Social Media Press Release - Why stop there?

I wrote at the end of January about the Social Media Press Release (SMPR) and how it provided a vehicle to exert some amount of "control" over a fundamentally uncontrollable business asset - our marketing messages - in the highly transparent Web 2.0 world. Since then I've been thinking about the SMPR and trying to connect it to some other dots in my mind about the role of social media commentators, including "A-List bloggers," a debate about which was spun up on Guy Kawasaki's blog a while back. In the end, I've come to the conclusion that the SMPR's potential goes far beyond the press release, or even public relations. Some dialog from Geoff Livingston on The Buzz Bin has begun to confirm my thinking. The bottom line is that I think Social Media Group (SMG) and others out there developing these social media communications formats have really stumbled into a new kind of promotional web site. Jeff Falls calls it the Social Media Resource (SMR), and I think he's on the right track, though I prefer "Source" to "Resource."

A Social Media Source Site (SMSS) would be different from an SMPR in that it would be designed to go beyond mostly one-way multimedia presentation and engage the A-List commentators directly with The Subject. An SMSS would become The Source Site - on behalf of The Subject (i.e., a brand, a product or an abstract concept like an advocacy agenda or campaign) for official information and relevant unofficial dialog. Because it contains both the official story and the most relevant unofficial dialog, it has the potential to become the (implied, single) "Source," instead of a (implied, one of many) "Resource," on behalf of the Subject.

As the Source for everything about The Subject, an SMSS should do extremely well in watching and interacting with A-List commentators as well showing up high in Google rankings, guaranteeing ongoing exposure with the people most interested in what The Subject is all about. A boon to Word of Mouth in Social Media (or, WOMiSoM), an SMSS could be the next generation web site, particularly well suited to big ideas and campaigns.

So read on for thoughts on how the SMPR could become the SMSS and why I think it's important to engage A-Listers in a similar way we do journalists.

The SMPR is a cool concept that some forward-thinking PR agencies are experimenting with to provide multimedia messages online, sort of like a multi-format media kit. The SMPR is essentially a web site designed to provide journalists, bloggers, YouTubers, and RSS readers the information they need to talk authoritatively and compellingly about The Subject (SMG points to an example Subject, Ford's Verve Concept Car SMPR). It's a web page that organizes traditional web content (text and graphics) in easy-to-scan-and-navigate information chunks, but also provides the stuff people on the web today like to play with - video, photos (lots), RSS feeds, tags, bookmarks and other links. As you look around you realize - hey! This is just a web site! But, just like a blog is a web site with a pre-configured CMS behind it, it's a cool web site designed to do one thing very well - put out the official story.

To really evaluate the SMPR's effectiveness, though, we have to take a hard look at who it targets. I would argue that it should target both journalists and the A-Lister commendtators in the relevant niche, but it should do so in a way that engages them in substantive interaction with The Subject. What struck me about the Ford SMPRs was how much they seemed oriented towards traditional product review journalists. I suppose this makes sense for Ford in their traditional media relations context where a great review from Autoweek can make an impact among enthusiasts which helps new model car sales. However a fascinating data point published in e-marketer should make even Ford question whether this traditional model is the model of the future (thanks to Geoff Livingston for blogging on it).

The data from BurstMedia shows that unofficial web sites (presumably written more and more frequently by the A-Liste social media commentators) are considered "Best Source" for automotive information, scooping up almost 32% of the "Best Source" votes, as opposed to only 9% which the car companies themselves snagged on their official sites. Some argue that A-List commentators' influence is overblown, but this data suggests that the information and opinions on unofficial web sites, probably lots of A-List enthusiasts' commentators, are given three times the weight of the official information sites in the minds of decision-making consumers. This finding is consistent with the dynamic of the credible third party endorsement marketers seek like the vein of gold in any promotion plan. Third party endorsements, combined with Word of Mouth (WOM) marketing, is every marketing plan's secret to success.

