Social Media Relations Are you ready for the

Social Media Relations Are you ready for the social media release and social media news room?

Past – where we started Present – where we are now Future – how you’re going to get there Flow First, let’s make sure we’re all on the same page.

Same Page Any online technology or practice that people use to share (content, opinions, insights, experiences, perspectives and media). Examples of social media applications: What is social media?

A few more examples

Where we started Past

Born in 1877, Ivy Lee is recognized for creating the first press release and considered to be the father of modern PR. He was retained by the Rockefeller family to provide PR counsel for Standard Oil. His biggest competitor was Edward Bernays, also considered one of the fathers of PR. Ivy Lee

On the morning of October 8, 1906, a Pennsylvania Railroad crash killed 50 people. That afternoon, Ivy Lee wrote the first press release and counseled his client to arrange for a special train to take reporters to the scene. It begat the... First Press Release

Impressed by the innovative approach, The New York Times printed the first press release verbatim on Oct. 30, 1906 as a "Statement from the Road." Both newspapers and public officials praised the Pennsylvania Railroad for its openness and honesty. First Clip

Six months later, coal operators hired Ivy Lee to represent them during a strike. So he mailed out the second press release. It was a… Second Press Release

“This is an ad disguised as a story!” “This is meant to manipulate the news!” Journalists got angry and expressed hostility. (Was this the beginning of the feudal relationship between media and PR?) In response, Ivy Lee wrote… Dismal Failure

Source: Cymfony AUDIENCE 100 Years of Media Relations Influence 1.0

Where we are Present

After 100 years, technology enabled new means of communication. Significant broadband penetration helped foster widespread growth of social media and made news an extremely volatile industry. This isn’t your mom’s news industry anymore… \\ 2.5 billion internet users worldwide (source: Internet World Stats 2012) \\ Swift changes being seen in newspaper readership habits \\ Major circulation and ad revenue declines \\ Newspapers testing new tactics (comments, popularity ranking, narrower pages) \\ Five of the top 10 visited websites are social (source: Alexa)

As news distribution and consumption trends evolve, so will the 100-year-old press release. These four are helping that r/evolution. It began with… The Evolution

On February 27, 2006, Tom Foremski, a former FT reporter who now blogs about business and culture in Silicon Valley, wrote an article titled Die! Press release! Die! Die! Die! He called press releases useless, delete on receipt documents with too much spin, pat-on-the-back phrases and meaningless quotes. He proposed a change, which lead to… The Public Outcry

On May 23, 2006, Todd Defren, principal at Boston-based SHIFT Communications, responded with a template for the social media press release (SMR). The new SMR featured RSS, sharing options, tags, bulleted news, multimedia elements, lots of links, etc. With the SMR, Todd is lobbying for the industry to democratize access, ensure accuracy, embrace context, build community and be findable. The template was widely embraced and supported… The Response

The Reasons \\ Bloggers and podcasters are legitimate PR targets – many exceed the reach of mainstream media \\ They have cheap technology tools to create, mix and mash-up their own multimedia news stories \\ Bloggers and traditional journalists prefer deconstructed content rather than being forced to sift through lengthy releases and playing “What’s the news here?” \\ Old media journalists are now fully adapted to using internet for research so you need to be online and search engine optimized \\ Bottom line: The way we influence has changed

AUDIENCE New Media Relations Influence 2.0 Source: Cymfony

Social media release = better coverage? PR Elements (well-written press release, quotes or interviews, images, audio, video, third-party sources, other relevant articles, etc.) Media Coverage (Hits) The Added Value

A Closer Look The social media release template

Democratize Access Ensure Accuracy Ensure Accuracy Ensure Accuracy

Embrace Context Embrace Context Embrace Context

Build Community Build Community Build Community Build Community

Power to the People Case study

   Power to the People Case study

  Power to the People Case study

Power to the People Case study

Power to the People Case study

Power to the People Case study

Building your social media release and news room Future

Building Your SMR Menu of tools Web-based Video capturing Video editing

Many newswire services offer social media releases or social media elements that can be added to your typical press release distribution: \\ RSS subscriptions \\ Technorati tags \\ Del.icio.us bookmarking \\ Digg it \\ Multimedia add-ons \\ Comments However, the best place for conversations to take place is on your corporate site. Building Your SMR Adding the elements

The Corporate Newsroom

The Corporate Newsroom

The Corporate Newsroom Alternative - use a blog engine

The Corporate Newsroom RSS Subscriptions Categories (Tags) Sharing and Bookmarking Suggested Reading (Context) Video Links And Embeds (YouTube) Archives By Month Built-in Search

Final Thoughts \\ The SMR doesn’t replace the traditional release \\ The SMR fosters your relationship with bloggers \\ The SMR template is just that – a template \\ Consider a hybrid traditional-SMR release \\ The tools surrounding it make it social \\ Let the conversation happen at corporate site \\ Consider a blog engine newsroom \\ You still need news and interesting information