The discussion and debate on the social media release lives
on, thanks to a "study" by HubSpot this week that compared
traditional and social media releases (SMRs) in terms of how effectively they
were syndicated to search engines and "portal" via newswire
services. The conclusion was that SMRs
are less effective.
This led to an interesting discussion with our client base in
which some were asking for my perspective.
I want to share what I offered to them here in order to add to the
broader conversation. One of the
questions that has come up in my discussions with clients is whether EVERY
release needs to be a social media release with a strong contingent ascribing
to the view that not every release does.
According to HubSpot, one of the central reasons why SMRs
don't syndicate well is because they include long encoded URLs and complex
formatting that, as well as multimedia are handled differently by each newswire
and do not always "translate" to the search engines or portals in the
right way. To me all these points seem
to be common sense and don’t really offer any new revelations.
As I see it, the most important takeaway from the study is
point #4 --
Use basic language. Many portal sites decide to publish a release by scanning for relevant keywords in the release body and headline. The portal then automatically posts anything that contains the right keywords to fit their formulas. To be syndicated by more relevant portals, use straight-forward text that the portal's crawlers will pick up.
Since the advent of the social media release, most of the
ones I've seen are no different then what traditional releases have been for
such a long time with regards to the writing and style of them. I very much agree with what Brian Solis has
said in the past about how we need to use this effort to rethink the press
release to change the way they are written. He hit on this again earlier this week --
News flash:
New media releases aren’t a new tool to package the same old marketing
"speak" that form and enforce the stereotype of existing press
releases. They are indeed an opportunity to improve how we, as
individuals representing a company that helps real world customers,
share our story with them in a way that means something.
This was the biggest complaint Tom Foremski had three years
ago when he sparked this whole debate.
And since press releases now have more value as a way to communicate
directly to customers, fixing how they are written is even more important.
Companies should do social media releases to offer atomized pieces of content that complement the information in the
release itself. This allows bloggers,
(increasingly) traditional media and members of a company's buying community
that are publishers/ creators of information to embed in their own posts or
online articles about the subject of the release. The other aspect that's more important now in
the age of microsharing is to include triggers that prompt people to share the
news, such as a "Tweet This" summary that is hyperlinked so someone
can more easily distribute it. These all
involve wrapping in more code within the release (embed code, encoded URLs,
etc) that are naturally going to get stripped out when sent over the
wires. This is why the wires have been
struggling with the social media release concept and we see data like HubSpot.
The other view I have is that there is not a
one-size-fits-all template that should be followed for every release. That
said, the templates that are out there help to determine what people and companies
should consider adding to releases. There
are certain elements that should be in every release (links to company web
site, Twitter summaries, straight URL's to content/channels on third party
services like Flickr, YouTube, related links, calls to action with simple links
to a purpose landing page for the release so it is measurable, etc.), but not
every release should be in a bulleted format, nor should every release include
multimedia content.
Finally, a good general rule of thumb is to keep releases
that go over the wire as basic as possible - include links to supporting
content as mentioned above, but then treat it much more as a social media
release on your own company's web site where you have much more control and
range over the bells and whistles. In
some cases, I have had clients include a straight link in the version that goes
over the wire to an enhanced social media version on the clients' newsrooms to
drive even more inbound links.
Wherever you stand, it’s always an interesting debate...