Comments on: The Social Media Release’s Fatal Flaw: No Hook

By: The SMNR Revisited: With Todd Defren

The SMNR Revisited: With Todd Defren — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 02:04:23 +0000

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NinjaKai » Blog Archive » links for 2008-04-16 — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 03:55:25 +0000

[...] duncanriley.com ?Ç¬ª The Social Media Release?¢‚Ç¨‚Ñ¢s Fatal Flaw: No Hook [NinjaKai] 2.0 press release (tags: NinjaKai web 2.0) [...]

By: Ash Nallawalla

Ash Nallawalla — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 05:10:23 +0000

Fully agree with you Duncan, having been at both ends of a press release for over 20 years. Perhaps Shift is being deliberately controversial and has managed to get far more links than they would have. Two years later, SMNR has not changed the PR world and I have certainly never seen one in the wild. Journos will not read a release unless they see the hook within a few nanoseconds.

From the SEO angle, this SMNR is not delivered on a SM platform, e.g. Facebook. It contains links to SM elements, which is as SM as it gets. It is really a multimedia PR, but that sounds so 20th century…

By: Martin Neumann

Martin Neumann — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 10:20:34 +0000

Spot on, Duncan.

2.0 or not, a press release is all about catching the attention of your target: usually a journalist.

Therefore, one must think like one. Most journos get a ton of press releases – your job is to stand out from the crowd.

In fact, you want to make it as easy as possible for the journo to do his job – ideally a (traditional) press release should be written pretty much like it could go straight to the presses.

And it’s ALWAYS about the hook. No hook, then 99.99% of the time it’s trashed – and rightly so.

This is all so basic PR 101, seems like the social media release is a bit of an overkill with all the info thrown in.

By: Stage Two Consulting

Stage Two Consulting — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 06:36:18 +0000

PR: It’s not the bullets, it’s the poorly aimed guns…

Big discussion today about the social media press release. Again. There’s some good reading over at MediaShift which you should check out (warning – it’s long) prior to going too far here. You should also see counterpoints from Duncan Ri…

By: John McCrea

John McCrea — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 04:04:56 +0000

Duncan, I agree. I’m a big fan on PR 2.0 and a practioner of conversational marketing, but I confess I have not drunk the “Social Media Press Release”. I prefer to go out with either a well-crafted traditional press release or a well written blogpost. Either way, it’s a good idea to support it with a blog-ready graphic or video.

By: Cyndy Aleo-Carreira

Cyndy Aleo-Carreira — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 03:38:14 +0000

At what point will this incestuous cluster**** that is Web 2.0 realize that what makes sense in this realm doesn’t fly with the other 99% of the world?

This is by far the most ridiculous suggestion to come out of this sector, and that’s saying a lot. There’s a world outside of Web 2.0 and maybe the NYT was right… folks need to step away from the laptop and experience it.

By: lawrence

lawrence — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 02:16:55 +0000

a good hook, indeed!

but regarding the ‘2.0′ press release – with all those web2 links/features, etc…that could overburden, or scare, traditional media/journalists…to the point they’ll nearly automatically toss your PR to the bin.

delicious, technorati, digg, rss, podcast, etc – to alot of journalists still, those are foreign words. and i doubt they’ll take the time to really learn it all – they will just cover or pickup a story that’s written in the old-school PR style