NewCommForum: The Social Media Press Release

Chris Heuer hosted this panel with Todd Defren, Tom Foremski, Brian Solis, Laura Sturaitis, and George Vazquez.

Ah, the social media press release.  A topic of controversy finally emerges at the conference!

• Brian believes the format requires people to dissect the traditional release and remove all the BS
• Laura describes it as a "foundation document" not meant to do all things for all people
• Tom, of course, is famous for declaring the press release dead.  So he is passionate in calling for change.
• Todd thinks change is necessary to this critical tool and the SMPR is a good solution (he is one of the chief evangelists for the format)
• There is an SEO benefit to the SMPR
• Tom questions the value of PR wire services
• Chris says smaller or startup companies don't engage in official PR and prefer direct communication through blogs and such
• George says you need to use a PR wire service to meet disclosure requirements and to allow more people to see your message
• Brian says it is OK to use one release for the wires and an SMPR for bloggers
• Tom thinks disclosure requirements can be satisfied without wire service distribution.  Not surprisingly, Laura disagreed and warned people need to understand this is a legal issue and is very complex and that they should still use wires. 
• Chris mentioned the case of Emulex where a fake press release went out on the wires and caused major stock damage.
• A member of the audience questioned whether there is a case study to show how a social media press release was more successful than a traditional one.  Todd mentioned that one of his clients is Novell and on one day they put out 10 press releases, one in SMPR format.  He said it was the least newsworthy, but it got the most pickup by far.

Technorati tags: NewCommForum, New Communications Forum, Chris Heuer, Todd Defren, Tom Foremski, Brian Solis, Laura Sturaitis, George Vazquez, BusinessWire, PRNewswire, social media press release, press release

Comments

[Brian Solis]

Chip, thanks for attending and thanks for summarizing the panel.

Unfortunately, we didn't spend enough time talking about what it is and how it can work for the people in the room, in my opinion, if it wasn't that last panel of the day, it could have continued for hours.

We got derailed a bit talking about disclosure (which in my opinion isn't the driving factor for social media releases) and not enough time pointing to methods for use as well as why the tools are in there in the first place.

[Chip Griffin]

I agree with you on disclosure. It really has nothing to do with the SMPR as far as I can tell. I think one of the challenges of the topic is that the level of understanding among most in the room was non-existent, whereas the panel and a few audience members were deep into the intricacies of the debate.

I guess I come down as being intrigued by the SMPR though not fully sold on it yet. I'm keeping an open mind and want to think and learn about it more. But that's a discussion for another day, I suppose.