I’m not a massive fan of social media releases (SMPR) – I have to be honest. I’ve had them pitched to me a number of times from different news agencies and to date haven’t ever issued a single one. The reps talk the talk; demonstrate the case studies (usually tech/telecomms companies –of course) and then showcase miraculous results leading to stella SEO. It looks good on paper but widespread adoption hasn’t been there because I’m not convinced bloggers want information sent to them in this way. This misunderstanding of how bloggers work was reinforced further in an engaging blog post by Johnny Gedye which showed many bloggers didn’t even know what an SMPR was…blimey, how did we get it so wrong..?!

In my opinion the press release is a traditional concept that can’t be replicated online when doing blogger engagement (note: I’m not saying the same is true for when you want to blast a message across content syndication networks and databases). Blogger engagement is about understanding the author and what he/she writes about, niche targeting and a time investment in making the relationship mutually beneficial in the long term. So although the ‘social’ element to an SMPR rings true (and the impact that this can have on SEO) the format to me is all wrong….

But here lies another issue; yes we can write an approach to bloggers which can include relevant anchor text, keywords, multimedia links etc…but do bloggers themselves care?  They will interpret and write a piece in any way they choose. We also assume that all bloggers are technically sophisticated when really they may just be particularly passionate about a specific subject, love writing and meeting other like minded people.

I do believe additional content helps (rich images and video offer variety and are engaging) and I do think that PRs still need to get more savvy when it comes to understanding the correlation between online PR and SEO but it isn’t an area we should panic about. Simply:

• Think about the sites you are targeting – do they carry any authority in terms of search and can they be prioritised/tiered in this a way
• Think about key messages
• Think about where you want to drive traffic to (as well as embedding links via anchor text (as in my experience these get stripped out) make it clear to the blogger what the ultimate aim of your approach is (ie: driving traffic to facebook – clearly include facebook link) – they’ll appreciate the honesty

So PR’s, keep doing what you’re doing but do start thinking about search in a way that can work for your outreach (the story and who you are targeting). As for SMPRs, I’m still not convinced by the use of these for blogger campaigns… unless of course anyone is game to try and change my mind…