Among the challenges raised among the voices who reacted to the debut of the Social Media Press Release template: the sense of "unreadiness" among media, PR, clients, and the wire services themselves. Jeremy Pepper probably said it best: "it's all about baby steps, and I think this is too big a step for a lot of consumer companies."I admitted at the start that this template may well be too bleeding-edge (for now), but frankly I've been blown away by the positive reactions among clients, media and PR pros; the positives far outweigh the negatives so far (and even the so-called negatives have been constructive). My in-box is flooded.
- One journalist told me, "This is cool; there are less things for me to ignore!"
- The director of PR at a billion+ dollar company (not a client) reached out to say, "This is just the kind of thinking that we need."
- The prez @ bitePR let me know they were working on similar projects for their clients.
A key lesson learned from this effort is that if anyone seems truly "unready" for the next-gen press release, it's the wire services. Despite their claims, it seems it's still "horse & buggy" time.
- 24+ hours turnaround, and only during business hours? Responsiveness? - slug-like.
- Very poor knowledge or utility when it comes to Web 2.0 stuff like del.icio.us, Technorati, etc.
- Formatting nightmares.
- The multimedia nature of these Social Media Press Releases = more $$$. This will be a deal-breaker for some clients.
You can argue that this is "bleeding edge" stuff; you can argue that no one's touched the press release format in 50 years ... but, c'mon --- it also ain't rocket science.
Everyone has some hard work to do in this arena, and --- based on the reactions so far --- it seems to be work that's worth doing. Giddyap!