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Everybody already knows that when Hollywood decides to make a movie about the Rise of Social Media, Phillip Seymour Hoffman is a shoe-in to play Robert Scoble. 

But what about some of the other “stars” of Social Media?

If I were in charge of the casting, I’d pay top dollar to lock down Jason Schwartzman to play Digg’s Kevin Rose.

Technorati’s David Sifry?  How about Will Ferrell?

Starting to seem like a pretty decent flick, eh?  Who else would you cast?

UPDATE:  Clean up Donal Logue to play Michael Arrington?

And if we base it just on looks alone, can you deny a slight resemblance between Jason Calacanis and Lance Bass?

Posted by Todd Defren at 10:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (6)

Got a call this week from a PR person looking for advice re: Social Media Releases.  It was a pretty frustrating conversation for me.

They were under the impression that using news bullets and including “lots of links” & multimedia automatically turned a traditional release into a Social Media Release.  Strike One.

They were not planning on issuing the release through any news wire, nor were they going to publish the release to their own website.  It was only going to journalists, by email.  Strike Two.

They were just going to paste the HTMLified release into an email and blast it – without customization, a personal note, etc. – to 100+ editors.  Strike Three.

Regarding Strike #1 - It’s true that the SMNR template calls for news bullets, HTML, and multimedia.  But what makes the SMNR “social” is the ability to find it, share it, comment on it, view it within the context of tangential conversations via Technorati, etc.  Which leads to …

Regarding Strike #2 – If the release is never published to the Web (directly or via the wires), then Google can’t find it; T’rati can’t find it; the people who might care about the news can’t find it.  That’s not very sociable…

Regarding Strike #3 – Indiscriminate e-mail blasts of press releases is nothing more than SPAM, and lazy practices like these give the PR profession a bad name.  Instead of sending that release to 100 names on a list, how about reading the last 5–or-so articles from the top 15 reporters (or bloggers) who might actually care about this news, and then lovingly crafting a personal and compelling note that might motivate them to ask for the release?

For what it’s worth, I tried to guide this PR person toward some better practices, and did so in gentle tones.  Luckily there wasn’t a baseball bat in my office at the time.

Posted by Todd Defren at 09:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (8)

This blog and others have talked about the pitfalls of reputation management in a world in which everything is stored forever in searchable online databases. 

But leave it to the NYTimes’ Thomas Friedman to nail it – powerfully & succinctly - in his editorial today (sub req), “The Whole World is Watching.”

As part of Friedman’s review of the new book by Dov Seidman, How: Why How We Do Anything Means Everything...in Business (and in Life), he says:

 “Companies that get their hows wrong won’t be able to just hire a P.R. firm to clean up the mess by a taking a couple of reporters to lunch — not when everyone is a reporter and can talk back and be heard globally.

“But this also creates opportunities. Today ‘what’ you make is quickly copied and sold by everyone.  But ‘how’ you engage your customers, ‘how’ you keep your promises and ‘how’ you collaborate with partners — that’s not so easy to copy, and that is where companies can now really differentiate themselves.

“‘When it comes to human conduct there is tremendous variation, and where a broad spectrum of variation exists, opportunity exists,’ writes Seidman. ‘The tapestry of human behavior is so varied, so rich and so global that it presents a rare opportunity, the opportunity to outbehave the competition.’”

It’s that idea about “outbehaving the competition” that nailed it for me.  It’s not enough to build a better mousetrap.  When everyone is a publisher; when every comment, article & blog post exists online forever, then it’s the responsibility of the company to monitor, participate, evangelize, admit & fix errors, etc., better than the other guy.

We can argue that that model is near-impossible to scale.  But the good guys will find a way.

Posted by Todd Defren at 02:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

The conundrum of facing up to “where conversations should happen” (as discussed last week) is particularly relevant for news releases, and specifically those releases published via the new, SEO-oriented newswires like PRX Releases (run by my friend Shannon Whitley) and the U.K.-based webitpr.

PRXReleases is an offshoot of PRXBuilder – a WYSIWYG way to auto-create Social Media News Releases, based on the original SHIFT template.  According to Shannon,

“With PRX Releases, you automatically receive the following services:

·    Optional comment tracking for each release. Engage your readers by allowing comments on your news releases.

