Todd Defren, who blogs at PR-Squared and works at Shift Communications embodies the spirit of what I like to call PR 2.0 or open source PR.
He also took an early lead in actually doing something about envisioning a way to spruce up the tired old press release, which I wrote about here in my post about modular press releases, which included suggestions people have made over the years. For a more complete history of the press release meme, visit teh Press Release page on the NewPR Wiki.
Today, Todd releases a social media release template and offers it to other public relations practioners as a reference.
You can download a pdf of the Social Media Press Release template here.
For me, it aesthetically feels a little too busy. I don’t know where to look, but I think that the building blocks are there and I applaud Todd for taking a stab at it. I suggest that you go to his post and offer any suggestions you might have to make it better.
What I really like about Todd’s post is the idea of a purpose built del.icio.us page. I am building one for a talk I am giving in June to the IABC San Antonio group. These pages allow you to give one URL to a group that leads to a complete set of link resources.
Todd has built one to track the evolution of the Social Media Press Release and I, for one, plan to subscribe to the RSS feed.
You can listen to more about open source PR and collaboration in a recent podcast by Sam Whitmore where he interviews Bay Area Third Thursday participants Voce's Mike Manuel, Eastwick’s Giovanni Rodriguez, Edelman’s Phil Gomes and Weber Shandwick’s Jeremy Pepper.
I for one am glad to be moving this whole press release debate away from proclaimations to something more constructive.
Update:
Todd's social media release about his well, you know
Other thoughts by David Parmet, Shel Holtz, Stuart Bruce and in German at Blogging PR
And an excellent post from Susan Getgood about the importance of content
