As the Social Media Press Release reaches its second anniversary an interesting study was released recently by PR Week that gauges where, and how, bloggers and journalists like to receive company information. It’s a topic that’s picked up steam recently as the major news release companies and PR firms have gotten on-board with the notion of making their news “sharable” and “findable”.

Which brings me to the most recent report and then some thoughts on what “findable” really means on the interwebs as they stand today, and as they will organically move forward with Universal Search and the semantic web (aka Web 3.0). But first, the findings in the report:

Across the board, both traditional journalists and bloggers (approx. 85% respectively) received pitches from public relations folks.

No surprise there, but this is where things get interesting…

Traditional journalists rely primarily on a companies website (89%) for information when researching a story, followed by Google search (73.8%) and personal contact by a PR person (70.9) or press release. On the flip side, bloggers rely on a Google search and the company website almost equally (86.1% and 87.3% respectively) and are just tipping over 50% in the personal contact or press release department (54.4% and 57% respectively).

And then of course the question relating to the title of this post, how about the SMPR?

“What would the ideal pitch look like?” — A personal, concise email - 63.1% across the board, with the highest percentage being bloggers at 70.9%.

When asked about the social media release bloggers were slightly more receptive than the average at 17.7% vs. 7.1% in aggregate including traditional TV, radio and print journalists.

Now of course, no one wants to receive a traditional release with the abysmal stats of 2.5% for bloggers and 19.9% in aggregate.

Finally, video isn’t swaying many editors it seems with 70.1% aggregated journalists and bloggers (60.8%) stating that including video in a pitch doesn’t sway them.

So there are some stats here that make it pretty clear we have a long way to go in wide-spread adoption of the SMPR, although with the echo chamber noise about it, it seems the bubble effect keeps going and SMPRs are becoming major parts of a brand social media strategy but without any thought to the fundamentals about who is paying attention, and perhaps more importantly, how they are doing so.

No offense, but the way SMPRs are being presented range from a blog post format to a traditional ad-agency microsite format to a press release on the wire with some video and “share it” buttons. There is no consistency, and frankly, no context or long-term planning for the most part. It’s a bit ironic, but what I’m seeing happen with SMPRs is akin to the rampant use of microsites in the late 90s/ early 00s… lots of content thrown at the users, no contextual relevancy, no personalization, and an expiry date.

Let’s go back to web principles 101 here for a minute:

Everything you do should be intuitive, findable, and relevant (both in the immediate and in the archive). This is what drives the semantic web, what will drive the future of our online experience, and why tagging etc. has become a standard categorization method across all social media applications and tools.

So about the SMPR…

First off, and I cannot stress this enough, what ever you do online MUST be hosted on your own servers, with your own domain strategy in place, not exclusively on a newswires or an agency’s. Otherwise you are giving away your brand SEO juice and contextual content to a third-party and it provides absolutely no value to you unless that third-party has the built-in organic relevancy for your brand that you do (I cannot even imagine an example). Leaving aside the obvious SEO elements, from a conversational, and a web usage standpoint, search is where people go first to find information they’re looking for unless they are triggered by a friend’s recommendation or conversation. That’s where, if they’re searching, they want to find your information - in one of the top organic results. Why would you want to compete with anyone when you’re building an SMPR (especially yourself)? Your site has the brand equity of, for most corporations, a decade; build on it, don’t dilute it.

Secondly, using a newswire that’s enabled social sharing is a great idea as a supplement to sharing your content or news, but nothing beats one-to-one interaction, as the study further reinforces. There is no substitute for getting to know the community you are a part of. In addition, as multiple studies over the years have shown, when it comes to domain and branding strategy, simple and contextual is key to recall. Making sure your social content is part of your overall website and marketing strategy is crucial to maximizing visibility and interaction.

In the end, it ultimately comes back to being “findable” and “relevant” on a topic in the long term. Let’s also keep in mind that as much as an SMPR is a valuable tactic within social media, there is nothing inherently “social” about a “share this” button. The sociability comes in the interaction and the conversation over multiple channels and platforms.

And part of interaction, conversations, and what drives it all, context, is being accessible. Which leads us into universal search.

Universal search is a hot topic, and with it the reality that content is findable across a wide spectrum of properties using a single search term (a search for “Hyatt” could yield video, images, podcasts, as well as the corporate website and blog, etc.). Google, for example, is all about building a relevant experience for their users. If they know (because their algorithms look for patterns and context) that not only is the Hyatt video on YouTube hot, but it’s also embedded and linked to from the Hyatt Press Room that has historical and brand credibility, that contextually confirmed video will appear in the top results in most cases.

And that’s where the SMPR plays a valuable role: in your Media Centre/ Press Room, properly optimized for search.