·    Social media badges for services like Digg, del.icio.us, and Newsvine.

·    Full WYSIWYG editing of your HTML release with the ability to add content from services like YouTube and Veoh.”

Shannon goes on to describe the SEO benefits that come along with posting a news release to PRXReleases, and acknowledges the conundrum of “Where should conversations happen?”

“Yes, you’ll be directing traffic to PRX Releases instead of your own site, but think about this: Is your primary goal to get people to see your release?  If your site is new or isn’t well-indexed, the chances of your release being found is very small.” 

PRXBuilder also offers the option of issuing releases directly through PRNewswire, for those companies straddling the “2.0” & “traditionalist” fence.

Webitpr’s new service (check out their first release – it’s a good-looking way to highlight some very good news) is also based on the SHIFT template, according to their boilerplate.  Webitpr will give its clients the option of hosting on either their own domain or at the client’s site, and also provides the option of turning-on & moderating comments from registered users.

I’ll write more about both of these vendors in the future, meanwhile, both are worth checking out.

UPDATE:  webitpr just posted more info on their SMNR. 

Posted by Todd Defren at 09:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I vividly recall sitting in our San Francisco office, 3 years ago today, discussing with my friend & colleague, Parry Headrick, whether or not I should get on-board with “this blogging stuff.”

He was an advocate.  “This is the future.  This can be our voice.  Maybe it won’t pan out, but it’s worth a shot.”

I was not convinced.  I could rattle off 10–or-so ideas for blog posts, but then quickly ran out of steam.  “Let’s say I post those 10 ideas – at a rate of at least 2 posts per week, this blog will be dead in about a month.”

Parry knew better.  As one of the handful of people who was forced to hear me whirl through a dozen whacko ideas a day (and who could also contribute his fair share), he had a good feeling I’d “come up with something.”  Thanks, Parry.  You were right.

So here we are, 3 years later. 

The Social Media News Release is an on-going topic of interest.  The PR 2.0 stuff overall continues to gain steam: in fact, it’s now woven into virtually every program at our agency, and most other firms & inside marketers are also wading in.  This blog has proven to be fairly popular.  (It is also now a significant contributor to our sales funnel; it is commonly referenced by prospects.  Yet another validation that “blogging is good for business.”)

Most importantly, I’ve made a lot of new friends.  These are folks who I rarely (if ever!) see or speak with “live.”  And even then, it’s usually at a conference.  But I still count them as friends.  We communicate with each other; we read and ponder each other’s deep-thoughts about our industry; we argue; we tease; we joke; we support and applaud each other; we circle around the occassional business-plan together.  Every time any one of these people reach out to me, whether through the blog, Twitter, or email, I am genuinely delighted.  That makes ‘em friends, in my book.

Working on PR-Squared has been inspirational to me.  This blog thrust me down the Social Media path, even as that path was first being hacked through the impenetrable weeds of the “1.0 Era.”  It’s been a journey of discovery that rekindled a belief that we PR pros are capable of greatness.  And that’s a feeling that comes from interacting with great people.

Thanks, all.  Really.

Posted by Todd Defren at 08:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (12)

Where should conversations take place?

In a recent post, I noted that most news releases are not seen in their original format – they are re-purposed by various sites.  The same is true of blog posts: a blogger’s work is often re-posted in the ubiquitous “Links of the Week” posts of their fellow online authors; or, the blogger’s post is picked up by digg/reddit/newsvine; or, their post drives a meme in which other bloggers respond and react in their own forums.

But when a blog post or news release is re-purposed – say, on digg – these aggregators are not only collecting & voting on news; they also serve as community hubs ... And thus – as Allen Stern persuasively railed back in January – the blogger or corporation whose content is featured on digg may not benefit in terms of traffic, nor in terms of building their own community, at the original source of the content.  (Google adds to the challenge, due to its algorithm’s high regard for Digg results.) 

Maybe that’s okay?  Maybe the “discontinuous conversation” is part-and-parcel of the Social Media Era? 

Certainly few content-creators complain, as Allen did, about being dugg!

Still, this could become an issue for PR agencies and brand managers.  Keeping tabs on the conversations could become exponentially more difficult as these aggregators proliferate.  And, the loss-of-control that we’re already facing up to in the Marketing Industry could extend to giving up on the idea that original, unique content will drive traffic and community.

