Social Media Release Template Version 1.5

[Jason Kintzler]

This weekend Todd Defren shared his latest version of the Social Media Release Template. The newest version pops with more social content than the previous version, which in my opinion is a good thing. I suspect adding more "technology" to the new press release template will draw some criticism from some, but for it will definitely expose PR pros to more tools than before.

I tried to put myself in the shoes of someone seeing this release for the first time and I have to say, it looks pretty daunting. There's bits and pieces that make sense, but I fear that too much technology may scare off PR pros who are just discovering the elements of social media for PR.

However, as Todd puts it, "I’ve learned some lessons that could inspire a fresh look at the original version."

To me getting the industry "inspired" is the key. The more people who discover social media tools and implement them in their campaigns the better off we'll all be. The fact is, the more we expose writers, editors and journalists to the tools (RSS, del.icio.us, technorati, etc.) the more they demand good PR firms use them.

Regardless of the size of your brand or client the tools are available now and the new Social Media Release Template is a great step to further educate each of us.

- What do you think of the SMR Template?
- Are there parts you utilize already? If so, which ones?
- From your perspective, what could be improved or modified?

Original Post on PitchEngine.

[Jason Kintzler]

From what I can tell, the idea is to have it web based, which does make it difficult to build just as he outlines. There are definitely pieces that we can utilize as link in a word doc. Anyone else had any experience implementing the smr template?

[Jessica Downing]

I'm curious what program that template is created in and how its distributed. Did Defren share that info? It obviously wasn't done in Word/Outlook/Entourage, so I'm wondering if Shift has a dedicated web guy that can create those things?