In the last article on the Social Media News Release, we discussed reasons to avoid using the SMNR for all of your press releases and that caused quite a buzz . That’s not to say that the SMNR is a bad investment altogether. In fact, it’s a pretty good way to start out if you’re new to combining press releases and social media in your business. But as you get increasingly comfortable using the SMNR and want to customize it for your own particular needs, here are some ways to go about it. Remember that if you are using the press release for SEO once you send out that press release, the sites that may be interested by what you have to announce will most likely be the same as the ones that will pick it up again so your added link building juice/benefit will be minimal.

1. Customize the Template. The value of the template is that it allows you to use as many or as few elements as you need. So include whatever you like that you feel will benefit your business and get your message out.

2. Use It on Your Own Website. Once you’ve customized the template, put it up on your own company’s website and nowhere else. After all, the idea is to keep people coming to your website, not to someone else’s. Create your post using blog software as it will automatically produce an RSS feed.

3. Create a Text Version. Once you’ve customized the template and posted it to your blog, create a text-only version to send over the wire. Your text version should be roughly 250 words and should include about 3-4 optimized links. One of those links should be a backlink to the full release that you just posted to your own website. The point here is to get folks to your site. This gets people talking on your own site and helps you build links.

4. Grade Your Press Release. The web is full of tools that will analyze your press releases for you. So take the text-only version and have it analyzed by one of these tools.

5. Send it Out. Send that text-only press release over the wire. This will save you lots of money over the full SMNR template, and people will still get to see the full release when they go to your site.

6.   Send SMNR only if you feel that your keywords and industries targeted are very different from your own. For instance if you are a marketing firm and most of the press releases are about marketing but this last one is about an alliance with an airline then this may be a good opportunity to spend those extra bucks in MSNR as that press release will also be distributed on sites that typically will not link back to you because they are in another industry.

So there you have it. The SMNR is a great tool if you customize it and use it in a way that saves you time and energy, and gets potential customers back to your site.

• 6 Reasons to Avoid the Social Media News Release
• 7 Ways to Make Your Press Release Your Next Blog Article

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 isn’t 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’re making.

1. People Don’t 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 aren’t nearly as expensive or time-consuming.

2. They’re Expensive. The optimal use of an SMNR is to send a Social Media News Release with Multimedia, and it’s 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’s 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’s the case then your interested parties aren’t 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 Don’t 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’ll most likely find that you have too many links, and that diminishes the effectiveness of your release greatly.

5. They Don’t 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’ve already noted that SMNRs generally don’t result in optimal links to your site, so there’s really no sense in using them for that purpose.

6. They Don’t 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’s right! Never mind that you’ve 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 aren’t 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 don’t 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’re much better off simply creating your own release, without images or video, and sending it over the wire, specially if you don’t 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’ll save time and money, and the results will be greatly beneficial.

The Response was as expected … rightly so to a certain extended that is why there is a second part on how to do it right! Checkout the second part of this post Social Media News Release Part II

• 5 Reasons to Avoid Twitter, and Why You Shouldnt Join
• Using Social Media as an HR Tool
• 5 Keys to Success in Marketing with Social Media
• 5 Reasons to Avoid Twitter, and Why You Should Not
• The 4 P’s of Inbound Marketing
• 7 Ways to Make the Social Web Work for You
• Can Social Media Tools Like Linkedin Help Your Business?
• 4 Keys to Link-Building for SEO
• Search Engine Optimization and MySpace: 4 Considerations
• Search Engine Optimization and Social Media: 5 Keys to Good Content

Internet marketing and SEO experts agree that one of the best ways to market your business is to write regular press releases. In fact, press releases may be some of the most important information you put down on paper. So take advantage of the content you’ve already written in the form of press releases, and turn those releases into blog articles. After all, the most important thing you can do to improve your inbound marketing is to write lots and lots of great content. Here are 7 steps to get you going.

1. Change the Headline. Press release headlines are usually pretty dry, offering only pertinent information about the content of the release. This is a throwback to the days when press releases came through a wire service and media employees simply scanned the headlines to learn the news. If you want to use a press release to create a blog article, change the headline to something witty or catchy. Your headline should compel readers to continue reading instead of clicking on to the next site.
   
2. Take Out the Promotion. There’s no better way to turn off potential customers than to turn your blog into one big sales pitch. People read your blog to learn more about you, not to get the hard sell on your products and services. Your blog should provide information about you and what you have to offer, not become a shameless promotion.
   
3. Choose Wisely. Some of your press releases just might not be very interesting if transformed into blog articles. Others that might work are releases outlining industry trends or survey data. No one is that interested in hearing that you just picked up your 150^th customer, but they would like to know about surveys and trends.
   
4. Beef it Up. The information in your press release might be interesting, but your readers will be even more engaged if you add your own insights and understandings. Sum up the press release with three or four bullets about why the information is important, or about what difference the information made for you and your business. This will also promote readers to comment, and the more engaged your readers are, the more likely they will be to come back.
   
5. Make It Prettier. In addition to tacking on your own insights and learnings, use multimedia as well. This is very expensive when working with press releases, but you can add images and videos to your blog for practically nothing. You’ll find that you’ll want to minimize the amount of multimedia you include in your press release, but that you can enhance the information a great deal when you turn it into a blog article.
   
6. Leave Out the Boilerplate. You most likely use a standard format for your press releases that includes contact information for your company at the bottom. Leave this out when you create a blog article from the press release.
   
7. Remove Quotes. Press releases typically include a quote or two from members of your company that enhance the information you’re sharing in the release. These detract from the casual, conversational tone that you want to achieve on your blog, so leave them out as well.

Internet marketing experts tell us time and time again that the most important way to beef up inbound marketing is to create and publish great content. Since you’re already creating great content every time you write a new press release, save yourself some time and energy by making your press releases into your next blog articles. You’ll share relevant and interesting information with your readers, and it’s not hard to turn a dry old press release into an engaging piece of writing that your readers will want to share with others. So work more efficiently by using the resources you already have to improve your business blog and increase your business.

• 9 Keys for Successful Business Blogging
• 5 Business Blogging Tips
• 5 Keys to Successful Business Blogging
• 6 Reasons to Avoid the Social Media News Release, Part II
• 6 Reasons to Avoid the Social Media News Release
• 5 Brand-Building Secrets Through Blogging
• 7 Top Tips for Writing Blog Articles