Marketwire leaps into social media with both feet
Marketwire unveiled their new social media wire service product today. After almost a year of research and development they are offering some innovative features and options.
Whether you think a social media press release is a great idea or the biggest bunch of BS, it’s refreshing to see a conventional, old-school wire service diving head first into the murky waters of social media.
Social media is here to stay. People do want to be a part of the conversation. We want to comment and contribute to online content. News is no exception.
When the Hollywood fires broke out last year the LA Times had a flood of eye-witness reports within minutes. They got content, images and video. Many of the images of the London bombings came from people on the spot with camera phones.
Sites like digg and Stumble Upon thrive on people tagging and commenting on news stories.
And since press releases are no longer a corporate announcement sent only to reporters, but have become a source of information for the public, it makes sense to encourage them to comment, save and share this data.
With Google’s Universal search results displaying images and video, adding these elements to your press releases is a must. And with features like adding the video to YouTube and images to Photobucket, Social Media 2.0 will help to spread your news content online.
Is it a perfect product, Probably not. I have reservations about some of the features I won’t know how they pan out until I test it. But I certainly plan to do just that.
