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Social media enabled PR is about a new kind of pitch, which in its construction and delivery is appropriate for the new social web.
The other day I received an email, the subject heading “Thought you might be interested” and with the salutation “Dear PR Pro”.
“Thought you might be interested” Now that’s compelling, isn’t it? Someone not as inclined as I am to check email could be excused for hitting delete for that one.
Uninviting as the subject heading was, the salutation, “Dear PR Pro”, took the prize for underwhelming salutation of the week. I have added it to the list of title-variable salutation this company gives me in its promo emails, including so far “Dear Corporate Communicator”, “Dear Communicator”, “Dear internal communicator”, “Dear organizational communicator”.
Thankfully, not “Dear Leader” – or not yet, but who knows what their keyword generator will pop out next?!
But what was fascinating, in a bizarre kind of way, was that the email was inviting me to participate in a webinar where I could learn how to do a social media release!
The person listed to deliver the seminar is someone with an admirable track record and I am sure I could learn from him. But the pitch was so last century.
It’s a worry.
One of the many reasons I love representing and promoting PitchEngine is that Founder and CEO Jason Kintzler actually gets social media and how it has changed PR forever.
For Jason it is not about tacking some social platform buttons – Facebook, Twitter, Digg icons – onto a Word document. It is about a new kind of pitch, which in its construction and delivery is appropriate for the new social web.
Jason posted some of his thoughts on this recently, on his new media cowboy Posterous site. In his post Evolving the SMR and Ending Word Doc PR he explains why what we are about to release is different.
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.
I’m delighted that Jason has agreed to host a webinar this month, focusing on the new Pitch™ platform and how to use it to best effect. The webinar will be at a time to suit our Australian and New Zealand clients. More on that soon!
