Lifestreams and Activity Feeds Channel Your Online Brand

Friendfeed officially launched this week making it the latest entrant into the foray of applications dedicated to channeling lifestreams and activity feeds. It also happens to be the newest ambassador for the emerging microblog and micromedia categories.

FriendFeed offers a unique way to discover and discuss information among friends," said Bret Taylor, FriendFeed co-founder. It's a great way to sift through the overwhelming amount of information available on the Web. FriendFeed has the information that you care about, because it's from the people you care about."

In other words, Friendfeed is representative of the evolving concept of lifestreams or workstreams that I've been talking about for a long, long time. Instead of simply appealing to the edglings, Friendfeed is bringing the concept of aggregated streams to the masses or at least to the early market majority.

It takes the value of Facebook's combined personal "News Feeds," breaks it out of a closed network, and broadcasts it to anyone who's interested in what you're up to.

But its not an ego thing...this is about new mediums for conversations.

Friendfeed allows you to stream all of your activity across various forms of social media and social networks into one river. It aggregates presence, thoughts, activity, interests and other custom updates based on the tools you use. Supported sites include delicious, last.fm, Twitter, Pownce, Digg, Reddit, blog RSS feeds, Flickr, Smugmug, LinkedIn, Pandora, Upcoming.org, among many, many others. Basically, if it has an RSS feed, you can stream it into Friendfeed.

It is also a tool for hosting original content through text and links. You can manually enter updates directly into the FF river. Visitors can also comment on each entry or link back to it. This gives the appearance of conversations, although, I see more value in following individual links directly to their source to comment and converse there.

Your friends and fans can subscribe to your feed to stay in sync with your online activity. In turn, you can stay connected to those you follow as well.

I currently use Tumblr, Plaxo, and Jaiku to host my official Lifestreams. To me, Friendfeed most closely resembles Jaiku in terms of openness, appearance, and functionality. Whereas, Tumblr offers a more custom-branded blog look and feel. And Plaxo, well, it is closer to how I use Facebook to aggregate and package strategic activity within a fixed community. Although, Plaxo is also similar to Friendfeed in the sense that it is a portable and embeddable lifestream. Similar functionality, different demographic.

Micromedia Saves the Day!?

Even though, it's mostly in the echo chamber, there are already cries of social media fatigue, both creation and consumption. Services such as Tumblr, Twitter, Pownce, Utterz, Twitxr, and Jaiku allow people to share shorter, hopefully more poignant, updates (mediabytes aka media snacks) to stay connected to their communities without having to craft longer, time-consuming blog posts.

Tools such as Friendfeed, Plaxo, Jaiku, Tumblr, and other "channeling" and social graph tools collect all forms of microblog and micromedia output so that your contacts are not overwhelmed by trying to keep up with your updates at every point of origination.

So, for the most part, the data that I'm channeling into Friendfeed is duplicative across several networks. That's the point. My network of friends (socialgraph) don't reside within one community. I have to go to where they are in order to stay connected and visible among them.

FriendFeed seems to be the first mainstream tool that could gain notable traction with the MySpace generation, especially since they offer an embeddable widget that broadcasts updates on the fly.

So, depending on your strategy for marketing and promoting your personal brand online, use the tools that resonate with the people you want to reach - even if it's channeling the same data across the Web.

You can subscribe to my Friendfeed here, Plaxo here, and my Tumblr feed here. The others are at the end of the post.

Friendfeed

Jaiku

Tumblr

Plaxo Pulse

The conversation continues:

Rick Mahn

Louis Gray

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Should PR Agencies Blog?

Sam Lawrence lit a fire under those in Social Media and PR today by sharing a story about whether or not his PR agency of record should blog about working with Jive Software.

Jeremiah Owyang, Chris Brogan, Strumpette, and many others discussed it on Twitter (my favorite place for listening to and joining amazing and insightful conversations.)

Sam's headline says it all, "I want our new PR Agency to blog about us but they don't want to."



He's certainly no stranger to corporate blogging. The Jive blog is rich with community spirit, information, and ideas.

Lawrence continued, "Before we hired them, I told them I thought it would be cool if they blogged about their experiences working on our business. They told me it was a bad idea. I told them I wouldn’t stop asking."

The agency contends that:
- They don’t want to say anything that could damage relationships with the press or with clients
- They believe an PR Agency should be invisible
- They’re not clear who the target reader would be

Just so we're clear...his agency's concerns are not invalid nor are they alone in their thinking.

Lawrence wants his agency to blog because he believes that they have a lot of interesting insight to share. His sense is that their real challenge is not too different than most companies, they're just not sure how to open up the kimono.

To say the least, Sam just called them out. A perfect first post in response could be, "Why we don't want to blog about working with Jive Software;" even if it's their first and last blog post.

I find this conversation very interesting because usually these days, it's the other way around. Agencies are begging clients to start blogging as a way of listening to, embracing, and conversing with customers.

After much personal research and experience, I've found that a genuine, helpful, humanized blog, combined with the art of cultivating and building relationships, can forge real connections, shape perception, improve customer service, and also enhance brand loyalty, reach, and resonance.

This discussion is symbolic and relevant for many reasons.

First and foremost, not everyone needs to, or should blog.

Some people just don't have anything interesting to say and that's OK. Not everyone needs to write a book, skydive, or sing karaoke either.

Yes, so openness and transparency are "the new black." But don't take it at face value. Think about it first.

Contrary to popular belief, sometimes being open can hurt your brand. It's just that simple and a reflection and reminder that we are all open to public interpretation and response. Social Media is a powerful medium and it can not be underestimated, taken for granted, or leveraged only because it's the new, hot trend.

The easy, and most important, answer on whether or not Sam's agency, or any agency or company should blog is, "it depends."

Yes, it depends on your customers. It depends on who you want to reach and why. It depends on where your customers go for information. It depends on whether or not doing so will benefit your community.

Instead of insisting that his agency blog, the real question for Sam to ask is, "Will blogging about the experience working with us enrich and improve or cheapen and distract the Jive community..."

The questions for Jive's agency to ask are, "Will blogging about this or other relationships benefit existing or potential clients? Will we establish thought leadership or give away our ideas. Are we capable of writing authentically and not like most PR people? Will this blog hurt or help relationships with media, analysts and bloggers?"

