Been experimenting with SMR’s fairly aggressively. Five releases in the last couple months. Commented about some of the issues on Brian Solis’ blog – http://www.briansolis.com/2008/02/social-media-releases-in-action.html

That post covers a lot of issues we’re (me, myself and one other person) trying to figure out – tracking, measurement, value, downstream display, etc. Building data, getting comments and feedback. No problem with moderated comments here. I find the comments valuable and helpful. If, and when, I get the occasional “Richard Cranium” who blasts or attacks our company – no problem. It’s a very small minority. If you have thin skin, probably not the way to go.

COUPLE SMR EXPERIMENTS

Had the opportunity to use two SMR’s (more multi-media than SMR actually, but close) in an event we hosted. A major college MBA Business Plan Competition with 14 colleges (sorta like the NCAA tourney). The release content was not great, not particularly good, but functional. Since the opportunity was there, we decided to push the limits for the multimedia portion of one of he news release.

1st Release

The announcement of the contest topped around 6,300 links in the first 24 hrs as tracked in the Marketwire PRstats™ – described as “the current number of locations of this press release listed in.” One of our earlier SMR’s topped 19,000 links… bloggers drove that. Question is, what value do you attribute to that number? How do you get your arms around it to measure and analyze? It’s impressive looking. No doubt. And it’s dynamic. Changes every hour. But eventually we need to translate that into some action that moves the value needle. For us, in the complex B2B sales environment, that means moves the buyer committees, media or analysts to action. The Trifecta would be all three.

Both releases were displayed on CNN,CNBC, MSNBC and all that – but they mangle the display and formatting. Which negates the value and utility. Why do it if it gets trashed? That’s what testing is for though. To see what happens and how best to deal with it. Right now I know one thing. You control the display of the release only on your own site. Or your distribution vendor’s site. If you can get them to display it the way you create it. Although I will say Yahoo does a pretty good job of displaying some of the multi-media elements.

2nd Release

The announcement of the winners was where we pushed the multimedia envelope. Interspersed pictures of the winners with actual video interviews of the winners – which had been shot prior to the competition.

Announcement of Winners
http://www.marketwire.com/mw/release.do?id=828759&k=cincom

Marketwire has text formatting limitations. Bolding, Bullet-points, dont work. Text doesn’t display well. Sometimes distracts from the original content layout. Particularly if you use sluglines and a web chunk writing style.

It displays much better on PRXBUILDER
http://www.cincom.com/common/PRXRelease/HTML/CincomUCSoEwinners(2).htm

Response was good. From the colleges, the competitors, web readers, emails – etc. All that stuff. But what surprised me most was the intense interest from professors, Venture Cap folks, bankers and judges pulling me aside, asking about the concept, the distribution, the ‘How does it work?’ kind of questions you get. Actually, at one point, (we had releases displayed hard copy and live on a news board so the teams could see) I had several people lined up – like a tour guide.

Good test – but no media inquiries. Lot of related pubs linked to it though. However, the announcement happened on a Tuesday when Hillary won Ohio and Texas (if she did) and we’re in Ohio. Regardless – No media inquiries.

Announcement release on Marketwire
http://www.marketwire.com/mw/release.do?id=826737&k=cincom

Announcement release PRXBuilder
http://www.cincom.com/common/PRXRelease/HTML/CincomUcSpirit02262008.htm

As for the gentleman that Twittered you to help him devise an SMR – Best way to do it, is to do it.

Go to Shannon Whitley’s PRXBUILDER.com It’s a great app. Figure it out. But I’m sure you guys all know that. And he is superb to work with. Real professional.

I didn’t mention WebitPr.com from the UK. This was a North American event. I have used them for overseas releases – with success. Wonderfully helpful, courteous and responsive. I hope they take off. They could be a threat to some of the major distributors if things fell right.

Regards,

Steve

PS – Working on building a social media newsroom modeled after your template, but tweaking it in several ways. It will include all company blogs and our Expert Access E-zine (141,000 subscribers) which will effect the layout somewhat. I’ll send you an email when I rough it out. Because of the large amounts of content we publish it may end up being a hybrid of a Social Media Newsroom mixed with design elements/capabilities of sites like Time/WSJ/Reuters

My concern has always been (as you know) that folks will glom onto the new format, think they are “engaging”/doing “social media” (whatever that means) but continue to perpetrate the same bad PR practice we all bemoan — boring stories, crappy outreach strategy, and so on. I know that’s not what you or any of the SMNR advocates are saying, but it is a STRONG possibility. Dare I say probability, given the bottom line imperatives at big agencies.

Did talk to Chris last night. We’ll take it offline, and it’ll be next month.

Gonna be an announcement that it’s my dog’s 10th birthday.

Tell you what: I am willing to help, within reason. I need to prioritize my time for SHIFT clients, as I know you’ll understand!

But again, I am happy to help. Maybe if you could establish “what success means” to start off? I’d also want to know what content and news you’d offer up.

Feel free to take this to email. tdefren (at) shiftcomm (dot) com.

And, oh yea, be sure to ping Chris too!

http://twitter.com/jspepper/statuses/767833093
http://twitter.com/jspepper/statuses/767833219

Seems like a simple way to respond to my criticisms.

Austin, sorry to disappoint. If you were to read the blog from the bottom-up, I cover politics, clueless clients, and the impact of Social Media and SEO on small companies. I may be biased but I don’t think I’ve been slacking off, amigo.