That doesn’t mean we give up on creating great content; it means we give up trying to influence where that content gets used & discussed.

Community happens.  And the community members get to decide “where.”  If our content finds its way into their treehouses, that’s great, but they’re not going to climb outta the trees to re-create their community & dialogue where we’d want them to.

Posted by Todd Defren at 11:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

A colleague directed me to this article about AT&T’s implicit refusal to market the $10 DSL subscription plan that the FCC forced them to create via a decree in 2006 (when they merged with BellSouth). 

From the article: 

“…(The) interesting fact is that (AT&T) launched it without any sort of announcement, or fanfare. The reasons could be any number of things, but the one that is being pointed out the most is that they were forced to create the service and offer the service, but no one said they had to market it.”

The article goes on to depict the significant amount of detective work that a typical consumer would need to go through, before finding any evidence of the $10 subscription plan.  Truly lame.

Speaking as someone who has had nuthin’ but trouble from the likes of AT&T, Comcast, SBC, et al., over the years (something along these lines, and I know thousands of people can relate), I would love to see an outcry spawn from the grassroots level.

I wonder what would happen if the blogging community noisily took up the case: if the blogosphere demanded that AT&T adhere to the spirit of the FCC decree, not just to the letter of the law. 

Anyone up for a meme?  I suggest ATT$10 as a T’rati tag.

(Engadget also covered this “surreptitious” move by AT&T.  That’s a good start!)

Posted by Todd Defren at 02:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

A convergence of factoids and experiences over the past few days…  Enterprise 2.0 is currently underway…  I read an interesting article in TechTarget about the rise of Web 2.0 tools within corporations…  And, today I attended a “Thought Leadership Forum” in Boston (hosted by VMS), in which some attendees in the Healthcare industry weighed in quite thoughtfully on the perils of the blogosphere.  

The essence of both the TechTarget article and the Enterprise 2.0 show seems to be that the 2.0 “stuff” is finding its way into corporations without any direct guidance or acknowledgment of the IT groups. 

The TechTarget article cited an IDC survey in which ~45% of corporate respondents are at least experimenting with blogs, RSS, wikis, etc. 

But according to an anecdotal survey of the 60–odd corporate IT managers who were learning of the study, “exactly zero raised a hand when asked how many currently worked at a company that uses any Web 2.0 technologies.”

This reminds me of an apocryphal tale about the rise of the PC in Corporate America: many users knew that the PC would be a boon to their workaday efforts, but there was not an IT budget in those days … so they’d requisition a desk so that they could instead surreptitiously purchase a desktop PC!

Web 2.0 is invading Corporate America and will not be stopped.  Users are creating wikis, willy-nilly clicking .exe files on MySpace pages, testing out cool new widgets for their browsers, etc.  Hopefully this will not create a fresh wave of security breaches!

The challenges are bigger than Technology, too.  Consider my beleaguered Healthcare colleagues at today’s roundtable:  These were thoughtful people, and professional communicators, who intuit the value of conversations with all stakeholders … But, the blogosphere still scares the heck out of ‘em.  And for good reason. 

Here’s a sample of the horror stories …

• One hospital hosted a blog platform for patients, under their own brand … and found that patients who blogged about their treatments would find their physicians’ prognoses and therapies second-guessed by commenters.  Some of those comments could be valuable… but some could just as easily convince the blogger (or other readers) to try alternative medical approaches (including some whacky ones).  Since these blogs and comments were hosted/branded by the hospital, issues of malpractice could easily crop up!

• Another horror story:  clinical trial patients who un-blind a blind study by blogging publicly about the pills they are experimenting with, the side effects, etc.  It takes billions of dollars to run a successful clinical trial: a set-back like this one could keep a promising drug off the market if it tampers with the pharmaceutical company’s risk/reward assumptions of the trial process. 

• Yet another: if you find yourself laid-up in the hospital next to a blogger, they could inadvertently expose your identity and condition as they recount their own stay.  That’s a HIPAA violation, for which the hospital could be held accountable.

The interactive tools and self-publishing capabilities of the Web 2.0 world are amazing and the benefits far outweigh the perils.  I certainly don’t want to sound like Chicken Little, since I am a big advocate for “all things 2.0.”  But it would be irresponsible to not admit that we still have almost as much to worry about as to crow about.

