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Reviving the Traditional Press Release
By Brian Solis, blogger at  PR 2.0  and principal of FutureWorksPR, Co- Author Putting the Public Back in Public Relationsand Now Is Gone
SourceThe press release is over 100 years old and for the most part, its evolution is mostlystagnant for the majority of its lifespan. However, the press release has evolved more in
(cc) Brian Solis,www.briansolis.com- Twitter, @briansolis
 
the last decade than it has over the century thanks to the proliferation of the Internetand most notably, the Social Web. The tired and oft disregarded press release is finallytasting reinvention as it transforms to chase the new channels of influence as well asadapt to the rapidly shifting behavior of content discovery, consumption and sharing.We are witnessing the modernization of an aging communications tool and thedistribution networks that connect them to the outside world of influencers andconsumers. While the Web is serving as the catalyst for this regeneration, we can alsolook at innovating the template for traditional press releases as well, starting with thevery documents and HTML pages on existing corporate newsrooms that serve as their primary source of PR and corporate presentation.It’s about time we breathe new life into the press release template.Over the past few years I have been a vocal supporter and committed practitioner of Social Media Releases (SMR) because they offered the ability to share stories in amore palatable and meaningful format, supported by the media content that helpedreporters and bloggers retell the story using the media building blocks that contextuallyframed it. Social Media Releases also served as a hub for connecting disparate mediaelements across multiple social networks serving as a frame of reference for distributedvideos on YouTube, pictures on Flickr, supporting documentation on DocStoc, marketreports and information bookmarked on Delicious, etc. SMRs represent a new andpromising opportunity to renew the dialog around improving the foundation for thecommunication of news, information, and events that left most immune to its overduepotential.Sometimes in order to embrace innovation we need to blend it with existingmethodologies and processes (what we know and how we do it) to eventually propelchange, technology and comprehension across the bell curve of adoption.As you know, I’m a strong proponent for change, where change is merited. It must servea purpose and not associate with hype or shiny objects. In an online world, where bothmedia and communications are altering how content is produced and distributed, theinformation we share and how we share it must match the correlating workflow andproduction processes. At a minimum, they must align with the reader’s persuasion,provide the tools and services they need to retell your story their way (links, video,
(cc) Brian Solis,www.briansolis.com- Twitter, @briansolis
 
images, bookmarks, etc.), and also provide a mechanism for inviting feedback, and alsoencourage sharing through a myriad of services that sends information across the socialgraphs.Web 1.0 spurred the modernization of the press release, the first in a series of innovations that continue today and represented the most significant changes to thestandard format since the introduction of audio and video news releases (VNRs) servingthe broadcast industries.In 1997, BusinessWire debuted the Smart News Release, which offered businessesability to integrate links to supporting audio, video, and digital images. BusinessWirealso hosted the release online to complement its wire counterpart. According to thecompany Dell and AMD were among the first adopters of this new release format.In 2001, PRNewswire released itsMultiVumultimedia release (MMR) service, whichalso offered a branded, stylish online dashboard for businesses to tell their storythrough text and corresponding media. The first multimedia release published usingMultiVu introduced the movie Pearl Harbor and featured stills, clips, and other mediafiles to create a more immersive experience.Soon thereafter, all existing and also new breeds of wire services, including PRWeb,BusinessWire, MarketWire, among others, debuted online multimedia friendly pressrelease hosting solutions that adapted to the Web’s migration from 1.0 to 2.0.In 2006,Todd Defren introduced us to the concept of a Social Media Release, which connected online media to social networks. To this day, Todd and I continue tocollaborate on the advancement of the Social Media Release in conjunction with manyvisionariesacross the communicationsand Web marketing communities.Shortly thereafter, Shannon Whitley developedPRX, the first automated system for building and distributing Social Media Releases.Last year,PitchEnginelaunched a dedicated service to empower PR to create, host,and publish branded Social Media Releases and Social Media Newsrooms without thehelp of developers or Web marketers. I since joinedthe company as an advisor andstakeholder.
(cc) Brian Solis,www.briansolis.com- Twitter, @briansolis
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