The whole report really has some meaty stats and questions in terms of journalists views on the state of their industry, and how they work & bloggers take on their place in the eco-sphere - it’s worth a thorough read.

h/t on PRWeek report @dannysullivan via Twitter

[photo credit: monicutza80 via Flickr]

As part of my presentation at Search Engine Strategies NY this week, I talked about how social bookmarking services can help company’s gain a deeper understanding of how their customers (or prospects) view and interact with their brand. Social bookmarking isn’t incredibly sexy, but it is a powerful component of the social media mix.

Part of the beauty of social bookmarking is how individual, yet universal it is due to its non-hierarchical folksonomy. When people save pages to their delicious account for example, they are using tags that are not only universal (and part of the common lexicon), but can also choose words and phrases that are relevant to themselves as individuals. As an example, someone tagging the page www.bluefly.com would use keywords like “shopping” and “clothing”, but as is shown in the screenshot below in the “recent history” section, someone also thinks of the BlueFly site as providing “design inspiration”. Drilling into the types of tags people are using for not only your company or brand, but also for your competitors, can yield valuable, and sometimes surprising results that can help inform other aspects of your marketing and communication efforts, including SEM and SEO.

Another valuable use of social bookmarking is to gain insight into how your brand is perceived by the users saving and tagging your (or your competitors) website or content. Using Dell as an example and digging into the “user notes” section you see not only references you’d expect, such as:

Create a custom computer configuration and then purchase it online. Includes and extensive download library of utilities and drivers for each Dell.

But also not so favourable comments, that even though they are negative provides valuable customer, product, customer service, and brand insight.

Fast fading as leading PC host. Due to bad quality of products and reluctance of tech support to actually support…

Exploring and using social bookmarking is relatively easy, and along with many other terrific uses that I’ll explore in subsequent posts, can provide another window into perceptions and sentiments about your brand.

[photo credit: One on Flickr]

.. well, technically 11, but they are housed under the same ‘umbrellas’… :)

Continuing with my theme of 8 and ‘08, I’ve been giving some thought to paring down the number of different types of software I’m using and concentrate on maximizing my productivity with the 8 (or 11) tools I can’t do without. I’ll of course experiment with others and add new ones as the year progresses, but incorporating new tools without sacrificing my time or concentration (and therefore decreasing my adoption rate) should become easier if I’m streamlined to start.

The eight:

1. Desktop email and calendar (work) - Outlook

I tried Thunderbird, but for keeping me on track in my office life, the classic email client still does it for me.

2. Blog publishing & platform - Windows Live Writer & Wordpress

After reading Mitch Joel’s review of WLW a while ago I decided to check it out… I’m a big fan: easy to use, integrates seamlessly, ability to embed anything with one click, and you can post offline.

3. Mobile - Blackberry (no iPhone yet in Canada!)

Yes, I’m a crackberry addict… I’m trying to wean myself of the addiction of the flashing red light. ;) But it is essential when you’re on the go and need to send business emails (or SMS status updates).

[not really an 'online' tool per se, but it helps me connect to the online and wireless world, so I'm including it]

4. Data Backups - Mozy

Just started using this service, it’s an online remote storage solution for your documents, pictures, music… with automatic backups I don’t have to worry about remembering.

5. Collaboration - BaseCamp & Box.net

I like BaseCamp for project collaboration and use Box.net to share and store large files online.

6. Catch-all email, chat and search (personal) - Gmail

I’m a fan of Gmail and most Google products, but I do limit Gmail to personal and not business use… I’m not comfortable with one company having *that* much information!

7. Organization/ Tasks - Remember The Milk

I was pointed to this online To Do List by my good friend, and an outstanding project manager, Mark a couple of months ago.. although I still love my pen and paper, it’s the only to-do list tool online that I’ve been able to stick with over the long term.

8. Information Aggregation - Netvibes & Google Reader

Netvibes is fantastic for keeping me updated on the universe I choose to, and allows me to segregate my interests on different tabs. Weather, Twitter, News, Blogs, Gmail, Flickr, etc. widgets act as my own portal. Of course, with all that info, Netvibes can be heavy loading and isn’t altogether the best suited to consume large quantities of RSS feeds quickly, which is where Reader comes into my daily use.

+++++++

I’m thinking this could be a meme, so I’ll start one! The catch is that it’s voluntary participation vs. the obligatory tag :)

So, what are your 8 essential online / connectivity tools (so far)?

[photo credit: Dan Shouse via Flickr]

I don’t usually blog about client business, but this current campaign we’re running for AppliancePartsPros.com is an exception imo because of the nature of the “news” itself.

