Few weeks ago, I had a conversation with Ben on Twitter about Social Media Press Release. At this time, I had no idea about what is Social Media Press Release all about. Off course I did study Marketing, Communication and PR at school but they did not really teach me about news ways of promoting a product, raise a profile or build a strong brand online. There are a lot of Marketing and PR concepts that can be applied to the online word. In fact, the principles of marketing are universal, only methodologies and tools are specific.
I am going to write two or three blog posts around the theme of Social Media Press Release. The objective is to report the results of our sets of experimentation. So what’s the fuzz about Social Media Press Release? First of all, Internet can be very powerful to spread a message. I am not talking about spamming, I am talking about leveraging social media to spread the word.
To be perfectly honest, PocketSmith does not have a marketing budget, the reason being we operate as lean as possible 
However, Everyday we use social media such as Twitter, Facebook and Delicious to communicate, share and publish about our activities. And these tools can be very powerful for a business and virtually free (but time consuming!). Here is a definition of Social Media from Wikipedia:“Social media is an umbrella term that defines the various activities that integrate technology, social interaction and the construction of social interaction, and the construction of words and pictures.” In other words, it is all about building networks through different channels online. In practice, here is what we are doing:
One of our first move has been to create a Facebook group for PocketSmith, and start using Twitter (@PocketSmith) to provide users with regular updates of patches and new features. Recently. I have decided to put my head around the blogsphere and its capacity to broaden messages and reach targeted readers.
I started by listing and selecting blogs about personal finance. Technorati has been a good tool to find relevant sites. I just finished contacting the first blogs two days ago. The idea is to let people having a play with the application and let them decide if they want to write about it.
I believe we have a lot to learn from bloggers who are dedicating a lot of their time engaging dialogue with people about ways to manage their money. Getting their feedback on our application is very valuable to us and we will listen to what they have to say very carrefully!
I will keep you updated on the next blog post about the results of this campaign
Tags: Marketing, Press, Social Media, web promotion
As someone about to use the social media release (SMR) format extensively in an upcoming campaign, I’m really glad to see other people talking about how to use them.
The big draw card for me is efficiency. An SMR can be pulled together in a couple of hours, unlike the releases of yore which can literally take days because of endless drafts and revisions.
The other great thing about SMRs is that they make light work for journalists which means it’s more likely your story will be picked up. Considering how many emails a typical journo gets each day and how many of those emails have 5 page press releases attached, making their job easier is a very good thing.
That said, SMRs won’t replace traditional press releases. If your goal is a story in your local newspaper, all the sexy YouTube clips in the world won’t help you. Just keep ‘em short – 2 pages max.
I look forward to your next installment
Hey Ebony,
Thanks for your comment!
You’re absolutely right, the trick is to get the right balance between traditional press release and SMR. They are both useful for businesses but required different skills to be executed.
We have a lot of work to do
Francois, nice meeting you at the meeting just now. I have forwarded your product’s details to the chaps at Leaderonomics.com where I used to work. They train students, and other segments of the community in leadership… financial planning cannot be avoided
Cheers, and good luck with this.