The Social Media News Release

Over at MediaShift Mark Glaser has written a fascinating article about the latest trend in news releases…the social media news release. If you want to cut right to the chase, check out the image on the right to see what a SMNR might look like. According to Glaser, the venerable news release–the stock in trade tool of PR practitioners–is long past its prime. The all-to-obvious solution is to update the release to take advantage of the power of social media.

Glaser quotes Tom Foremski who had this to say about traditional press releases:

Press releases are nearly useless. They typically start with a tremendous amount of top-spin, they contain pat-on-the-back phrases and meaningless quotes…Press releases are created by committees, edited by lawyers, and then sent out at great expense through Business Wire or PRnewswire to reach the digital and physical trash bins of tens of thousands of journalists. This madness has to end. It is wasted time and effort by hundreds of thousands of professionals.

Strong words. But if these new-fangled news releases catch on, it means that PR practitioners will have to become more savvy about social media technologies such as RSS feeds and social aggregation tools. And as these news releases incorporate more and more rich media, i.e., digital audio and video, skill with digital media tools will also be necessary. If you’re preparing for a career in PR and thinking that your future includes faxing text press releases–you may want to think again.