Appliance Parts Pros is a pure ecommerce internet company that has been growing steadily for 8 years now and they have embraced blogging, direct interaction with customers, and search, in all their strategies to date. When Wildfire (working in conjunction with Page Zero Media) was tasked with coming up with a holiday promotion that could extend beyond traditional, the natural fit was to run a blog contest and engage the community outside of a strict online contest structure. We started by looking at ‘who’ AppliancePartsPros is at its core, what makes sense for the brand, their customers, and their community. The result is the “Comforts of Home” Holiday Contest. The promotion was built in two phases: the first was philanthropy and a donation to US soldiers serving overseas in Iraq or Afghanistan by sending 80 “Comforts of Home” care packages out in early November. The second was the contest itself, where not only can participants enter to win an iPhone¬Æ or Kitchen Aid Stand Mixer¬Æ, but, if they have a blog, can also help to build an item in a care package that will be delivered in mid-December. For every 5 blog posts about a holiday cooking horror story, or a text, video, or audio message to US troops, one additional care package will be sent.

Of course, a key part of this promotion is outreach to the community; be they military bloggers, food bloggers, holiday bloggers, or DIY bloggers. We spent a significant amount of time getting to know the space and who might be interested in hearing from us directly. We also prepared a Social Media News Release (I refuse to call it a press release because the people who consume the content may not be “press”, but the item itself is “news”). We used a customized version of the Shift Communications template for the SMNR and so far the feedback from the community we are reaching out to has been terrific and heartwarming. The outreach and interaction is on-going, and is now moving into the news media phase as well. We did not include comments or trackbacks on the SMNR because of the blog posts and comment abilities there (where folks should be heading to enter the contest!), but did include Digg, del.ici.ous, and Flickr links.

I’m proud of this promotion, the SMNR, and having a fantastic client willing to try new things. I’d love to hear your thoughts and feedback on the release and the contest, and will share results when appropriate.

On another, related note, I am thrilled to welcome Rebecca Muller, a former client of Wildfire’s and all around stellar interactive pro, to the Wildfire Strategic Marketing fold as Director of Client Service. If you haven’t already, check out her terrific blog – The Direct Approach – which is linked as well from my sidebar. Her contributions to this campaign have been much appreciated and welcome (if you have any questions about military blogs, or bloggers, she’s your woman!).

[photo credit: Appliance_Parts_Pros on Flickr]

We all know the feeling - a new product or service, an exciting pitch, the need to breathe new life into an existing product, etc. - the path towards marketing innovation can be laden with distractions, the status quo, knowledge gaps, tight deadlines, and lack of budget to name a few hurdles. What I‚Äôve personally found has developed organically for me over these years is 10 concrete steps that I take before embarking on developing a creative strategy and plan. I‚Äôve tailored these steps to fit within the current climate I’m operating under, but each one is always included in the process (behind the scenes or centre stage). One of the benefits that I have found is that after taking the time to research and allow outside-the-box thinking I have a clear picture of the way forward, with many of the details, challenges and opportunities already fleshed out. No matter the project size or scope, having a clear understanding of all the various pieces has been crucial to success.

When I started out in business, I spent a great deal of time researching every detail that might be pertinent to the deal I was interested in making. I still do the same today. People often comment on how quickly I operate, but the reason I can move quickly is that I’ve done the background work first, which no one usually sees. I prepare myself thoroughly, and then when it is time to move ahead, I am ready to sprint. ~ Donald Trump

1. Get to know the company and product beyond the SWOT:
Who are they? What do they stand for? What do their employees think? What are their long-term goals? Are they set up for rapid change or are they slow and steady? Are they progressive or traditional?

2. Get to know what their customers (and former customers) think:
What do their customers say about them? What is their USP (perceived or earned)? Who do their customers believe them to be?

3. Get to know the competition and their customers:
Who else is in the market? What types of products are they focusing their efforts on? What is their USP (perceived or earned)? What do their customers (current and former) think about the brand and the products? What type of marketing channels do they use?

4. Revisit previous campaigns:
What types of mediums did they use? What was the messaging? What visuals did they employ? Did they receive any press coverage? Do they have metrics on results? Was there any follow up?

5. Seek out the developed and developing trends in the space:
Which way is the wind blowing with consumers, the competition, the media, technology, etc.? What is hot right now and what is next?

6. Free associate:
Use the company, the product, the image, the brand, the vision, to free associate connections; large and small. Be creative. There is no box. Let your mind roam.

7. Think of the future:
Are you building a brand? Launching a product that will become iconic? Promoting an existing product? Announcing a sale? Put it in context.

8. Examine what’s related:
What is related to your product in your customer’s life? What other products or services are related? What are the connections between them?

9. Notice the cultural landscape:
Are there cultural trends beyond those in your market that may impact your strategy?

10. Visualize the touchpoints:
How does your customer or prospect interact with media channels? What are they looking for in each interaction?

Not all steps can be as fully researched as Trump may undertake before inking a deal, but they can be customized and scaled based on needs and realities. I also try and keep in mind that if a project is so large or complex that it requires all of these steps be done in depth but the time or budget isn’t there, it may be a set up for a Dip down the road!

[photo credit: Ozyman on Flickr]