While the idea of two way communication terrifies some old-school PR execs, the revolution of social media has others salivating at the idea of engaging bloggers, consumers and press in a genuine conversation about company news. With many bloggers now exceeding some mainstream media outlets in terms of audience reach and influence, public relations flaks are scrambling to learn how to play by the "new rules" to ensure good coverage for their clients. Enter the social media news release.
The Social Media News Release is designed to encourage a shift from traditional press releases to a more customized information delivery approach in the online environment. The idea is for industry professionals to develop a new format for the online press release. One that does a better job of speaking to media, bloggers and consumers by offering up information in a variety of formats. The social media news release would move beyond the standard text pitch to include embedded audio, video and graphics along with a relevant news bites, quotes and other information. The pitches would allow for blog style comments to be attached to them so readers could engage the company in conversation about announcements.
As a blogger that receives pitches on a daily basis at multiple sites, I can't tell you how much I would welcome a change to this new format. While a consensus on exactly what makes up a social media news release has not yet been reached, (and may never be) UK firm webitpr has embraced the template offered up by SHIFT Communications last year and has launched a variation as part of a new social media news release service.
Here's the promo video from webitpr for their new "Real Wire" offering:
Notice how different it is from the standard style, content heavy "story" used for traditional press releases. The new social media news release (SMNR) aims to avoid telling a pre-packaged story in favor of delivering relevant content in a variety of formats so journalists and bloggers can put together their own coverage with the content that best fits their delivery mode.
webitpr's Stephen Davies talks about the launch at PRBlogger.
We've been working hard over here at webitpr towers. So much so that we're the first UK (possibly European) company and first wire service to launch a version of the Social Media News Release. And what a good version it is too if I don't mind saying so myself. First off, kudos to the original SMNR template developed by Todd Defren at SHIFT Communications which he/they kindly released out into the ether (better known as the blogosphere) just over a year ago with no copyright notice at all. Todd's just referenced us in his most recent blog post.
We've tried to adhere to all of it's original specifications and during this current beta phase we've received feedback from the man himself along with Brian Solis who knows more than most on social media and the concept of the SMNR.
Stephen's post also includes a link to a SMNR they sent out on the service launch to demonstrate the new features:
This particular SMNR is purely to demonstrate all of the features we've incorporated. Guess who the topic of the story involves? That's right. Me. So for the time being forget about the content (and try to ignore my ugly mug) and concentrate on the features - there's everything in there that's specified in the original template and more. We have:
Core facts
Quotes
Contact details
Images
Audio
Video (with the option to use social networking video a la YouTube)
RSS feeds
Comments (which can be turned on or off)
Social bookmarking
Blog reactions (from Technorati)
Related links
Related coverage
In looking at the SMNR template from SHIFT Communications and the resulting SMNR release from webitpr, I'm struck by the value of several parts of the release.
The Layout
First, I'm a huge fan of the new layout. Traditional press release often include several paragraphs of facts, quotes and content delivered article style. This means the person on the receiving end has to read the entire release and pull out the relevant data. Online copywriters have long touted the need for "scannable content" that allows readers to focus in on exactly what's relevant to them. Why PR flaks didn't pick up on the need for a format shift sooner is beyond me.
This new layout allows me to quickly scan a talking points style list of facts and data or jump straight to the quote section if I simply need to pull one of those out for a post or article.
Mixed Media
Including images with a press release is nothing new, but throwing YouTube hosted videos and mp3 files is almost unheard of. This new addition will go a long way toward helping companies receive more (and better) coverage than a standard text based press release. Podcasters (or traditional radio news) will easily be able to pull sound clips into their productions without taking the time to track down and interview the relevant person. Bloggers will be able to pull video into their post to provide even more information to their readers, just as I have with this post.
It's obvious that not all types of media need to be included with every release and not every outlet covering the story will use all of the included multimedia. Nonetheless, the inclusion of a content in a variety of formats will help make inroads with bloggers and reporters that prefer to gather (and deliver) their information via more than one medium.
Relevant Coverage Links
As a blogger, one of the first things I do before writing a story is to head over to Technorati or Google News to see what other writers are covering the issue and what angle they are using in their coverage. By including the "relevant coverage" feed from Technorati, the SMNR allows a writer to quickly scan existing coverage without the release team making constant updates to the SMNR.
Everything Else
Tags, RSS feed links, quick access to social bookmarking sites and related links all combine to add even more relevant data to bloggers and reporters.
My like of the SMNR goes beyond the simple convenience of the multi-media content approach. Companies that take the time to put together this style of press release demonstrate to writers and bloggers that they understand the need to deliver relevant data. In other words, it shows a willingness to work WITH writers to build good content instead of simply talking AT them in the hopes of getting coverage.
Sending out a press release takes mere moments these days and most of the press releases I receive reflect that type of time investment. The new SMNR will obviously require more of a time investment on the part of the PR team building the pitch, but I have a hunch the payoff will be well worth the investment.
What's it Cost?
The SMNR "blogit" release from webitpr isn't cheap. It will run companies around $1000US. That's enough to send most small businesses running for the hills.
That said, SHIFT Communication's social media news release template has been graciously handed over to the public. That means it wouldn't be difficult for even small businesses to set up a page on their web site that hosts the appropriate files and to send out a SMNR via email that references those files. This will take more time than sending via an existing release service, but until SMNR release services become more affordable, it's the best bet for small business.
An example of the importance of KEYWORDS!!!
