6 Reasons to Avoid the Social Media News Release Part I

The Social Media News Release is a template available for the sole purpose of incorporating social media and multimedia into press releases. And while it may sound like an absolutely ingenious idea, it probably is not the best use of time and money for your business. Here are 6 reasons why using a SMNR may be one of the biggest mistakes you are making.

1. People Do not Read Them. Let s face it, this is not the best way to get your information out to the general public. The number of people who actually view releases on news release websites is quite small. There are better ways to reach your potential customers that are not nearly as expensive or time-consuming.

2. They are Expensive. The optimal use of an SMNR is to send a Social Media News Release with Multimedia, and It is expensive. Even a limited distribution will cost you hundreds of dollars at minimum. Compare this to the cost of writing a blog, which will also allow you to include images and video. The blog is far cheaper and gives you a much higher return on your investment.

3. There is No Critical Mass. One of the most important aspects of marketing with social media is that you can gather a huge number of like-minded or like-interested people in the same place. If you use an SMNR to send your information out to 500 websites, you may only get one or two comments on each website. If that is the case then your interested parties are not talking to each other, which defeats the purpose of social media marketing. Not to mention the time and tedium involved in responding to comments on each of the 500 websites to which your release was sent. Consider instead how you might get those 500 commenters to have a conversation with each other.

4. They Do not Help Your SEO. The whole point of news releases in general is to get inbound links to your site. And while SMNRs contain links, those links are not optimized and generally link to resources other than your website. Use the online Press Release Grader to see how your SMNR release stands up. You will most likely find that you have too many links, and that diminishes the effectiveness of your release greatly.

5. They Do not Help You Reach Your Goals. The whole point of marketing your business is to get people to come to your website and get them to buy your products. So why would you spend money to put your information on another website? We have already noted that SMNRs generally do not result in optimal links to your site, so there is really no sense in using them for that purpose.

6. They Do not Allow You to Use Your Own Mutlimedia Accounts. Did you know that if you want to include a video in your SMNR then you have to upload that video to the news release service s YouTube account? That is right! Never mind that you have already uploaded the video to your own account; now you have to upload it to theirs as well. This means that your video is sitting in an account with thousands of other videos that are not at all related to your product or service. So if a potential customer actually finds your videos and wants to see more from your business, he has to search a lot harder than if all of your videos were lumped together in your account. Another problem is similar to the one we mentioned in #3. The comments left on the new release service s account are separate from the ones left on your account, so your commenters do not have the opportunity to interact with one another. And you have to visit your video in both places to respond to all of the comments.
You are much better off simply creating your own release, without images or video, and sending it over the wire, specially if you do not have the know-how to optimize them. Save the really cool release for your own website where you have control over what happens to it. You will save time and money, and the results will be greatly beneficial.

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Comments

Tue, 13 Jan 2009 at 10:18 AM, by Brand4profit
The old method of advertising is interactive marketing. The term is misleading. Most people think it means that there is some type of interaction on the part of the person advertised to, and there is. But, it is not conversational. Instead, the advertiser wants you to interact with their campaign in a specific set of steps. Following the call to action and visiting a website for instance. It’s the push to make you do something. Live this image. Buy this now.

Social Media Marketing is just the opposite. It’s the pull of the tribe. The tribe already has your trust so the actions they take are ones you align with. On a larger scale, it’s the allure of belonging in the group as you take action together. “I am doing this so why don’t you do it with me?” On an individual level, the attraction is to behave the same way to get the same results that benefits your fellow tribeswoman or tribesman. “She looks hot! I want to look hot too. I want to go to her hairstylist” and you do. Social Media Marketing uses the power of attraction.

While advertising tries to use the same tactic, with a billboard for instance, of a gorgeous woman telling you the benefits of the salon, it doesn’t have the same impact because it’s pushing you to go. It is not pulling you in as a trusted friend. Your friends have your best interests at heart and advertisers do not. Social Media Marketing is based on building trust and that foundation will make Social Media a dominant player in Marketing.

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