Posted by Todd Defren at 12:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

This week has seen a lot of shake-ups in the mainstream media. 

A massacre at CMP was announced yesterday, with several publications shuttering and journalists’ fates left in limbo. 

Today, major shake-ups declared at the WSJ.

According to a former Boston Globe employee who visited us yesterday, these upheavals can be traced all the way back to the first Iraq War in the early 90’s. 

It was during this conflict that TV and the Internet made hardcopy journalism nearly superfluous.  The hard news was happening in real-time (“watch a missile strike, from the nose-cone of the missile itself!”).  The daily paper became a place for reasoned analysis & recaps, a place to read about yesterday’s news.  And reasoned analysis doesn’t sell well in our hurry-hurry culture.

Since then, of course, TV and the Internet have continued to evolve, to be ever more visceral and impactful.  Embedding journalists with combat troops?  How could a Gray Lady compete with that kind of excitement? 

On the Internet front, I’d argue that few publications have shown an interest in making their Internet sites anything more than a re-purposing of hardcopy content.  Innovation exists, but is sparse.  This is only now starting to change, and with all due respect to the management of these afflicted publications, perhaps this week’s shake-ups are evidence of a necessary change of mindset? 

As noted in the NYT article about the WSJ tempest: “Dow Jones described the changes as a major step toward ‘the integration of The Journal’s print and online news operations’ into a seamless whole - a transition that most news organizations are grappling with.”

These going’s-on mean many things to PR pros...

• Almost all journalists will be shaken up a bit, even if they don’t work at the affected publications.  It could be seen as a sign of “more to come” in the journalism field.  PR pros should be sensitive to this, for the short-term.
• In a June 12 article in the NYTimes, outgoing PM Tony Blair attacked the media landscape:
• Mr. Blair dwelled on changes in news reporting, including the impact of websites on traditional newspapers and broadcasters and the introduction of a rolling 24-hour news cycle, to complain that “the media are facing a hugely more intense form of competition than anything they have ever experienced before … The result is a media that increasingly and to a dangerous degree is driven by ‘impact.’ Impact is what matters. It is all that can … get noticed. Impact gives competitive edge… (Accuracy is) secondary to impact.
• What this means?  Fewer publications and more competition for the table scraps could mean that the media we deal with become increasingly focused on edgy, cool stuff; celebrity-related crapola; leaks; controversy … it could even happen at the InformationWeek level
• Longer-term, less pubs = less opportunities for coverage.  Our jobs just got a bit harder.
• Less mainstream pubs could also mean that it’s time for some clients to take a harder look at opportunities in the blogosphere. 

Posted by Todd Defren at 09:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

As noted in earlier posts, I’ve been meeting with representatives of the Big Wires to discuss the Social Media News Release’s progress at 1 year.  Rather than post it all in one big write-up, I’m breaking up some of what I’ve learned into smaller chunks.  (Also, I still have a couple of meetings left to do.)

I heard good stuff.  I heard from PRNewswire, for example, that they’ve had “literally hundreds of conversations with agencies & corporations about the Social Media Release.”  I met a guy yesterday whose sole job is to talk to agencies and corporations about Social Media in general, and SMNRs in particular!

I heard interesting stuff.  I heard about how each of the Big Wire services has removed barriers to their content, in the past year or so.  No more need to sign-in to their sites as a credentialed journalist in order to access news release content.  Just pay ‘em a visit and hit up the Search box for what you are looking for, whether you are with the Wall Street Journal or Wally’s Wonderblog.  “Democratizing Access” is one of the core principles of the SMNR.

I also heard troubling stuff. 

For as much progress as the Big Wires have made in terms of embracing Social Media (in word and in deed), there are some facts that PR pros and SMNR evangelists need to realize:

• The Social Media “tags” associated with the SMNRs distributed by the wire services only exist at the wires’ own websites.  In other words, the links for del.icio.us, digg, et al. that you see appended to the bottom of a release like this one, only appear at this wire site (in this case, at the Marketwire.com domain). 
• The same goes for ALL the wire services.  None of the wire services can automatically ensure inclusion of Social Media-related links.
• The news content – the words – are being distributed to thousands of “downstream” services like Comtex, the AP Wire, etc., but generally without these social tags. 
• Why?  Cuz these downstream news outlets don’t want yer stinkin’ social media tags.  They’ll add ‘em themselves, maybe, but that’s their call.  (Some of ‘em want straight ASCII text.)

