Social Media Press Release Tips

By now you’ll no doubt be well aware of the importance of social media and its value to marketing today… that’s old news. BUT why are so many PRs still adopting the ‘traditional press release template’ when promoting to the likes of bloggers? This article explains what the differences between a traditional press release and a social media press release really are and helps you to get to grips with putting one together.

Let’s start by comparing bloggers and journalists (appreciate that this is very generalized so please forgive):

As you can see, there’s a major difference between the two… but showing you the difference between the two is not the point of the article. The point I’m trying to make is that because they are so different they need to be treated very differently when approaching for publicity.

Professional journalists are trained to scan press releases and extract exactly what they want from them – they’ve seen 1,000s of them and expect to see them in a specific format.

Bloggers on the other hand are new to the notion of tactically extracting information from a traditional press release – they read the first few lines and get bored (and rightfully so). Traditional releases simply don’t relate to their blogs OR the blogger simply doesn’t appreciate the way they have been approached more than ever.

So what is the solution… the emergence of a new Social Media Press Release Template. The PR industry is in need of a drastic shake up in my mind; in fact it’s experiencing one as I type. This is thanks to the emergence of social media.

So what’s the difference between the traditional press release template and the social media release template… LOTS! Below are our top sips for creating a social media press release.

• For one… consider how you announce the story in the headline. Will it make a ‘blogger’ with little journalistic experience sit up and take note because it’s entirely relevant to their site?

• Ask yourself what value it adds to the blogger’s blog? No value… no coverage.

• ‘A picture tells a thousand words’ – bloggers have less time than journalists… can you appeal through a few strong visuals nicely laid out within the release.

• Talk as if you are talking to a human (in 1st and 2nd person… NOT 3rd person). The more personal the better it will be received.

• Personalise, personalise, personalise where possible!

• Avoid corporate and marketing speak, buzzwords don’t sit well with bloggers as it engenders mistrust and is hard to understand.

• If you need to, amend your release to appeal to different audiences, never get lazy as you won’t get the returns.

• Make the blogger’s life easier by shortening to release to just enough information to make it manageable to read from a time perspective – ½ the length of a trad release (this is where images come into their own).

• Angle a social media release more toward a case study – bloggers can therefore see very clearly what the story is angling towards and perhaps relate to their own lives. Stay away from ‘announcements’ and angle your release more towards explaining the techniques employed for success and how you can easily replicate the results.

• Text format comes very much into play… avoid reams of standard font text and instead, opt for including larger fonts, boldness and underline to pull out the key messages.

• Stick to the point and don’t waste precious space.

• Use bullets to get points across quickly.

• When you send it out, personalise the email – ideally first name terms. Attach low res (300 pixels wide or high) web ready (RGB) images… this will ensure the blogger has all to hand that they need to get the article live.

• Finally, where possible keyword optimise your release. It’s likely that some of your target bloggers will simply cut and paste if they feel the story is strong enough so be prepared for this and ensure you pepper it with gold nuggets!

Always remember… THERE ARE VERY FEW TRADITIONAL RULES WHEN IT COMES TO SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING, SO EXPERIMENT WITH some new release structures and see how you fare. Test it on your friends (not other PRs or journos) and see if they ‘get it’ immediately.

Alternatively, get in touch and we’ll help you put it together.