The process of thinking about this will yield invaluable insight, which can only help companies create a relevant and specific roadmap to define content, readers, format, and approach. I guess I should say, that this process is an absolute must before any company decides to blog, otherwise they're just blogging to blog (blah blah blah blah) - and that's never a good idea in the world of real business.

This discussion also highlights another interesting and significant point. Do most traditional PR agencies understand the dynamics of the blogosphere, let alone the task of writing and maintaining a blog?

The answer is profoundly, "NO!"

It is the source of the rising undercurrent of professional bloggers and "people who blog" who publicly flog offending individuals and complain openly about the PR industry. There's a reason why it is garnering so much attention and also frightening the sh!t out of PR pros .

Blogging, and Social Media in general, change everything and it has the power to create tremendous attention, whether you want it or not.

Traditional PR wasn't ready to contend with something it can not control. It is this fear that has PR scrambling to learn how to engage and also intimidates many away from blogging. The industry is learning, almost through a baptism by fire, that you just can't take the same mechanical approach to working with bloggers the way it has with journalists and analysts for so many years. And, you simply can't just acquire intellectual capital of those who do get it to instantly adapt. It requires a re-examination and reconstruction of the architecture of Public Relations, with an emphasis placed on "relations."

At the same time, the majority of writing that defines PR has been dominated by buzz words, hyperbole, and "messages" or defined by ghost-written articles and quotes that place contrived, insincere statements in the mouths of executives and spokespersons.

While it worked for years to generate reasonable success, whether you like it or not, the democratization of content creates and new playing field.

The industry has a lot to learn before it starts pushing content out through today's social channels. Some get it. Some don't. Others are learning. The point is that we can all contribute to and learn from this conversation in order to apply relevant principles and lessons-learned to our individual communications strategies.

This entire discussion, and process of exploration and discovery, is forcing the evolution of PR for the better.

This is about being authentic and building trust.

Now, whether Jive's agency, or all agencies, should blog about client experiences, the answer is, "it depends."

Here's what others have to say about the subject:

Craig Cmehil, Jive customer, "As a customer of Jive or any product really I would very much enjoy hearing what PR agency or any group that is working together with the company to improve it, enhance it, grow it, etc."

Darryl Siry, marketing expert, "I think your customers/community might care about what you have to say but why would they give a damn what your PR agency has to say? It would be a good sign that your PR agency “gets” blogging if they had a blog of their own that was relevant and interesting to their community but getting them to blog about working with you seems like a waste of time and money and wouldn’t really do anything for you or your community. I agree with your agency that if they do their job well they should be invisible."

Marshall Kirkpatrick, one of my favorite bloggers, "I wonder if they are afraid of being made fun of for not doing a good job of it. I think most PR people believe they have a vested interest in looking supremely professional at all times and that’s not easy to do with a new medium based largely on authenticity. Especially when you’re in PR. Some of my favorite people are in PR, I swear. I actually don’t think everyone needs to blog, either. Some folks just aren’t good at it and would be better of doing their jobs."

I also received a few responses on Twitter:



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Social Media is Not The Final Frontier of Marketing

Pierre Far has a thoughtful post asking whether or not Social Media is the final frontier of marketing.

He concludes that if you could answer the question, then you might be the next Seth Godin.

Well, not even Google can help me turn up the consensus on the subject. However, the Holy Grail of marketing is an active discussion.

To be fair, Pierre's path to staging the original question and exploring potential answers is interesting and insightful.

The history of marketing, as presented, is incomplete however.

But, let’s focus on answering the question he proposed, as I believe that’s where we can be most productive.

Let's cut to it.

The answer is no.

Social Media is not the final frontier of marketing and it’s premature and even a bit shortsighted to make this conclusion.

Pierre does stop short of making such a bold claim. But there are still a few points of contention. For example, “With the new powerful feedback mechanism implemented in social media, the loop is closed: the communication becomes two-way.”

This is assuming of course that the cycle of communication and closing the loop between customers back to companies was the Holy Grail of marketing. And, it implies, that the cycle of communication wasn't two-way until now.

First, closing the loop between people and companies isn't the Holy Grail nor is it the Final Frontier. Furthermore, companies and customers have shared a two-way street over the years, with the only difference between now and then, are the tools and popular psychology and philosophies behind their implementation.

Pierre then aligns Social Media and the Web with the ability to dictate company success or failure, “People have the internet, and anyone can write up his or her thoughts - good or bad - and get thousands of people to read them. If a product is bad, there will be enough people raising their concerns loudly enough that companies have no option but to react very quickly: a few bad reviews could kill a product launch.”

Yes, this is absolutely relevant, and in some cases true.

Could a few bad reviews kill a product?

Unfortunately not.

If so, markets would be rich with fantastic products supported by glowing reviews.

But, let’s be clear and not get too drunk on the Social Media Kool- Aid.




Pierre surmises, “Again, by no means is this new. There is no re-invention of marketing or public relations. That’s not the point. The point is that consumers now have a more potent aggregate power: someone with a problem can now reach others with the same problem faster, build a community around this sharffsed problem easily, and mobilize lots of people behind the common cause more efficiently. That’s what’s new: a significant leap in efficiency. This gives consumers a loud voice that companies have to listen to.”

Customers have always had a voice, drove peer-to-peer influence, and leveraged paths to talk directly to companies. They simply used the tools of time. And, the more savvy customers used traditional PR and the very mediums many companies employed to reach them in order to garner attention, public support, and solutions. Certain companies listened, others did not…and still don’t.

In 1994-5’ish with the popularization of the Web, we saw some of the earliest forms of online Social Media (user groups, enthusiasts sites, forums, bulleting boards, etc.) emerge. Although back then, we called it New Media and, it was around the same time I started talking about PR 2.0 and how the Web would change the entire landscape for marketing and PR.

If anything Social Media, as it exists today, has simply created a more efficient platform which amplified and organized people’s voices as well as democratized content, and in doing so, collectively built a foundation for a new level influence between companies, traditional media, influencers, and people in general.

Social Media doesn’t necessarily replace traditional marketing. Everything is concentric. Everything should work together.

Companies > Influencers > Customers
Companies > People
People > People
People > Companies

Quite simply, the way I define Social Media and Social Media marketing is as follows:

Social Media is anything on the Web that facilitates conversations.