• Meanwhile, the pictures and multimedia are being sent to places like the AP Photo Wire and to video distribution outlets like YouTube.  “Cool,” you think, “The wires are pushing my video content to YouTube!?” 
• Yep, but, the YouTube “user” publishing the content is not the newsmaker but the wire services, as seen here (MultiVu is PRNewswire’s multimedia service). 
• Of course, that doesn’t preclude the newsmaker from posting their videos to YouTube on their own, as well.

So … whether your SMNR appears on any other site with the Social Media tags is dependent on whether those “downstream” distribution outlets (MarketWatch, Yahoo Finance, et al.) decide to add features like Digg, del.icio.us, email-a-friend, etc., to their own sites.  The wires have no control over this situation.

Why is this important?  Because according to all of the wire execs I met, fewer than 10% of the online population look at press releases at the wire service’s sites.  Most people – most bloggers – see press releases in a re-purposed format, at any one of thousands of different places across the web.

Which leads me to these interim suggestions for SMNRs:

• Go ahead, create and post a Social Media News Release on a major newswire’s site.  It will ensure a high-quality version of the SMNR exists on a credentialed site that is well-regarded by the Search Engines. 
• Doing so also ensures that the core content (the news, if not all the fun stuff) will be distributed to thousands of downstream outlets.

• Re-purpose the release, in all its Social Media glory, in the newsmaker’s own corporate newsroom (you should enable moderated comments, trackbacks, and other “social” features like del.icio.us, Digg, et al.).  More so than anything else, the SMNR is about enabling conversations between companies and their stakeholders: these conversations should ideally spawn at their own website, not at “_____wire.com.”

• If you do issue an SMNR via the Big Wires, you should use the resulting GoogleJuice to your advantage:  be sure to include a link in the wire version of the release to the corporate newsroom version of the release.  This requires asking a favor of your webmaster (“tell me the permalink in advance”), if PR doesn’t already manage the newsroom content online.

More to come in the weeks ahead…

Posted by Todd Defren at 05:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

I hope you’ll bear with me as a I crow about three amazing pieces of news about SHIFT (after which I will crumple into an exhausted heap). 

First off – we recently won the Agency Of Record honors for the RealNetworks account, but only just today shepherded the release to the wires, so up ‘til now I haven’t been able to discuss it.  A picture of the “signing ceremony” marks this post.

Our first big assignment has been announcing the new RealPlayer.  Way cool.  The new RealPlayer can download almost any type of video from the web, so people can create their own media libraries, and burn CDs (or DVDs, in the Plus version) of video content for offline viewing, much as they would burn a music mix for their friends.  This capability is already making waves among content providers, DRM advocates, other tech companies, etc. – which just makes the PR assignment more interesting.

But for the purposes of this blog post, I wanted to mention the Elephant In The Room.  It’s going to be the single biggest hurdle to regain Real’s momentum.  Let’s face it: over the years, Real made some fundamental mis-steps in user experience design.  There was too much up-sell involved in the installation processes; and there were pop-ups and opt-out issues galore.

The good news is that the team at Real groks these issues.  They admit it.  But they also have mended much of their past practices with the new stuff, and committed to continuing on this trail. 

Because Real execs were ready to face the music, the SHIFT team felt good about driving outreach to the blogosphere.  More importantly, we urged Real to create their own RealPlayer Blog, and, we’ve been helping them monitor users’ comments at other blogs, so that their product team could respond personally.  These were new practices for the PR and product teams at Real, but they embraced it fully.

Initially there was a lot of pent-up anger about Real’s past practices.  But slowly, inexorably, we’ve seen a growing chorus of people in the media and blogosphere who have tried (and liked!) the RealPlayer beta; who have given Real some credit for acknowledging their past mistakes; who are excited by the innovations of the new product; who are wondering “what’s next.” 

Our work is just beginning, but I can tell you from personal experiences – forged over the past few weeks of PR spadework – that the folks in Real’s Seattle HQ are truly nice, caring, smart people who are committed to moving the storyline from “rehabilitation” to “relevance” to “rockstar supernova.”  We’re glad to be along for that ride.

