroots, heartfelt support I was giving his company.
I love PitchEngine because the founder is constantly improving the product he offers, and I find that PitchEngine is leading the pack in terms of quality features and services for SMRs.
How to Use PitchEngine
Using PitchEngine, anyone can publish a press release for free, and it will be stored on the PitchEngine site for 30 days. Pay a fee to have it stored permanently. It’s easy to build an SMR on their site from scratch. Once it has been created, the release is searchable by anyone–including journalists–who use the site to find news stories. For a fee, PitchEngine will host your SMRs in a custom newsroom; or you can grab code to embed the branded newsroom into your own company website. PitchEngine also offers a widget where you can stream a feed of all of your press releases—that’s a handy addition to any website or blog. Pressitt.com
Another SMR generator of note is Pressitt.com out of the UK. They seem to have a strong international reach so if you have a global news story, you may want to go for Pressitt–or use it in addition to PitchEngine.
Bottom Line: Social Media Releases are the new black in terms press releases, and you can accessorize them with multimedia assets. Don’t think about putting out a new release in social media without all the features and assets that SMRs can offer not only for you but for the media – and the audience – you’re trying to reach.
Contact Me
That’s all we have time for today.
If you’d like to ask a question or request a topic for The Digital Marketer, e-mail me at digitalmarketer@quickanddirtytips.comcreate new email . I’m answering questions and having a party over on my Facebook Page Facebook.com/thedigitalmarketer so stop by and become a Fan. Or you can follow me on Twitter.com/alizasherman to get links to the latest information about digital marketing and social media.
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