Part II: My notes on PRWeb Social News Release show
For a long time I’ve been telling my students the “dirty little secret” that the term PRESS RELEASE is passè — and people-in-the-know have been referring to these outreach communiquès as NEWS RELEASES.
However in the New Media World, we now have the SOCIAL NEWS RELEASE with entirely new rules and capabilities. Naturally I was excited by the prospect of sharing the tips for online news releases offered in the PRWeb/Vocus webinar.
SNR’s — VITAL SEO TOOL
Here are three of the broad-based benefits of Social News Releases:
- Their incorporated “links” build Google juice
- They provide content for both news aggregators and bloggers
- They can create viral exposure through social networks
The Webinar listed five steps for a Great Online News Release:
- Focus on two or three relevant key phrases — and get one of those in the headline and the other in the first sentence.
- Content is Key: Make certain that your story has news value and is not just a veiled sales pitch.
- Distribute the release to all social media platforms including Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.
- Optimize with key words and videos or images.
- Use targeted anchor tags [URLs with recognizable labels].
It’s All About BACKLINKS
Go to slide #26++ on Optimized Press Releases for examples of SEO-enhanced social news releases. Notice the embedded video, social bookmarking, live search tracking, and embedded hyperlinks. Multimedia has become an expectation.
Here are two organizational points from the webinar transcript:
- The Process has changed: new way of working, new approval procedures, new metrics
- Leadership must discuss and adopt a new way of defining success for Public Relations
You can use this template for a Social News Release provided on the Web by Todd Defren, widely respected PR/Social Media expert whose blog PR-Squared debuted the recommended format. For more information check out this Fact Sheet on Todd and the relevance of Social News Releases.
Next post: SFSU alum John Gumas was one of the SF marketing pro’s “responsible” for sparking my passion for All Things Social Media
Social News Release is the necessary step into the future.
I like that the blog has full instructions to access Releases and keep surfers connected with Social News.
Brittany, do you know what a press release is . . . and, what is familiarity with the whole area of Public Relations?
I have registered for Pressitt, but have no news release to send out. If you find this site, please try it out and let us all know.
Pressitt is a free online SMNR creation and publishing, that lets you do all the above and more. Give it a spin! http://www.pressitt.com