(If you wanna get a taste of the new RealPlayer, let me know.  I have 3 beta accounts to give away.  Let me know in the Comments section, and be sure to leave me your email address.)

Second piece of big news?  SHIFT Communications was named AGENCY OF THE YEAR at the American Business Awards gala, last night in NYC.  We bested both august firms such as MWW and Manning, Selvage & Lee as well as up-and-comers like Peppercom.  This felt like a major validation.  We were honored to be named as a Finalist, and thrilled to actually take home the prize.

Third and final piece of good news?  We also won 2 BellRinger Awards last night in Boston!  Wow.  These awards, sponsored by the Publicity Club of New England, have been around for 38 years.  Winners are based on peer-reviewed case studies of client projects, which makes victory all the sweeter.

Basically, I am not going to be able to sleep for the rest of the week.  I am vibrating with pride.  I feel truly blessed to be working with such an amazing group of dedicated, smart, funny, forward-thinking people.

Thanks to everyone – to my amazing wife and kids, ma & pa, my business partners, my blog’s small cadre of loyalists, to our clients (of course) – and most of all, thank-you to all to the superstars of SHIFT.  If the first 6 months are any indication, the rest of 2007 will be humbling & awesome.  

Posted by Todd Defren at 06:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (12)

Every now and then, a friend or colleague says something that makes you want to slap your forehead – how could you not have figured THAT out on your own?? 

Such a moment struck me at the NewComm Forum event a few months back, where I was a co-panelist with Brian Solis, blogger at PR 2.0.  In discussing the SMNR, Brian said something to the effect of:

“Done right, a Social Media Release is really nothing more than a blog post.”

He’s dead-on.  Think about it: 

• A blog post provides the forum for content (the news) …
• A blog post provides widgets for sharing this content (via social bookmarking, email, etc.) …
• A blog post provides a forum for interaction with interested stakeholders (people, prospects, partners, et al.), in a (moderated) Comments section …
• A blog post provides for trackbacks, etc., so that interested parties can get a sense for how the news is being received and discussed throughout the wider Web …
• A blog post aids the SEO of the blog’s host organization …

In essence, we put the cart before the horse.  We should have released the Social Media Newsroom before the Social Media News Release template.  The true value of the SMNR can only be best realized when it is hosted by the corporate issuer of the news.

Which leads me back to the challenge of the Wire Services.  The wire services may well continue to be the best way to issue news, but they will likely never be integral to Social Media, because in this New Era, a press release posted on a wire service’s website is ultimately in the wrong place to have a lasting impact on the brand.

Take a look at the SMNR issued today by Hewlett-Packard … 

Oh, wait – before you click the link, please do take 2 seconds to think to yourself, “WHOA!  Freakin’ H-P put out a Social Media News Release?!!?” 

OK, we’re back – think about this SMNR from H-P: it looks great (kudos, MarketWire); it contains the bells-and-whistles we’ve come to expect from a SMNR.  BUT …

• You can’t comment on the release here … and if you could, would H-P’s execs have moderater rights?
• You wouldn’t be able to see trackbacks to this specific news here …
• You can’t think that this release would have a substantive impact on H-P’s Search Engine Optimization … In fact, unless I’m missing something, if a zillion bloggers & journalists were to link to this release, the SEO benefit would accrue more to MarketWire than to Hewlett-Packard.

Talking to Shel Holtz and Brian the other day in the New Media Release podcast, we talked about a hybrid approach: we theorized that the wire services could be the place to issue “straight-up” text-based news, and that corporations would use their own websites to post Social Media-friendly versions of the same news.

That’s not a bad approach.  Just different from what we’d all originally envisioned.  Viva La Evolución!

Posted by Todd Defren at 10:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (12)

What a year it’s been. 

The SHIFT template for Social Media News Releases (inspired by Tom Foremski of Silicon Valley Watcher) made its debut on May 23^rd last year. 

Among other projects, I’ve been using the last week or so to ponder “where we’re at,” one year later.

First, some perspective.  The SMNR is 1–year old.  The traditional press release – and the infrastructure, processes, and expectations that surround it – has been calcifying for 100 years.  So, progress of any sort can be lauded as a near-miracle. 