Whereas, Social Media Marketing is the use of social tools to discover, listen to, and engage customers in meaningful, two way conversations.



Remember, there’s a difference between the cultures of the communities that populate Social Networks, the channels that define Social Media, and the tools and technologies people use to communicate.

What strings everything together is listening, understanding, respect, and trust. The rest is just technology.

So in no way is Social Media the final frontier. We’re human. We evolve. Along with it, so the tools and channels for influence.

For example, reaching niche markets, the “Long Tail of PR” as I call it, still proves elusive. Connecting local services to customers online has yet to be conquered. Leveraging “new media” to transform people into brand ambassadors without encroaching on blatant advertising or infringing on personal privacy is only experimental now. Facebook had the right idea, for example, but poor execution.

These are all areas that could also be considered the final frontiers of marketing, but they are simply, new opportunities for engagement.

Customer behavior will evolve. And, along with it, new challenges will emerge and present new frontiers for marketing to conquer. Marketing, as always, will be forced to adapt.

Social Media is only the latest catalyst to humanize marketing and shed the traditional approach of positioning faceless companies to speak in messages at nameless audiences while plugging their ears and covering their eyes.

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Twitxr is the Twitter for Pictures

by Brian Solis

We have Twitter for text, Seesmic for video, Jott for voice, utterz for all forms of multimedia, and now we have Twitxr for your pictures.

Yep, it's the latest shiny new micromedia service - meaning that you're can share and discovery content in "Byte-sized" portions.

Twitxr, however, allows you to tell your story through text and pictures.

Michael Arrington of TechCrunch calls it photoblogging. But, if Twitter and Tumblr are to blogging what twitxr is to photoblogging, then we might have something altogether new...maybe "micro photoblogging," "photo rivers," or "picture streams."

Incubated in FON Labs, Twitxr lets people share their pictures and text (140 characters, sound familiar?) within the community as well as providing extensions for simultaneous publishing within Twitter and Facebook.

Like Twitter, I can publish my own content and also follow "friends" in order to see their updates in my timeline. There's also a pretty cool friends map that leverages the GoogleMaps API.

According to FON, Twitxr was developed with the iPhone in mind and the company developed an application that lets users upload pix directly from their phone. However, in order to install the app, iPhone users have to use Jailbreak, which I'm a bit reluctant to try.

So, I tried the "post by email" feature by sending a photo directly from the phone to "my personal" Twitxr email address...but it didn't work. Ideally, I should be able to email or text message the picture without having to manually do so at the site or install anything in order to achieve the best results.

I'm almost certain that I would use Twitxr as a way of sharing the images I stumble across and feel like shooting at any given moment - if I can do so directly from my phone. I haven't yet joined any image-based network dedicated to camera phone photography, because it's just not my thing. And truthfully, it's a hassle to do so most of the time.

For more formal picture sharing in my lifestream or workstream, I either cut and paste a link from flickr directly into Twitter, or, I use Dave Winer's new FlickrToTwitter service.

Here's an example:

Winer's service allows you to "tag" images as you upload them to Flickr and have them appear in your Twitter stream / river (twiver). It works extremely well once it caches your user-generated tag, in my case "fortwitter" into its RSS monitoring process. It is an ideal solution for sharing pictures I want to share in Twitter, whereas, the content sourced for and shared in Twitxr, would be a bit more casual, unpredictable, and fun.

What matters the most is that there are new social tools introduced everyday that extend our ability to produce, discover, and share relevant content. While not everyone is capable of creating and sharing compelling or meaningful information, the ability to do so is what empowers those that do. It's our job to filter the signal to noise ratio to stay connected to those whom we align using the tools that link us together.

For my profile on Twitxr, click here.

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Get Rich Quick with Social Media Marketing

I guess Social Media has arrived and I should say that I'm not surprised by some of the things I see these days. It was bound to happen.

Really good friend, and someone I admire, Erica O'Grady, pointed me to a very interesting conference coming up that has temporarily deflated my hopes for elevating and empowering marketing communications passionate marketers along with it.

The conference is not in any way, attempting to mask its intentions...

How To Use Blogs, Podcasts, Wikis & Other Social Media Tools To Find Clients, Make Money & Create the Lifestyle of Your Dreams



Sign me up. I have dreams too and after all these years, I could have been living "the life."

As Erica said, "Who knew it was only one podcast away." She continued the discussion online, "No, having a blog does not make you a Social Media guru."

And good friend Geoff Livingston recently observed,"Almost every company, client and person I talk to in corporate marketing wants to create a social media program. But there’s a lot of execution without thinking."

Johsua Porter recently discussed the problem with Social Media Marketers who promise to leverage Social Media Tools to "create buzz and demand for your product” He continued, "I don’t know exactly what was meant by this, but it sounds like causation: that if you use social tools to talk to your customers then you’ll increase buzz and demand."

The truth is that these are simply the latest examples of new opportunistic marketers selling themselves as experts in Social Media. What's worse, and to be expected, is that we will only see more of this behavior and posturing each and every day.

While some of us viewed it as an opportunity to empower people to discover and contribute valuable and helpful content, others are cashing-in on Social Media by hawking their vision and strategy, or lack thereof, on unsuspecting businesses looking for genuine help. Instead, these impressionable companies are getting the very "marketers" Social Media should have inspired to engage and evolve in the first place.

If you're one of those marketers, I guess you're ship has arrived. Grab that golden ticket and run all the way to the bank, while you can.



Perhaps we can package Social Media "how to..." kits and sell them on QVC or hire Suzanne Somers to help us push it through informercials. There's also going to be a new reality TV show on cable that follows Social Media gurus around as they help companies engage their customers in conversations and hypnotically transform them into evangelists and zealots. "The Social Media Whisperer" starts this Fall on Bravo.

:)

Obviously, social tools can be effective. But, just because you can blog, update twitter, podcast, create wikis, navigate social networks, create online profiles and groups, upload video to YouTube, and vote on digg, doesn't mean that you're suddenly an expert or a "guru" in Social Media marketing. At the very least, it makes you knowledgeable on the subject of how to publish content.

There's a stark difference between publishing content and influencing market behavior and creating and cultivating relationships throughout the process.

If nothing else, Social Media is about people. Whereas traditional marketing has mostly been a faceless process of getting people to take action.

