As the communication landscape changes and new, cutting edge ways of consuming information emerge, PR agencies and corporate public relations teams around the world must re-think the way they format news and deliver it to their target audience. The social media press release has radically altered the way PR professionals approach broadcasts and announcements.

* What is a Social Media Press Release?

Inspired by Tom Foremski of the Silicon Valley Watcher, a social media press release is a next-generation press release optimized specifically for online distribution and publication, such as placement in blogs, social bookmarking sites, RSS, and other similar mediums.

The social media press release is designed to facilitate rapid and widespread sharing of news, information, images, audio, video, and other content. Unlike traditional press releases that are notoriously packed with hype and marketing-speak, the social media press release is far more functional, focusing on just the most relevant and pertinent facts, and relaying them in a simple, concise, hyperlinked format that will appeal to bloggers and other online journalists.

The typical social media press release includes a summary of key highlights, a few expert quotes, links to background information embedded throughout the text, and tags that identify related coverage and other similar topics of interest - all written in a style that reflects the way people speak about the subject at hand. As a result, it is much easier for bloggers to post the information, and for online journalists to conduct their research, and find the quotes, references, statistics, and other data they need to write thorough and accurate stories.

Many social media press releases also include images, video, and other visually-oriented content, tying together various multimedia elements in a way that makes them easily adaptable and re-usable.

* Fast and Wide Distribution

Social media press releases provide faster distribution and wider broadcast coverage than old-school public relations channels can. A recent Pew Research report shows that the public is more Web savvy than ever before, and that Internet use has become a part of the typical consumer's daily routine.

In fact, more than 50 percent of consumers polled indicated that they create and share content online. With the social media press release, companies are empowered to take their message directly to these consumers via the most popular and preferred formats, making it readily available and instantly accessible not just to reporters, but to anyone who is interested.

Social media press releases can also act as direct marketing and search engine optimization vehicles. News headlines can be delivered via RSS ads, so they are dynamically pushed directly to those who subscribe to similar topics. And, the inclusion of popular key words and phrases (particularly those that potential customers are likely to utilize when searching for the company's products or services), as well as commonly-used jargon and acronyms, title tags, ticker symbols, and links to other Web content such as blogs and related articles, can give a boost to a company's ranking in Google, Yahoo, and other major search engines.

* Social Media is Here To Stay

Most of the major wire services have recognized the importance of social media in today's PR strategies, and have begun to expand their offerings accordingly. PRWeb and Pheedo provide RSS ads, track-back functionality, and the ability to tag and send out press releases via del.icio.us.

Additionally, PR Newswire and Business Wire have launched new social media features such as RSS Feeds. These services also now allow bloggers to access capabilities and functions within their sites that were previously only available to credentialed journalists.

* Social Media Press Release Template

Several PR firms adjust their tactics to take full advantage of the Internet for PR. You'll notice more social media press releases from a number of Internet savvy PR firms and companies. An online search for "social media press release template" will lead you to examples, templates and ongoing blog conversations on the pros and cons of this next generation of press releases.

You'll find that by following a social media press release template you can easily create compelling, highly-effective press releases structure specifically for distribution to media outlets and for obtaining comprehensive coverage.