Recent weeks have seen some nice case studies, and some cool new releases (from major brands, no less!).  Also, I’ve recently been asked to present about the SMNR to a FORTUNE 1000 company.  These developments give me great hope that progress will continue, and momentum will build.

There have been frustrations, too, however. 

I have come to the conclusion that the wire services just “don’t get it” yet.  I want to give them the benefit of the doubt, but I can recall too many instances when a client or colleague has reached out to inform me that developing a SMNR with the wires’ account reps has been a major hassle (and/or too expensive). 

It’s my opinion that the large wire services have too much invested in the Old Way of doing things to properly embrace the SMNR. 

By their nature, as mainstream distributors of news content, the wires obsess over the Lowest Common Denominator: because a smattering of news outlets can only accept straight-text feeds (links? pictures? videos? no way!), then the Big Wires must kowtow to those laggards.

Meanwhile, there’s a training issue.  Having spoken to C-level execs at the Big Wires, I know that these guys understand the Social Media wave that’s crashed up against the gates.  They can talk the talk.  But call an average schmoe at the account rep level, and they still appear to be hardwired to think about “mainstream media needs” vs. “the wider community.” 

When one of our clients wanted to pay for broadcast-quality video to accompany their SMNR, the account rep from the Big Wires was baffled.  “The journalist can just call us if they want the quality B-roll; why wouldn’t you just post (blurry, crappy) ‘Web-quality’ videos with the release?”

“The journalist can just call us…”  It’s easy to get frustrated by such cluelessness, but, again, remember we’re butting up against 100 years of history.

I have arranged meetings with some of the top dogs at each of the major wire services, in the next 2 weeks.  I’ll be asking them for their own take on “The State of the SMNR” and will report back here.  For what it’s worth, I am hoping for a candid dialogue.  I am sure that they have scores of stories to tell about their own SMNR victories and frustrations, and I’ll be an eager audience!  Let me know if you have any questions of your own? 

More ponderings on the 1–year anniversary of the SMNR coming soon.

Posted by Todd Defren at 03:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (9)

I know, I know – been a little light on the blogging front lately.  Busy, busy.  I tried to give ya’ll 3 pretty juicy posts last week, though!  Hope you liked ‘em.  Got some good stuff brewing for the next few weeks, too.  Please stay tuned.

Meanwhile, some housecleaning: I am tardy in adding my voice to the chorus of folks who have praised David Meerman Scott’s new book, The New Rules of Marketing & PR.

It’s a good book – and I am not just saying that because David was kind enough to profile some of our agency’s work.  It’s a well-timed, well-written, user-friendly introduction to the changing face of media and marketing.  You should buy it.

Here are the many fabulous bloggers who helped David with the book.  You should check them all out, too, when you can.  I did, and now have some new RSS feeds to catch up on!