In order to work together, marketers have to become the people they want to reach, genuinely, in order to be convincing, genuine, and truly helpful. Integrating Social Media into marketing requires companies to humanize their story and create a personality around their brand.

Remember, Social Media is defined by the online tools that facilitate conversations. It amplifyies public opinion and it also provides a channel for people(and companies) to listen and in turn, connect with them.

It all starts with intent.

If your intent is build relationships with customers, then how you approach Social Media will be defined by their needs and your success will be dictated by their response.

After intent, the engagement strategy is molded by the art of listening and what you learn about the very people you're trying to reach, where they go to learn and share information, why, and how.

Observing and listening reveals the culture of each online community and the understanding of social sciences including anthropology, sociology and psychology, will help marketers better understand their customers behavior. Without first listening, watching or reading, you can never learn where your customers are, which tools will reach them and how to approach them.

Context and relevance are the very things that resonate and inspire.

Now, if your product consistenly falls short of meeting expectations (meaning, it sucks), then no amount of Social Media marketing is going to improve their experience. However, listening, engaging in conversations, and learning, can all loop back to product development to improve the product/service for the next iteration.

It's a value chain. Everything works together.



If we can encourage Social Media marketers to sell themselves from a more holistic, genuine and experienced position, then we can improve the overall future for marketing communications along the way.

Is this realistic?

Probably not.

All we can do is try to empower businesses to identify those experts who can truly help them without learning on their dime, insulting communities, or damaging their brand.

Perhaps after reading this post, the conference organizers can amend their marketing and positioning this way...

How To Use Blogs, Podcasts, Wikis & Other Social Media Tools To Find and Help Customers, Build Your Brand, and Earn the Business You Deserve

Update: Steve Rubel on, "SEO Shenanigans Pose a Clear and Present Danger to Social Media"

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Wire Services Bypass Bloggers and Journalists

Whether you like it or not, the headline is true...

Looks like I wasn't the only one to receive an interesting email from BusinessWire, ReadWriteWeb already ran a story about it.

BusinessWire is a press release wire service that, among other things, is one of the largest players in the industry for distributing news and content between PR and journalists, analysts, bloggers, investors, and other wire subscribers.



Basically, BusinessWire is proactively claiming that companies and marketers can use the distribution service to bypass journalists and bloggers to reach news aggregation services such as Techmeme and also earn rankings and visibility in traditional search engines.

BusinessWire's marketing approach is interesting for several reasons.

Well written press releases are far from dead. In fact, when developed strategically, their opportunities, appeal and benefits are only expanding in conjunction with the groups of various influencers and consumers who rely on them for relevant information.

However, in order to frame this properly, nothing replaces good old fashioned relationships. It is imperative that you still reach out to press, bloggers, analysts, and other influencers on an ongoing basis, not only when you have news to share. Make sure that as you do, you're taking into consideration, their preferences and methods for contact.

For those who do not know, Techmeme is a resourceful service that actively tracks and ranks conversations related to the most popular and potentially influential tech topics throughout the world of media, as it happens. It's actually quite fascinating to watch. Creator Gabe Rivera has also replicated his news listening and aggregation formula for the entertainment, political, and Baseball markets.

Basically, the more people that either link to, or who discuss a common topic, a "meme" will appear on the site and move according to activity as well as compared to the activity of other stories. As shown below, the picture represents a snapshot of conversations around Micosoft and Yahoo acquisition news sourced to the original press releases, which if you think about it, shows that press releases still work.



Over the course of the last several months, BusinessWire and PRNewswire have consistently ranked in the top 100 sources for news in Techmeme's Leaderboard.



It is indeed representative of a new channel of influence. However, through experience, I can tell you that running a story to the top influencers in advance, or in replacement of a press release, yields more effective results in Techmeme.

I reached out to Gabe Rivera to talk about his perspective on wires serving as authorities on news sourcing over other media, "It really comes down to where bloggers and media link to the most. If they find the story through search engines or directly on the wire site, then it is the authoritative source of the news."

Rivera continued, "As far as the Leaderboard goes, whether it's sourced through search engines, such as Yahoo Business or Google News, the wire service will receive proper accreditation."

As we discussed the subject further, we stumbled onto a discussion that is near and dear to me, corporate blogging.

Rivera shared, "What I wish we would see more of is companies that share their news on their blog. Not just repurposing a press releaes, but actually sharing the news with their community in a more friendly way. The symbolism which it stands for would be nicer and more helpful. With good SEO, people will find them."

He's right. With good SEO, and good media and blogger relations, people will not only find, but share the news.

We both agreed that certain companies are still required to distribute press releases on the wire as a form of proper discloser. At the end of the day, it all comes down to where the majority of story tellers and influencers source and link back.

Now outside of Techmeme, especially if you're not in tech, most wire services offer SEO packages that help you bypass journalists and bloggers and reach customers directly.

BusinessWire finally spotlights something that I've been talking about for ten years (as well many as other folks such as Greg Jarboe, Lee Odden and Sally Falkow), that you can distribute a well written press release on the wire and have it "appear" in search engines. In fact, it has spawned a new style of press releases, dubbed SEO releases, that are SEO optimized in order to improve their "findability" and rank within traditional search engines. In this case, the greatest targets for SEO releases are actually customers, not journalists. In many cases, they complement a traditional release for media and a Social Media Release for bloggers and (also customers.)

Here's an example of a press release for Magnify.net that appears in Google and Yahoo News courtesy of MarketWire, an alternative to BusinessWire.





According to a recent Outsell study, over 51% of IT professionals report that they get their news from press releases in Yahoo and Google news over trade journals.

And it's not just tech. When implemented with calls and links to actions, and reads in a way that's compelling to people aka customers, they do something about it.

Greg Jarboe also tells a great story of how his client, Southwest, issued an SEO press release about new lower fares and was directly responsible for generating ~$2 million in sales courtesy of search and customers discovery and sharing of the news.

It's true. SEO PR works. What it does, at the same time, is expand the the scope of Public Relations into the realm of Web and search marketing.

Note of caution however, the same tools that help you expand visibility, can also set up for failure. Wire services only edit for typos, not for content. This means that you can publish a release riddled with hyperbole, spin, buzz words, and hype that will only serve to confuse and dissuade your customers from doing business with you. It will send them to your competition.

