Comments on: Social Media Press Releases — Is It Like Giving a Baby a Gun?

By: Deep Jive Interests » Why Social Media Press Releases “Matter”

Deep Jive Interests » Why Social Media Press Releases “Matter” — Sun, 21 Jan 2007 02:35:47 +0000

[...] Why Social Media Press Releases “Matter” January 20th, 2007 at 9:31 pm by Tony So, once upon a time, I also used to think “why bother with social media press releases? — why not simply blog?“ In fact, with Edelman’s SMPR product “release” some weeks ago, the whole meme had been bounced around for a while — and with Stowe Boyd’s post yesterday, it has once again made the rounds [my original thoughts are over here]. [...]

By: kari

kari — Fri, 05 Jan 2007 18:00:32 +0000

Hi Tony, Great post. In general I think PR people need to realize that our world has changed and that a hit that gets top ranks on a google news search is actually better than a NYT hit. Unfortunately newspapers are dying. “Media relations” is no longer just about building good relationships with reporters. There are tricks to getting picked up by search engines but a lame story is still a lame story. You make a great point about the talk back nature of the Web. The stakes are higher now. We can use tools like optimizing our releases for search. BUT if we create bad non-news press releases that are optimized for search everyone will see it and it will affect the reputation of the client and the pr firm.

By: Tony

Tony — Sat, 09 Dec 2006 02:24:44 +0000

Hey Phil,

Thanks for stopping by.

I don’t think I was suggesting that no one use SMNR’s, or that they were a bad idea in and of itself — only that they ought to be used responsibly. In the wrong hands, they could back fire in a way that people who have no knowledge about social media might have a hard time understanding or appreciating.

I don’t know about the inner workings of Edelman — but I hope that as a tool, there comes the education of what social media means to go along with it is all.

Cheers
t @ dji

By: Phil Gomes, Edelman

Phil Gomes, Edelman — Sat, 09 Dec 2006 01:49:04 +0000

If the potential for abuse was the primary measuring stick for how we all conceived and evaluated tools, methods, and techniques, we’d stagnate. Even the humble hydrogen atom is “dangerous in the wrong hands.” (Hell… While we’re using headlines about giving babies guns illustrate a fairly simple matter, why not just go all the way and get all “Los Alamos” about it, shall we?)

Sure, the “social web {talks back, talks within itself, reacts quickly}.” I’m not naive to that. There’s plenty of discussion going on over at my blog. I’m not even afraid of the chatter on the StoryCrafter announcement itself. Thing is, the reasonable criticisms are somewhat easily answered. (”Unreasonable” ones include: “You mean you’re not handing over something to me for free?”)

Sure StoryCrafter is “pushbutton,” but it’s not a distribution vehicle. Its intent isn’t to game-the-system when it comes to populating the likes of, say, Google News.

As to Digg… People can “stuff” Digg with/without a social media news release. And, yes, the consequences would be deserved.

It’s been suggested by some that StoryCrafter and like solutions *should* PING TECHNORATI, which is something we flatly refused to do. There’s probably no better way than that to kill efforts to improve communications instruments like the news release.

By: Social Media Releases at twopointouch: web 2.0, blogs and social media

Social Media Releases at twopointouch: web 2.0, blogs and social media — Fri, 08 Dec 2006 14:40:48 +0000

[...] Tony Hung – hopes companies don’t think this is some sort of magic bullet for getting attention from the social web and is particularly concerned about the ‘digg’ button which rather encourages companies to spam digg. [...]

By: Blog World Expo Blog » Edelman’s latest

Blog World Expo Blog » Edelman’s latest — Fri, 08 Dec 2006 04:31:07 +0000

[...] More important than how are their clients going to react to this is how is the blogosphere going to react. So far It seems mixed but on the positive side. Deep Jive interests: Now this template seems like a great cheat sheet if you were a PR guy who doesn’t know a thing about social media. Having said that, I think that the template, like all cheet sheets, are dangerous if you don’t know what you’re doing. Quite frankly, it could be a disaster. [...]

By: Tony

Tony — Fri, 08 Dec 2006 01:06:57 +0000

No problem Sean.

Always happy to spread the DJI love. ;)