Robert Scoble Scobleizer
Adele Revella Buyer Persona Blog
Joe Wikert Publishing 2020 blog
Steve Johnson
David McInnis
Mark Levy
David Hamm
Mike Levin
Colin Delaney epolitics
Steve Goldstein Alacrablog
Todd Van Hoosear
George L Smyth Eclectic Mix
Mark Effinger
Michelle Manafy EContent magazine
Kevin Rose Diggnation
Grub Street Writers
Dave Armon
Britton Manasco
Jordan Behan
Nettie Hartsock
John Havens
John Blossom ContentBlogger
Larry Schwartz Newstex
Steve Smith
Melanie Surplice
Nate Wilcox
Ian Wilker
Cody Baker
Dianna Huff
Brian Carroll
Ken Doctor
Jonathan Kranz
Barry Graubart
Steve O’Keefe
Ted Demopoulos
Debbie Weil
Paul Gillin
Matt Lohman
Seth Godin
Rob O’ Regan
Steve Rubel Micro Persuasion
Paul Gillin
Joan Stewart The Publicity Hound
Dave Schmidt Word Currency
Glenn Nicholas Small Business Inspiration
Mac McIntosh B2B Sales Lead Expert
Jill Konrath Selling to Big Companies
Guy Kawasaki How to Change the World
Court Bovée and John Thill Business Communication Headline News
Grant D. Griffiths Kansas Family Law Blog
Robin Crumby The Melcrum Blog
Jim Peake My Success Gateway
Eli Singer Refreshing the Daily Grind
Duane Brown Imagination+Innovation
Scott Monty The Social Media Marketing Blog
Ian Lamont
Blog Campaigning
Rich at Copywrite Ink
John Lustina SEO Speedwagon
Adam Tinworth OneMan+HisBlog
Dave Schmidt Word Currency
Scott Clark Finding the Sweet Spot
Amanda Chapel Strumpette
Jennifer Veitenheimer reinventjen
Morty Schiller Wordrider
Matthias Hoffmann the power of news
Erin Caldwell’s PRblog
Ferrell Kramer Talking Communications
Anita Campbell Selling to Small Businesses
Rugjeff
Karl Ribas’ Search Engine Marketing Blog
Tony D. Baker Advanced Marketing Techniques
Tom Pick The WebMarketCentral Blog
Tina Lang-Stuart
Bryan Eisenberg Jeffrey Eisenberg Robert Gorell and the rest of the team at Grok Dot Com
Michele Miller WonderBranding
Publicity Ship Blog
The Media Slut
Brad Shorr Word Sell
Sasha Where Business Meets the Web
Ellee Seymour ProActivePR
Chris Kenton The Marketers’ Consortium
Paul Young Product Beautiful
By Ron Miller
Michael Morton
James D. Brausch
Janet Meiners Newspapergrl
Andrew B. Smith The New View From Object Towers
Cristian Mezei SeoPedia
Jim Nail Cymfony’s influence 2.0
Denise Wakeman and Patsi Krakoff The Blog Squad
Forward Blog
Ben Argov
Zane Safrit Duct Tape Marketing—Business Life
Will McInnes Online Marketing Guide
Robbin Steif LunaMetrics
Mike Boss
Marc Gunn Music Promo Blog
Nancy E. Schwartz Getting Attention
Kami Watson Huyse Communications Overtones
Todd Defren PR Squared (this guy’s actually kind of a doofus)
Michael Stelzner Writing White Papers
Dee Rambeau Adventures in Business Communications
Glenn Fannick Read Between the Mines
Owen Lystrup Into PR
Morgan McLintic
Mark Batterson Evotional
Jay Coffelt
John Richardson
Robin Good MasterNewMedia
Shel Israel Naked Conversations
Robert J. Ricci Son-of-a-Pitch
Mike Sigers Simplenomics
Dan Greenfield Bernaisesource
Brian Clark copyblogger
Lee Odden TopRank Online Marketing Blog
David Weinberger
Carson McComas
The FutureLab blog
John Bradley Jackson Be First Best or Different
Wired PR Works by Barbara Rozgonyi
Mark Goren Transmission
John Wall Ronin Marketer
MarketingProfs Daily Fix Blog
John Koetsier bizhack
Steve Kayser Squareballs Entertainment
James Robertson's Smalltalk Blog
Linas Simonis
Dale Wolf The Perfect Customer Experience
Eric Mattson Marketing Monger
Scott Sehlhorst Tyner Blain
Seeds of Growth blog
Hugo E. Martin
David Phillips leverwealth
Terry Affiliate Marketing Blog
Gavin Heaton Servant of Chaos
Mark White Better Business Blogging
Eric Eggertson Common Sense PR
Michelle Golden Golden Practices
Liz Strauss
Tony Valle Small Business Radio
Chris Heuer’s Idea Engine
David Evans The Progress Bar
Todd Andrlik The Power to Connect
The New PR Wiki
NewPR
Pelle Braendgaard Stake Ventures
Lisa Banks Search Engine Optimization Eblog
Chris Brown Branding & Marketing
Graeme Thickins Tech-Surf-Blog
Ardath Albee Marketing Interactions
Lauren Vargas Communicators Anonymous
Lori Smart Lemming
Dane Morgan
Jason Leister Computer Super Guy
Bill Trippe
Jason Eiseman Jason the Content Librarian
Reuben Steiger Millions of Us
Taran Rampersad Know Prose
John Richardson Success Begins Today
Valentin Pertsiya Brand Aid
Bill Belew Rising Sun of Nihon
Joe Beaulaurier An Ongoing Press Release
David Koopmans Business of Marketing and Branding
Chris Anderson The Long Tail
Roger C. Parker Design to Sell

Posted by Todd Defren at 12:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (11)