So, what do we learn from this?

That there are a myriad of channels and benefits for press releases and not one format, or flavor, serves everyone. The strategic and genuine use of a variety of tools and distribution channels, along with compelling, focuses, and relevant content, can help you reach people, whether they're journalists, bloggers, analysts, investors, customers, or influencers, to help you tell and share your story, or ultimately, contribute to the bottom line of your business.

Related Story: B.L. Ochman on Wires and Press Releases that Tell Stories

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Social Media Releases In Action

I recently ran "The Definitive Guide to Social Media Releases," which has received some great feedback. Thank you everyone!

Even though it's a blog post, it doesn't mean that its shelf life is merely limited to the brief period of time in between new posts. I'd like it to live on and evolve over time as we learn more about SMRs. And, you're a big part of that evolution.

I was planning on letting that post sit up there for the week, until I received an incredible comment yesterday from Steve Kayser. It's worth spotlighting and sharing as its own post as he has done what many have been asking for, present a real world case study of the effectiveness of Social Media Releases across various wire services.

It's nothing short of insightful, and most importantly, it will serve as a guide when considering how and where to distribute SMRs.

As you know, my favorite distribution method is creating, hosting, and channeling a new breed of SMRs through customized blog platform. While it sounds complicated, it really isn't. And it perfectly complements a traditional wire release by providing comprehensive and consistent findability and visibility across traditional search and blog (social media) search engines and also social networks.

Please note, if you haven't yet read the previous post, please do so prior to reading this.

Without further ado, here is Steve Kayser's report on Social Media Releases in action...

----

Hey Brian:

Nice post. A lot of great points.

As to the question you posed:

And, is this what reporters and bloggers really want and do we really need them?

Are SMRs created for journalists and bloggers and is it what they want?

I was asked this question last week by a marketing manager after having released three test SMR’s. Here’s my answer to the question you posed – and a point.

I care – but not too much.

If you deal in a “complex sale” environment (which we do), a high-dollar product or solution sale (usually over $150,000) requiring buyer evaluation committees, made up of 10-21 people of different functional business groups, it’s more important to make sure our news and content value is “Findable” for those people on the committees when they begin their due diligence. The ‘user”, the “IT person” the “business manager,” “Business decision-maker,” Legal, HR, etc., etc., all have their own unique and specific information needs, which by default includes specific language and terms they use to search for (keywords – key phrases etc.). Sure we want journalists and bloggers to have whatever they need to write their story. We want to be a trusted and valued source. But ... no begging or buying is going to happen for them to write about us. No time for that. The hierarchy has changed. Now for us is - first the buyer’s information needs – then the bloggers, media, analysts, etc.

To stay competitive in the tech industry today you have to be

• Findable

• Believable

• Credible

• Prove Value

... just to get into consideration for the complex sale.

Once you’re findable, believable, credible, then you have to prove value – quickly. The SMR is a great tool to help promote those goals. Most buying committees have their researchers start due diligence on the web. Our internal research shows over 93% of our B2B buyers do it that way.

The SMNR helps us be more “findable.”

That’s good. But it also needs to be well-written because a well-written SMR can help us be “believable.” The opposite is also true. Poorly written corporate gobbledygook (to your point in this post) can make you look incredibly unbelievable. Which negates you ever getting into the due diligence buying process. However, good writing is not as easy to do anymore as a lot of folks out there think. (It’s complex to write simple these days.)

“Credible” follows after they do more research. Or not.

MARKETWIRE SMR

I tested Marketwire’s SMNR last week on a Smalltalk Application Development Language press release.

Now ... it’s not great, not brilliant, not a literary piece in any stretch of the imagination, but it’s functional, having included some of the keywords/key phrases for this product group’s audience in the title/subtitle and first 100 words. It’s a highly niche and passionate community.

A U.S. SMR VIEW

Costs:

My view (from the U.S.) is that costs for SMR’s are relatively high. The ability to include the additional informational in the release via the related links section that ads value, ups the word count – which ups the cost because after the first 400 words almost all wire services typically charge you $1.00 a word (or somewhere close).

Multi-media assets:

Being a tech SMB – with a couple hundred million in revenue and producing about 100 press releases or so a year in the US – having video/audio assets available for SMR’s from all the product groups becomes a constant challenge. The marketing and product managers almost have to be evangelists/zealots and do a lot of the video and photos themselves. Some are hip to it. Others resist it like the plague. And, the more video / images / multi-media you do use -- the more the cost goes up.

But having said all that, Marketwire's release delivered exceptional results for us. It got pulled into a lot of our target pubs. It was visually and graphically appealing. The live links in the webosphere section started slowly then gradually grew and continue to do so. I think over 10,000 links now. Google keeps on building, “Live” keeps on building, Yahoo actually started higher (79 links) then declined. It has now shrunk to 1 link. I think that's because their news algorithm churns them into the archive – but I’m not sure about that.

One thing I really liked -- the “comments” section. It was valuable and eye-opening. Comments on a press release valuable? Yes. Several had in-depth insights, past experience comments with the product and questions about the future direction. A lot of the questions were about the topic of the press release – but I had probably 20 emails questioning me about the format of the release itself, which was interesting. But it also caused me more work. I had to write an explanation about the new format for our internal employees, detailing the components and the value of the new format. Then I had to send it to marketing, product and pre/post sales managers that weren't involved in the tests.

Many warmly received it.

Many didn’t.

One great comrade-in-arms, when describing the mindset that did not warmly receive the message and is leery of change, sent me a quote from a Mel Brooks movie – I can’t remember the movie, but do remember the quote.

“It looks dangerous Master … you go first.”

EUROPEAN VIEW

I also used Webitpr.com in the UK last week for a different SMR about a Healthcare Software Application.

First of all, Webitpr.com is a great company to work with. They’re on top of it – especially monitoring the blogosphere. I met them through, of all things, a blog posting on PR-Squared’s blog about the SMR. They saw the posting, responded to me about the content of the post in a courteous, non-obtrusive professional manner and now we're setting up an overseas account with them. Actually released two English press releases and one German press release over the last several weeks. Adam Parker, Jonathan Dolby, Stephen Davies, -- super service. They knock it out quick, -- use the SHIFT template pretty much – have a different distribution reach, but very effective. I think they’re going to be a major player in this field. Hope so anyway. It’s nice to work with people who are passionate, positive and proactive. Cost is competitive, but the U.S. dollar decline might pinch them a bit.