A-List bloggers are great places to try to start WOM in Social Media (or WOMiSoM, just for fun) campaigns. WOM is never a sure bet (far from it), but going after an audience already engaged and committed to talking about you is a better bet than shooting in the dark randomly (the ROI on random sucks). But here's the thing, all humans tend to fail the game of telephone the farther down the chain they are, and bloggers (even A-Listers) are typically less committed to searching out the facts than journalists. Jeremy Pepper and Chris Brogan both recently did posts on the phenom of journalism vs. blogging and they point this up. Social media and A-List commentators are.... commentators, people with opinions and as many facts as they can rustle up on their personal networks, Google, personal experience and a few well places emails and phone calls. Unlike journalists they don't have fact-checkers at their disposal for the most part, although the responsible ones do prefer to get the facts straight - and that's the hook you want to toss out to bait them into interacting with you.

So what do A-List bloggers care about enough to engage with your message? They first and foremost like to register their opinion and have it heard, but they also like to chat about The Subject, analyze it, talk about things it reminds them of, tell stories about it. Perhaps more importantly, they like to engage each other in this dialog. So - to Maggie Fox in her request for feedback on the SMPR I offer up an echo of some of the comments she's already received but go farther. As others have said, the SMPR needs comments, but it also needs blog entries of its own and trackbacks (both ways) so commentator's know they've been heard. They won't mind the extra exposure (i.e., links) either and to this point the SMSS can act like a mini blog aggregator site specific to the Subject. It can also host dialogs/fora for those that don't manage their own blogs and link indexes of all the sites/posts that mention the Subject. Yes, this sends off "we control the message" bells - but let me get to that in a minute.

So how can an SMSS help you keep your WOMiSM campaign from turning into a game of telephone, with your message (and worse case scenario, brand image) coming out garbled and unrecognizable on the other end? Well, if you're successful in actually engaging the A-Listers as discussed above, you're off to a good start. But as Maggie said, a Social Media site of any kind - "press release" or "source site" is an evolving story. It's a story that you don't tell in isolation but in dialog, and this means a couple of things.

1. Official Message: People need to be able to access the facts when they want them. Not everyone WANTs to garble the message. Responsible bloggers often act like journalists and will try to get their facts straight. So help them by centralizing the official messages and feel free to get as anal as you like on message control; it's your message after all. They will appreciate that you made it easy for them to parse the facts from the WOMSoM so they can talk about you (and with you) intelligently.
2. Unofficial Dialog: Don't get hung up on "message control" in the dialog arena. It's been proven time and time again, from Tylenol to Dell, when companies are open, honest and don't try to cover up the negatives, they get credit with intelligent audiences, which generally includes the A-Listers. Does this mean you have to publish every bad comment? Link to every "you suck" site out there? Of course not. It's your site and your message and smart commentators won't begrudge you screening out the wackos. Your assessment of wackos and theirs may be different; and in dialog with them you'll understand their threshold for wackoness and be able to make intelligent judgments about who to screen and who not to.

So if it includes both official information and reliable (i.e., non-wacko) unofficial dialog, the SMSS becomes the source spot that tells not only tells The Subject's evolving story but will become known as THE place to go to begin exploring The Subject or to catch up with the dialog. Another advantage of being the most comprehensive Source on the Subject? Owning the top Google search result for your Subject! What better way to own that top spot organically than linking everything to everything about The Subject? However, to this point, I might recommend to Maggie that the SMPR include a url strategy. Right now the Verve SMPR URL may be generating more search results for the keyword "Digital Snippets", not "Verve". [When I did a Google search for "verve car" the top spot is currently held by a dealer in Glasgow. Yes. In Scotland.]

Finally, a last implication for an SMSS - it can be used for really big things, big enough things to be worthy of an evolving story. Press Releases are great for drawing attention to pithy things, an event, a discreet piece of news, a launch or - as the SMPR hopes to do - the kickoff of an online dialog. But they are typically linked to very narrow Subjects. The rich media and dialog opportunity afforded by an SMSS creates the opportunity to reach far beyond the pithy and to host discussions on big things like campaigns (advertising and otherwise), a conference, or an advocacy platform.

In sum, while I think the SMPR is really interesting and a meaningful step forward, I think it's potential is much greater and I'd love to see it develop. But I do think this concept goes beyond Public Relations as we know it today and reaches all the way into branding. That's a subject I'm still thinking on and hope to write more on very soon.

Comments? Anyone already doing this? Any good candidates? I'm brewing on another post for ideas that were just too big for this one.