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Social Media waits for no one.  I returned from a quick vacation to see major developments for the Social Media Press Release.  Both were hugely gratifying and momentous in their own way...

First thing I saw was a press release put out by PRWeb with the Batmanesque title, "Holy SHIFT! PRWeb Plays Tag with Social Media."  In the announcement, PRWeb CEO David McInnis notes, "If you spend the time to create a press release following the template outlined by SHIFT Communications, all you have is an electronic document unless you have a distribution platform that supports its features. PRWeb is that platform."

Although I am not in cahoots or even in communication with PRWeb, the guy has a point.  SHIFT's template is just a guide.  As noted in an earlier post, the wire services have, to-date, been slow to adopt new technology standards for the Web 2.0 era, and their support represents a critical facet to the long-term adoption of the Social Media Press Release concept.

I still need to dig deeper into PRWeb's claims but I admit to being intrigued by their list of newly-announced features. In particular, it's the low-tech stuff that now interests me, e.g.:

"A new Technorati tagging widget has been incorporated into the (PRWeb) press release submission form, thereby streamlining the process of creating Technorati tags.  (Also,) the user interface includes a Tag Suggestion utility that analyzes press release content to facilitate the automatic generation of effective tags that match press release content and keyword density." 

Little touches will make all the difference in making this format more digestible to all comers.

The 2nd thing to catch my eye were the posts by Tom Foremski and Fleishman-Hillard's Chris Heuer about their effort to standardize the template for all PR pros.  Tom wisely notes:

"The PR companies are very competitive and won't take the lead from each other and so we will end up with a tower of babel of different labels/tags and different formats, and we won't be much better off than before."

His idea is to provide a "neutral platform" (via a Google Group) which will be led by Chris Heuer, where PR people can congregate to discuss/debate the format.  (Constantin Basturea provides a helpful link via his excellent NewPR Wiki --- which is where I originally suggested such a dialogue take place.)  I will join this group and add whatever value I can.

Tom's right that it might be tough to get PR agencies to collaborate, but I am hopeful that even if this particular effort does not gain traction, wire services like PRWeb, BusinessWire and PRNewswire will help lead the way, spurred by the PR industry's obvious interest in leveraging Social Media to tell better stories.

Tags: social+media, prweb, foremski, preee+release, marketing, PR, public+relations