TRACKING ISSUES

Marketwire SMR’s don’t show up on our reporting dashboard like a typical MW release does. This will cause me (and other PR folks who use Marketwire) some issues trying to reconcile cost/value metrics for upper management. The webosphere link tracking is excellent though. Might even have to create a couple new metrics. Something along the lines of “number of comments, actions or emails” on the PR. I’m not sure yet, but we need to be able to prove the value of our PR efforts. I know this is new ground being plowed – but once the seeds are planted eventually some crops better come up.

WEBITPR.com does have tracking that I can easily append to my other tracking efforts - I use VocusPR for tracking and Marketwire as our main distribution service. WEBITPR’s tracking is easy to view, understand, use and pretty cool to boot. The guys over the pond have done a nice job of building their offering. Pretty impressive actually. Hats off to them.

SMR CHALLENGES

One of the major challenges I see though is downstream distribution. The way these SMR’s are rendered and displayed. They are ripped up and displayed in a gazillion different ways. Almost every news site displays the SMR differently. The best you can hope for right now I guess is to get it right where you have control – like for example, Marketwire – or Webitpr – or whatever your distribution vendor happens to be.

However, though seemingly a small issue, “downstream display and rendering” I guarantee you this question will come up when cost-justifying the SMR to internal budget committees - “Why do it if doesn’t get rendered or displayed the correct way. Isn’t that a waste of money?” So, be prepared to cost justify with results.

Few examples:

Yahoo does okay - renders graphics – but no video.

MSNBC – images and video at bottom.

IMPORTANT NOTE

PRXBuilder.com was the best.

And there’s a reason for that.

I developed all my SMR’s on PRXBUILDER first and then uploaded them. Shannon Whitley at PRXBUILDER is superb to work with. Knowledgeable, helpful, courteous, goes the extra step. His PRXBuilder tool can really help people get their minds around the SMR concept easily and quickly. It’s simple, easy-to-use and you can be up and running in a few minutes with it. Plus, it gives me the ability to use the same press release content and deliver it in 4 different formats

• Traditional Release

• Social Media Release

• Multi-media Release

• New Media Release

This is helpful as we gradually ramp up use of the SMR format – I can still do it the old way if need be for some recipients who need it in different formats.It would be great if Marketwire accepted the PRX Format. I know PRNewswire accepts it – but they’re a little pricey right now for this type release.

Thanks for your post Brian.

Great work as always.

Best,

Steve Kayser

------

Steve, thank you very much for taking the time to document your experiences. I believe that it will only help guide marketing and PR professionals as they look to navigate the murky and unchartered waters of Social Media. I look forward to your future experiments.

Connect with me on Twitter, Jaiku, Pownce, Plaxo, or Facebook

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The Definitive Guide to Social Media Releases

The Social Media Release is back in the spotlight once again and its sparking conversations, inspiring experiments, and raising confusion along the way.

This time, intent and distribution take center stage.

Good friends Todd Defren and Christopher Lynn took the time to research how wire services are positioning their products for Social Media. Todd posted the results here. Great work guys!

Basically, when you call your local representative, you’re presented with the following capabilities.



Now, whether these stats are accurate, that’s up to what you discover through direct research. Ultimately, you have to hear directly from your rep and try these for yourself in order to draw exact conclusions. But, as Defren points out, his research is representative of what the wire services "know and sell" right now.

So, this brings up a couple of important points:

How do you distribute these things?

And, is this what reporters and bloggers really want and do we really need them?

OK, NEWS FLASH….

For Immediate Release:

Press Releases Are Only One Way To Tell Your Story; Social Media Releases Can Complement Traditional Releases

DATELINE: The Blogosphere -- NOW -- Brian Solis, a “leader” in what should be nothing more than the obvious, today announced that Social Media Releases can complement your outbound communications strategy based on what the people you’re trying to reach want to see and how. They do not replace Traditional Releases.

“I am so pleased and excited that the PR industry is interested in something new to help reach journalists, bloggers and their customers,” said Brian Solis, author of the PR 2.0 blog. “But, I’m sorry to say, that just because a new tool is available to you, you still have to make your story interesting, relevant, and newsworthy. The Social Media Release is not going to miraculously fix a hyperbole-ridden, over-stated, incomprehensible document riddled with BS. The people that matter to you are simply seeking context, relevance, what’s new, what you do, why it matters, how it’s different, and to whom. You still have to do your homework and write something compelling and clear.”

# # #

Why Do We Need the Social Media Release?

OK folks, it’s time to separate the hype from the hope.

I think we’re learning “how” to create Social Media Releases, aesthetically at least. But, I don’t see many discussions that effectively and clearly say “why” we need them.

There's plenty of talk. And, there’s definitely no shortage of critics out there. And to some extent, I too am skeptical of any one tool that carries the hopes of an industry to magically change the popular perception of PR and press releases in general.

But, IMHO, the SMR is an important icebreaker for the bigger discussions of how and why we should write better press releases in general.

I use them in conjunction with traditional releases and they work extremely well. Personally, I prefer using a blog platform to create and distribute them.

Are they as effective when distributed through a a wire service?



For example, let’s use MarketWire’s recent launch of its new Social Media Release service, “Social Media 2.0” as a case study to see if we can answer why Social Media Releases are worth our time and if they really work. Disclosure, Thom, Kevin, I’m a big fan of MarketWire, so what follows is just an open discussion of a public launch related to a relevant topic.

Facts:

MarketWire recently acquired Kevin Dill’s PRNN service, which was an effective solution for distributing releases online.

Now part of MarketWire, Kevin helped the company build a new Social Media solution dubbed, “Social Media 2.0, the Industry's Most Authentic Social Media Product.”

They announced it via a Social Media Release format, a service which I also helped them manually code over the course of several announcements starting in 2006.

First, let’s examine the headline, “Marketwire Unveils Social Media 2.0: Industry's Most Authentic Social Media Product.”

