Thank you, Todd Defren!

Last night, Todd Defren of Shift Communications joined my Advanced Public Relations Writing at the University of Oregon course via telephone to talk about the social media press release specifically and all things social media more generally.

My students have been assigned a client for which they are creating a “virtual press kit” for the client’s online newsroom. One of the pieces they include must be a social media press release. So they had questions ranging from “what does this look like when implemented?” to “how do you control the chaos of social media?”

Todd had five points – I hope I got these right – around why SHIFT initially came up with the template and its philosophy about PR’s role in social media.

1. The SMPR helps to democratize access. Company information should not be the exclusive domain of traditional media. Social media and the SMPR provide more access to more people, which, Todd argues, is a good thing.

2. Participating in social media, including issuing SMPRs, helps ensure accuracy. Providing access to official logos, photos and videos helps ensure the right ones get used.

3. The SMPR embraces context. Yes, social media requires companies to relinquish control – something that Todd admitted has been very difficult – but he emphasized the importance of being proactive. Setting up a purpose-built del.icio.us page provides the reporter or blogger context to your release or announcement making their jobs easier – and ultimately, it’s that facilitation that helps build relationships.

4. These tools help to build community. By allowing the community to do what they want to do with your content, you’re ultimately facilitating relationships with cohorts of journalists or bloggers that you’d otherwise not have time or knowledge to reach.

5. To build community, you must create shareable content. Build great content that can be broken up into smaller pieces and used in a way the community sees fit. Including Technorati tags helps facilitate the other four points.

To do social media “right” from a PR perspective it can take more time and money: more expensive to issue SMPRs through a wire service and more staff time to create and maintain the sources necessary to fulfill the purpose (not to mention client education).

Todd provided a good deal of background and context for the SMPR. So not only do the students understand the “how,” but have a better understanding of the “why.” The students certainly appreciated hearing a different perspective than mine (thanks, Todd, for reinforcing many of my points, by the way!) and enjoyed the conference call.