For those who keep scouring the Internet looking for ways of become rich beyond belief (may be an exaggeration), this will be either interesting or infuriating. Or maybe a combination of both.
Basically, one lucky guy was able to make an incredible profit on eBay by buying a rare item for a negligible price, basically ripping off the original seller at the same time. He was hence able to buy an item for less than $400.
This happened because the original seller stupidly made a typo in the listing, which happens rather frequently on eBay. In this particular case, he listed "ALLSOPP" as "ALLSOP", which means that his item would not be returned by users making a search for ALLSOPP items. You'd think people who are about place to an item for sale on eBay would at least ensure that the items are properly listed. I mean, it doesn't take that much effort to read a small paragraph at least thrice.
Taking advantage of this typo, one guy won the auction for a mere $400 and went on to resell the item for a staggering $500,000+.
If I were the first seller, I'd be seriously upset. However, this also shows that simple mistakes can be costly (quite literally in this case!).
And for those who also wish to take advantage of silly typos made by sellers on eBay, I have made a little misspelling page that will allow you to find high dollar misspellings for either profit or for saving money.
EDU sites are considered trusted by Google and therefore highly in demand by webmasters. Getting backlinks at an .EDU or. GOV web site is great if you want to gain high google page rank (PR), and it might result in some traffic too !
What you can do:
1) Design a theme for a Opensource-CMS like
Drupal, Wordpress or Joomla. Sometimes it happens that an .EDU or even .GOV site will use that theme and you're set or...have on designed!
2) You can actually purchase .EDU backlinks if you look on Text Link Ads dot com. Check their prices.
3) A trick to get .edu backlinks: Once in a while you can find forgotten blogs on edu-pages which allow you to post. 1 of 50 blogs there might have a "no-follow" tag in the comments-section.
4) How to search for EDU sites, blogs and forums
Search for sites or blogs with similiar content to your site in Google Using the Google operator site:.edu and site:.gov and the keywords of your blog should enable you to find an extensive list of sites related to your keyword. Those operators would filter and show you only sites from .EDU or .GOV domains related to your keyword.
Type in google:
site:.edu "keyword"
site:.gov "keyword"
Contact the webmaster and tell them about your blog, link to them first and then ask for permission to get linked on theirs. Maybe you get lucky...
Searching for .EDU Blogs and .EDU Forums
You can use the Google operators again.
With the following operators typed in Google you limit the Google search to blogs or forums with the .edu extension related to your keyword.
Participate in the discussions, don't SPAM. Leave your link at your desire.
You can further enhance your "search". Here an advanced .EDU scanning technique which you want to use if you want to exclude all blogs which are closed or where comments are not allowed:
Use those google operators:
site:.edu inurl:blog “comment” -”you must be logged in” -”posting closed” -”comment closed” “keyword”
This operator would exclude all "closed blogs" and only scan for blogs where you can leave a comment.
MORE Image Mapping - The "Hidden" F on your website, no it's not a word!
09-05-07
A team of scientists engaged in military research recently came to the conclusion that when it comes to reading web pages most readers read in "F" shaped pattern taking into consideration the eye movements of 232 readers, it was found that a reader generally reads in a horizontal movement first. This is followed by their eyes moving downwards a bit and then, ensues reading across in a second horizontal movement covering a shorter area than what it was previously.
Finally, the user scans the content on the left side of the page in a vertical movement. Sometimes, it could be a systematic scan while at other times, it could move faster just by throwing a glimpse at the text. If a page contains some images or box at the top right, it is noticed that a viewer usually concentrates over there leading to some distortion in the "F" shape .All these movements when tracked through a heat map-with red color defining most of the viewed areas, yellow indicating the lesser and blue signifying the least viewed area-gave the shape of the letter "F".
The study reiterates the guidelines for web designing and writing web content-since the user does not read the text thoroughly, the first two paragraphs must contain the most important information comprising subheads, bullet points followed by information in the realms of the text.
It is a good example of focusing key buttons (RSS, Technorati, Delicious) on the left hand side where a lot of people can see them. Take a look Web Urbanist
WikiRAGE! Yet another top 100 dynamic list for placing your finger on "THE PULSE".
Revolution of Internet Video - Gone Network TV SHOW, I-Caught
I find this show entertaining. Airs on Tuesdays on ABC.
How to increase your Internet Speed in 40 seconds.
Internet Video growth and trends
Matt Cutts on duplicate content and other issues.
Shadow puppets gone professional!
WEB TOOLS make your business building more effective:
Top 10 ways to
CLEAN Up Your PC
September 5th, 2007
Whether it's remnants of that bag of Fritos you ate three years ago lodged in your keyboard or a registry full of broken entries, that old PC of yours could use a little cleaning up. Over time it's easy for Windows to accumulate cruft—like programs you never use but that automatically start up anyway, temporary or duplicate files, multiple desktop shortcuts or gigabytes of data you forgot about hogging up your hard drive. Scrub that old PC up all shiny and new again with today's top 10 ways to clean up your PC. Photo by Dave Johnston.
10. Clear Your Desktop
9. Uninstall Unneeded Programs
8. Clean Up Your Startup, Registry, Cookies and More
7. Organize "My Documents"
6. Automatically Delete Temporary Files
5. Visualize and Reduce Disk Usage
4. Detect and Delete Duplicate Files
3. White Out Disk Free Space
2. Evacuate the Dust Bunnies
1. Wipe Your Hard Drive and Reinstall Windows