The only reason I’m calling this out, outside of the Social Media ingredients that define the release, is because any product related to Social Media Releases is important and especially relevant to the discussion. Whether Traditional or Social, this headline unfortunately contributes to PR’s usual tendency to hype, hype, and hype some more. It steals from the significance of Social Media and the SMR, demonstrating why PR has a hard time getting taken seriously. Thom, Kevin, consult with us first. It’s free and it’s only going to help the bigger cause that we’re all collaboratively working towards.

Wanna know what the industry’s most authentic Social Media product is?

Blogs.

Instead of being the most authentic social media product, it instead comes across as a disingenuous and an opportunistic attempt at capitalizing on something momentous and “open.”

The intro paragraph, aside from the hype, serves well for ensuring that the release gets indexed in traditional search engines. Their intro paragraph is packed with key words, which will help it show up in search.

Here are a few examples how well it did for searching “social media” and “Marketwire”

Reuters

Google News

Yahoo News

Could it have been a bit more effective across other key words?

Yes, absolutely.

That’s the art of a SEO-optimized press release, which are complementary to SMRs and traditional press releases.

Did it too reasonably well?

Sure it did.

Here’s where most Social Media Releases fall down…

The link to Digg isn’t generating community voting the way that it does in say, a blog post.

Is this fixable?

Yes.

Unfortunately, the link to search context and discussions within Technorati isn’t yielding all of the discussions we know are present in the blogosphere.

Is this fixable?

Yes.

In the Bookmarking category, the MarketWire SMR has everything needed to ensure that people can save and share this link publicly within social networks.

The trackbacks function only provides a trackback URL, when it could also display a list of all places that responded to the news.

Instead of providing a hub to all external and orbiting conversations, it provides a count to discussions through traditional search engines.

Google

Yahoo

The embedded video and stills ensure that the conversations take place outside and around the news. For example, at the time of this article, the YouTube video featuring Thom’s intro to the new release service was viewed 333 times and counting. However, it’s missing the link back to the release should someone stumble upon it directly within YouTube. But, it’s still bringing the conversation to people and also allowing them to discover it within their networks.

Overall, aside from the “over the top” positioning, MarketWire demonstrated how a Social Media Release can spark conversations across the Social Web. As their coding improves, they’ll be able to track and promote the dialog more effectively, thus extending the conversation.

Unfortunately, though, the release isn’t gaining visibility within Social Media channels, which is an important step in tying everything together, and also promoting the information within the very networks that people go to discover and share information.

Everything else, including RSS feeds, work really well and I’m sure the SMR service will only get better. The products from PRNewswire, PRWeb, and BusinessWire, share similar capabilities, and most likely, results within the Social Media Sphere.

How could all of them improve?

Service providers and businesses looking to amply SMRs should extend the platform beyond an HTML Web page. Building something on a social platform such as WordPress, with full customization capabilities, delivers an inherent social ecosystem which supports the social tools of today and tomorrow and also ensures visibility and search ability using Social Search engines. Offering combo pricing for an SMR plus traditional distribution would raise the bar and create an entirely new playing field for sharing news across Social and Traditional networks.



What Makes a Social Media Releases Social?

Obviously a Social Media Release needs to feature Social Media ingredients, which includes links to bookmarking networks, contextual tags, the ability to track and host conversations, and also discover them within social networks. The inclusion of new features to simply make a fancy, shiny, new whiz bang press release doesn’t necessarily cut it.

So, what socializes a release?

A Social Media Release should contain everything necessary to share and discover a story in a way that is complementary to your original intent; but, the difference is, how they find it and the tools they use to share and broadcast.

Social Media is one big extension to the Web, except it promotes voices, along with content, in a way that focuses on people and their social networks.

Giving everyone what they need and how they need it, requires a different approach. Almost 100% of press releases issued today are done so without video or audio, which are underlying component of SMRs. But it's not about multimedia content, it's about connecting content across social networks and the people looking for it.

Social Media lowers the barriers to entry for companies to record, share and embed video and audio, and most importantly, allow people to also easily share with their audiences. The same can be said for all multimedia content.

Everything within Social Media now is widgetized, meaning that if you upload various content across social networks, you can embed it all in one place and repackage it under one brand umbrella. Without getting all geeky, these networks give you the “embed code” that you need to plop it somewhere. It's just cut and paste. What if the whole SMR was embeddable as well? That could be very cool!

So if we’re promoting conversations, shouldn’t we instill the ability to host or feature comments?

Absolutely.

Social Media is a two-way street and dialog sets the foundation for Social Media Releases.

The next step is discovery.

By placing content across social networks, properly tagging them (inserting relevant key words) within each, and linking back to your SMR (or blog post), you can effectively leverage visibility within each community, and also steer influence back to your intended impressions.

Obviously conversations should be ongoing, so part of socializing the release has a lot do with helping people staying connected and also find it again should they wish to see updates.

Make sure to check out co-comment, Tangler, and SezWho.

RSS for company news is one way to keep people tapped in to what you're doing. Offering links to simply that process could only help. For example, include linked icons for Bloglines, Netvibes, PageFlakes, and Google Reader. In addition, companies should also think about creating individual RSS feeds for product lines and specific services, to keep people connected to specific channels.

And if you’re feeling particularly inspired, creating an aggregated dashboard of relevant content, using Alltop or POPURLs as an example, bloggers, journalists, and customers can stay up to date and connected. Try experimenting with Netvibes to create something like this as a way of experimenting by tracking your favorite voices and stories on the Web. All it takes is an RSS feed.

So again, we ask, what makes a Social Media Release Social?

Well, at the end of the day, if you’ve ever written a blog post, much of what I’m describing already exists. There’s nothing to say that you couldn’t do this right now simply by creating a customized blog that is an extension of your company’s online newsroom.

However, if resources are limited, there are companies, including my own, which help you get there. Or, you can simply use existing services to recreate this process for every news release you wish to publish.

So, at the end of all of this, a Social Media Release should look something like this:

-----------------

Headline

Intro paragraph, rich with key words, relevance and context (summary)

Supporting facts

Quote

Embeddable Video (The new VNR)

Embeddable Audio

Embeddable Images

RSS for the company news

RSS for product info

Post in "insert social network of choice" (Facebook, Bebo, MySpace, or a relevant social network for sharing)

Blog this (links to blogging platforms)

Share on Twitter, Jaikue, Pownce or Tumblr

Bookmarks

Relevant links

Digg, Reddit, and other relevant news aggregators and communities.

