It’s been a little over four weeks since we launched our version of the social media news release and, I’ve got to say, I’m now more convinced of its potential than ever before. In honesty, I was previously, but since I’d never seen a true social media release in action it was just a case of relying on the notion. And by **social** I mean a release with comments and discussion, and not just additional multimedia.
We’ve since done five SMNRs and, through these trials, we feel we have a better understanding of what works and what doesn’t. Although, there’s still a long way to go and no doubt we’ll have a few more “why I never!” moments as we continue to do them. I’d love to name the companies that have been involved but as of writing this we haven’t received anyone’s permission, apart from the Converseon release, of course.
Anyway, here are a few observations we’ve taken from the SMNR.
Not everyone links, not everyone references
I guess, in hindsight, I’m stating the obvious but just because you think you’ve got an uber cool, bleeding edge news release it doesn’t mean bloggers do too. All they care about is the content and, although blogging etiquette is about links, not all link back to the SMNR itself. I guess they don’t deem it absolutely necessary to reference a news release of any kind. In all honesty, I’m not sure if I do too.
That said, if you want to track all the discussion around the content of the release then it’s imperative to have a monitoring process in place. Take the Converseon release for example. The Technorati ‘view blog reactions’ link shows only 13 blogs linking to it. Which is accurate. In reality, however, there were many more blogs that had taken content from it; they just hadn’t linked to it.
We found similar results on another SMNR we did too. Most notably, two very high-profile and well-read blogs didn’t link to that particular SMNR although they did use its content.
Something to bear in mind.
People are comment shy
Well, they are on the SMNR that’s for sure. As of yet, no one’s left a comment on any of the five we’ve done. Sure, there has been plenty of discussion on the blogs referencing it but none on the release itself. I see it in two ways. Either no one feels there are any benefits in commenting directly on a news release for whatever reason. Or not many people are accustomed to idea of commenting directly on a news release. My thoughts are it’s the latter. Why? Well, put it this way, if I knew my comments would get through to Company X’s comms department about their new product or service then I’d sure enough leave a comment – if I was passionate enough about the product or service that is.
A SMNR is not for all news
Again, stating the obvious but it is interesting to see which SMNRs pick up more traction than others. We don’t feel we can give a conclusive definition of what would make a good SMNR but here are three pointers:
* News that’s relevant to the online audience – Obviously some sort of tech and telecoms news will always be popular in the online space as there are many blogs focusing on those areas. I guess it’s a case of defining your audience beforehand and discovering how much discussion is taking place already.
* High end news – News that is new, unique and pretty significant to the audience you’re targeting and not just some afterthought to try and “get some online coverage”. Much the same as a traditional news release, smaller businesses will find it harder to generate coverage than, say, a FTSE100 or Fortune 500 company. Unless, of course, the smaller outfit has news of significance.
* Something that will generate a discussion or debate – Again, a bit of a no brainer but, hey, that’s what should make a good SMNR.
PR people get the concept
I really don’t want to sound like we’ve been trying to teach our granny to suck eggs but the people we’ve spoke with get the SMNR concept straight away. Excluding Paull and Constantin as they could write SMNR releases standing on their heads, but the other people we’ve done a SMNR for (and those who don’t necessarily have a primary focus in online PR) really didn’t need no coaching at all. It was a simple case of providing a link to an example and that was all.
I think this speaks volumes in terms of a potentially high take-up rate and the very fact that PR people are (for want of a better phrase) ‘getting it’ can only add to the cause.
The provision of multimedia is an issue
A few people we have spoke with say that collecting multimedia (mainly audio and video) is a problem. Some folks we spoke with are on tight turnarounds thus making an ‘as and when’ SMNR with multimedia almost impossible to do. Others claimed it’s hard to get the clearance on budget for multimedia content.
But we are living in a multimedia world as this week’s (ahem) PR Week suggests that journalists are looking for more multimedia content. To quote it from Todd Defren’s blog: “Newly published research indicates that 75 per cent of journalists would prefer to receive media-rich press releases than a standard email or Word file attachment.”
If that’s the trend then perhaps businesses should be allocating more money to create audio and video?
That’s pretty much it so far. It’s certainly been a huge learning experience for all involved and no doubt we’ll continue to learn more as time goes by.
Stay tuned!
technorati tags: social+media+news+release, smnr, webitpr, stephen+davies
Stephen is a communications consultant based out of the UK. You can connect with him on Twitter or check out his LinkedIn profile. | Email Stephen
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Karen
Stephen, thanks for the update. This is really helpful for those of us on the outside looking in.
Re: the lack of comments — maybe people would rather talk to each other than to an “organization” or a “news release.” That is, if you comment on an SMNR, who exactly are you talking to?
Stuart Bruce
The not wanting to comment is true on blogs as well as SMNR. On blogs people often email me comments, rather than wanting to coment on the blog.
Walker Hamilton
Does webitpr have an API so that new “press releases” can be created by a client’s content management system for their own site & then pushed to webitpr site automatically?
Paull Young
Great post mate.
The interesting thing I found is how different bloggers would react differently to different content – it’s all about the story, and offering content in interesting ways.
I talked with many bloggers about this project, and having an SMNR link to send them was always helpful. Some bloggers would link to just the YouTube vid I sent them, some the release, some would use our personal conversation and include their own thoughts.
