So many folks are interpreting the ‘words’ Social Media Release without checking into the intention – this has made this conversation very fractured and created further confusion, but this is the challenge of conversation over control, and I am glad we are having it despite the frustration. Unfortunately, many other people are misappropriating the idea and leveraging the larger meme to their own advantage for helping them sell their products to the unaware professionals who are trying to figure out the broader issues involved in social media. The idea has never been to simply replace the old school press release with a new format that would be used in the same way as before – it has always been about transforming the practice of public relations to better serve the interests of the client and the community they serve in light of technological and social advancements in communication.

Will be glad to talk about this next week at Northern Voice further… see you soon.

I’ve never really been keen on the whole notion of the social media press release, because it implies non-personalized broadcasting.

When I have a story to pitch, whether it’s to bloggers or the mainstream media, I customize each email (or whatever) I send. There’s always going to be content that’s the same, or similar, but that’s never the whole message.

If there are resources that people need, I get the client to write a blog post and/or we create a ‘social media resources page’ (though I don’t actually call the page that awful name) which has all of the video, photos, product info et al that a journalist or blogger might want.

http://todmaffin.com/newformat