Evolving the SMR and Ending “Word Doc PR”

I’m not shy about proclaiming PitchEngine as a critical player in the adoption of the Social Media Release (SMR). But it’s also been our success that has led to the cannibalization of the SMR. Every PR service claims to offer their own version, but as our most experienced users understand, there is no genuine comparison. Which has led me to veer away from the very name that put us on the map. With the launch of our new platform just days away, I’m setting the record straight.

Over the past year, I’ve had the opportunity to sit down and visit face-to-face with PR professionals from many industries. Each, with their own ideas and misconceptions of social media. Sarah Evans and I relish every chance we get to set the record straight and help communicators “get real” about social media and their public relations efforts. I find myself repeating what has become a new mantra of mine, “In PR distribution, if there is an easy-button, don’t push it!”

A Little History
When I set out to create PitchEngine a couple of years ago, I never imagined it would be as robust and dynamic as it has become. I set out to develop a tool to make the workflow of public relations and media professionals easier and well, better. As a former journalist turned PR guy, I was annoyed at the antiquated methods of exchanging word doc attachments, ftp-ing photos and all the other “rigid” ways of sharing content.

I had to start by creating a new “press release” format that enabled us to include all sorts of pieces that we needed to share – pdfs, powerpoint presentations, videos, images, audio, etc., As I researched what was out there, I discovered that something similar had been conceptualized by Todd Defren. It was called the Social Media Press Release (SMPR). It’s important to point out – I didn’t build PitchEngine around this concept. At the time, it didn’t have much adoption, it was simply a mock-up of how something like this should look. The SMPR name seemed like a good fit at the time and made a lot of sense to me as a PR guy. So, I dropped the “press” form the name and called our template the Social Media Release (SMR). Little did I know, the very openness of Todd’s great concept would also be its biggest challenge.

Muddy Waters and a Slippery Slope
Todd is a thought leader in the industry. I respect what Todd developed in the SMPR concept and for all those who pushed the idea out to the industry (Chris Heuer, Brian Solis, Scott Monty, among others). Those who adopted the idea and implemented it in some fashion were early-adopters. However, as PitchEngine grew in popularity and more and more people flocked to build and share SMRs (24,000+ brands, 68,000 SMRs already), the industry and its established PR services also embraced the Todd’s SMPR idea. Unfortunately, in many ways the “SM” (social media) in SMPR  has become nothing more than buzzwords for the sake of marketing up-sell.

I’ve been very open about my views on the misconceptions/misrepresentation of the SMR:

• You cannot make a press release social.
  - Associated Press (AP) format is not conversational or social.
  - If you start by opening a Microsoft Word, you’re probably missing the point.
• Share buttons do not make a press release social.
  - Just because you have the option to share a link to a bunch of text, doesn’t mean you should.
• Multimedia does not make a press release social, it makes it more engaging.
  - I applaud those people who take the time to make their content more engaging and the services that enable them to do it (affordably).
• Social means it should be living and in real-time.
  - It shouldn’t “die” once you send it out through a wire service with no ability to edit, add to or create conversations.

Moving Forward and Staking Our Claim
I desperately want to avoid nit-picking our way through the PR landscape about what the SMR or SMPR is defined as and what it provides. So, we’re going a different direction. The PitchEngine Social Media Release will be reinvented and reintroduced as the Pitch™. Yes, Tom Forenski. Yes, Peter Shankman. The traditional press release is dead! At least, to us it is. I call it “word doc PR” and it’s as played out as Christmas carols in June. Boss require it still? Just include it as an attachment if you have to. Or send it through a traditional service and embed a link to something much better.

Whether you’re pitching a 3-billion dollar product to the world, or telling your neighbors there’s a garage sale on Tuesday, a pitch is a pitch. There will be good ones, and there will be bad ones – we’re all about enabling you to pitch whatever it is you want to pitch in a concise, cool and more conversational way.

In the coming weeks, PitchEngine will roll out more creative tools to help businesses and organizations tell their stories, get found on search engines and interact with media, consumers and other online influencers. It’s time to put those documents in box, figuratively speaking, and take your pitch to the cloud. Pitch stories, pitch yourself, pitch anything. This is PitchEngine.

 

Follow me @jasonkintzler for more!

Tags: brian solis, jason kintzler, peter shankman, pitch, pitchengine, press release, sarah evans, smpr, SMR, Social MEdia release, todd defren, todd foremski, word doc pr

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