However, by putting forward the information in a variety of styles, I gave them the option to have all their questions answered.
At the moment, a SMNR has many benefits as a tool for blogger relations, above and beyond a traditional release.
Constantin Basturea
Interesting post, Stephen! Karen’s comment brings up the problem of “socializing” the SMNR – there’s not much incentive to comment on a release if there’s no indication that someone will actually respond to your comments.
So here’s an idea: including a new field in the SMNR that will make clear who’s the person that will respond to the questions/comments on the release.
What do you think?
Kami Huyse
This is a great discussion and shows how things are changing in how information is disseminated. It seems to me that the true conversations will never occur at the SNMR, unless like Constantin says, there is some reason for it. In my work in PR, it seems that most departments are unwilling to do “customer service” work, they reserve themselves for media relations. Maybe there is a new role in companies that needs to be developed for the customer evangelist, or as I like to call it the Ombudsman, to engage in these conversations.
Thanks Stephen for sharing your experiences.
Stephen
Thanks for everyone’s comments!
Walker: Checked with our guys and it’s definitely doable. And it’s something we would look to do if there was demand for it.
Paull: Couldn’t agree more mate. That’s the beauty of the blogosphere. So many different opinions and preferences that it’s not a one size fits all. Some bloggers just want video and others just want facts whereas others want everything.
Karen, Stuart, Constantin & Kami: It’s a funny one isn’t it. What’s the saying? 10% comment while 90% lurk… Or words to that effect.
But, like Karen said, if people don’t know who they’re talking to then they’re less inclined to comment. We had a chat about Constantin’s idea today and we like it and it’s something we’re going to implement.
I flagged up a concern questioning how long can the designated respondent be available for comment?
What I mean by this is, say Company X puts out a SMNR with a designated respondent. How long can this person be available for comment after the release has gone out?
Would it be for as long as the release is available online? Or would you put a time cap on it – much like some bloggers do by turning of comments on older posts?
Thanks again!
Constantin Basturea
Stephen, glad you liked the idea! It makes sense to have someone available for comments response for a limited time (and that should be made clear in the release). A week it’s more than enough, IMO (by blogosphere standards, I’d say that 99% of the comments are posted in the first week after the entry goes live — unless, of course, the release is about a controversial issue, or an evolving controversial issue… but that probably is the exception, not the norm). After that time the person designated as a contact can be contacted by e-mail.
Walker Hamilton
Stephen, why isn’t there demand for it? If I could, I would create a component for cakePHP (or any of the number of frameworks & content management systems I’m using) so that clients wouldn’t have to double-post their press releases.
It would be a boon to P.R. departments and would make me a hero with my clients. They have me build new systems for them to reduce repetitive tasks. This is one I’m big on: One-time data entry.
I am in the process of building a Real-estate website. Getting access to real-estate listing site & service APIs was a must. The client enter the new listings in one place….they show up everywhere.
I really think that doing this for the P.R. world would be a “killer app”.
Walker Hamilton
Oh, also, in response to the “designated respondent availability” I would make that user-configurable. Simply a “date” that the “designated respondent” information stop showing up on that release. If you default it to something (never or a fixed # of days) you’re help the majority of people and the rest can go in and set the date they stop being available for responses.
Stephen
We’re on a roll!
Constantin: Something like:
CEO of Company X is available to comment on this SMNR for up to one week after the issue date. Time 09.00 – 17.00 PST
Following this time period all contact can be made via the contact details at the top of this release.
(or something like that)
I wonder if there’s a conflict due to having a designated spokesperson who’ll comment on the release but then having contact (agency contact, spokesperson etc) details at the top of the release itself?
Also, I wonder if we can get around commenting on the weekend? Some people (who obviously don’t work in online PR) like to take the weekends off.
Walker: Thanks again. We’re not sure if there is a demand for it or not as we’ve never looked into it (yet). And if there is, we’d do it (I’m presuming as I don’t make the final decisions).
I’ll get the guys back at HQ’s opinions on this as I’m not up to speed on CMS… at all! But your ‘one time data entry’ idea sounds good… and time saving.
The only issue I see is that we deal with large and small agencies. Meaning the smaller ones won’t have their own CMS.
Loads of food for thought!
Alex
Really interesting to hear how it is all developing.
On the commenting point, have you come across any sense of potential commenters not wishing to become part of the news themselves, and so maintaining an arms length?
Also, have you had any clients issuing SMNR in parallel with offline releases on the same topic, and have these supported each other if so? I would have thought that scenario would be an area where having rich media SMNR would really come into its own-offerring something discernibly enhanced for an online recipient.
Ian Green
Well I don’t mind stepping up to the crease and admitting that GREEN was one of Stephen’s guinea pigs.
We issued a SMNR on behalf of a techie client we are doing some project work for. I’ve been au fait with the SMNR release via the Social Media Club and some other developers in the UK for a while but many members of staff were a bit perplexed… until they saw the results.
We can generate the deadwood media no problem – but staff at GREEN were pleasantly surprised that the SMNR generated more than 34 online responses within 24 hours.
I agree with Stephen that this service will evolve and we might have to drag clients along with us – but 10/10 for Stephen and his team.
Stephen
Thanks Ian, mate.