Comments - Maybe also include a link to a hosted network on Ning or even a discussion forum on Tangler or Google Groups

Contact: hcard, vcard, LInkedIn, Facebook

-----------------

The Value of Social Media Releases

Even after we define the SMR, the same questions still come up:

1. Should we include sentences or is it supposed to be bullets?

2. Are we designing SMRs for “the wire” or the “web?”

3. Are SMRs created for journalists and bloggers and is it what they want?

4. Do SMRs need to spark and host conversations?

5. Can they, and should they, bypass influencers to reach people directly?

1- In order for these releases to show up in search engines, the truth is that an intro paragraph or two are necessary to help them index properly. Simply relying on bullets won’t get you anywhere, even if they’re sent directly to your contacts.

2 - I guess that parlays into the next point, SMRs should be designed for the Web, while a traditional release (say a compatriot release) is designed for the wire. Social Media Releases play to the strengths of the Web and also Social Media, a feature that wire services have yet to conquer.

3 - Personally, I’ve created SMRs with a private URL and shared with reporters and bloggers before the news was official (basically under embargo). They loved it and the ratio for pitching and publishing was almost 100%. But, all I’m doing is creating, positioning and packaging information in a way that’s relevant to them. The SMR in this case, becomes a wrapper for presenting information in a palatable and digestible way.

4 - Yes

5 - SMRs are more than just reporters and bloggers; they’re about people. When created properly, they can get discovered by the very people you want to reach and thus bypassing traditional influencers. I’m not saying that you should bank on this as a strategy, only think about it when you’re creating your press release strategy. You can write for both influencers and customers using a variety of Traditional, SEO, and Social press releases.

Yes, press releases show up in search engines.

Traditional Search Engines

Let’s start with the basics.

Traditional press releases distributed over wire services, for better or worse, ARE already showing up in search engines (especially Google and Yahoo News) as a natural part of the wire distribution process. Bottom line, press releases are already reaching people directly.

According to an Outsell study, over 51% of IT professionals report that they get their news from press releases in Yahoo and Google news over trade journals.

It's a fact that is changing the game for PR, and it's not only being driven by journalists, but customers too.

What it really represents is an opportunity to do things better. It all starts with making news relevant and writing it in a way that help people “get it.” An awful press release will still be awful, regardless of multimedia or social bling.

So, if traditional press releases already reach people, then why do we need a Social Media Release?



Search and Discovery in Social Media

Social Media Releases may look similar to today’s multimedia releases in format, structure and design, but depending on a series of factors, they have the ability to open up dialog in a way not possible with traditional or multimedia releases.

An important distinction between the two, discovered after spending the last two years experimenting with formats and distribution channels, is this: the content and structure of the SMR is only part of the equation.

What if the people you’re trying to reach are searching and sharing content outside of traditional online communities and instead, or in addition, actively participating in Social Media?

Helping SMRs appear within this realm is the true promise…otherwise they’re nothing more than a fancy wrapper for packaging news for their intended recipients. And, as any good PR person will tell you, providing a summary, images, video, and other supporting facts in one package, specific to their intended recipient, is something they’ve been doing for years.

SMRs are much more than bulleted text and links to multimedia content in social networks. It’s much more than simply sharing information. And, it’s definitely much more than providing building blocks for people to piece together.

SMRs are the hub for relevant content and also the catalyst for the socialization of news.

But, if nobody sees it, what good are they?

A big part of this socialization starts with “findability,” i.e. is the SMR discoverable inside or outside the world of Social Media?

Contrary to popular belief, search engines are not all created equal – especially in the world of Social Media.

The same tools that you use to find bloggers who cover the topics that are important to you, are also the same tools that someone can use to find your SMR (when done right).

- Technorati
- Blogpulse
- Google Blog Search
- Google Alerts

You probably didn’t know this, but most SMRs released to-date not readily discoverable by “social” search engines, even if you embed Technorati tags.

Yep, it’s true. The tags included in most SMRs will lead the reader to contextual links, but, the release itself will remain invisible in the social search engine. For example, click any Technorati Tag in any SMR out there and it will simply force a search for that keyword and produce all related blog posts on the subject, but the release itself won’t be part of the results unfortunately.

Please keep in mind that this is different that the “suggested” tags that you’re seeing in the hybrid examples out there today. If anything, they just help increase findability in traditional search.

Social Media Optimization (SMO)

To be “seen” by these blog-specific engines requires a separate social media optimization (SMO) aka blog search engine optimization (BSEO) process and an entirely different distribution mechanism. If the SMR is not published via a social platform (note: blogs are inherently social) like Wordpress or Blogger, it’s going to be ignored by Technorati, BlogPulse, Google Blog Search, et al.

Most often though, just to get things in perspective, if you place it on the Web or distribute via a traditional wire service, your release will in traditional search.

To apply SMO to your press release, again, think about blogging it in addition to your other release distribution.

Create a virtual fireside chat. Make sure to link each release to each other. And, if you upload content to social networks for embedding into your release, also ensure that there are links back to the releases.

The most important thing you can do to escalate visibility is to tag your content direclty within each social network with the relevant key words that someone might search when they’re looking for information. I can’t emphasize this enough.

Summary

Social Media Releases are only one way to tell your story and they can work extremely well when paired with a traditional release and an effective outbound media/blogger/influencer campaign.

Nothing beats knowing what you want to say, why it matters, and to whom. You still have to do your homework and you still have to write something compelling (meaning well written.)

Conversations are ultimately the tool that will help you spread the word and ignite additional word of mouth and also trigger customer responses.

Writing the news in a way that's helpful, informative, and relative is a critical starting point for any release, whether social, traditional, or SEO.

What this all means is that the future of the Social Media Release is up to you. Raise the bar. Experiment. Provide value. Remember, that releases, regardless of format, are only the tools that can help facilitate discussions, relationships, and also visibility. The ability to tell your story, your way, to the people that define your markets, is where we should all focus our time and effort...the rest, is simply a function of outreach.

For additional insight, please read, "The Future of the Social Media Release is in Your Hands."

Other voices on the subject:

Dave Fleet

Jiyan Wei

Robert Geller

PRBlogger

Connect with me on Twitter, Jaiku, Pownce, Plaxo, or Facebook

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