SMPR FTW?

The Social Media Club in Austin had a get-together on May 17 to discuss the need for a controversial new Microformat dubbed the Social Media Press Release (SMPR or hRelease). The panel was excellent and covered the gamut of industries affected by the SMPR.
But Omar Gallaga, a technology columnist for the Austin American Statesman, was probably the most important person on the panel because of his ties to the SMPR’s target audience. After all, press releases are crafted to only be read–traditionally–by journalists, so his insight into the technologically deprived world of journalism was invaluable, and I hope the folks at the Social Media Club were paying attention to what he had to say.

When Gallaga said, “Journalists don’t use RSS,” you could hear the heart of every nerd in the place hit the floor. I’m sure the Social Media Club organizers were a bit surprised by his statement as well, seeing as how they’re pushing an RSS-delivered Microformat designed to be used by him and his colleagues. While he didn’t say it directly, Gallaga inferred that journalists are, by nature, reluctant to use new technology. And more often than not, newspapers can’t provide spiffy new hardware to everyone because of budget constraints. This is a double whammy that tends to keep emerging technology out of the newsroom. Ultimately, Gallaga said that the SMPR is “almost five years ahead of where we are in traditional media.”

When you get right down to it, the SMPR isn’t geared toward traditional media. It’s aimed at new media outlets like blogs. The format of the SMPR is designed for people who are using a computer to parse information by quickly scanning documents. Press releases formatted as SMPRs follow several web design and usability conventions laid out by Jakob Neilsen. The end result is a document that guides readers directly to what they’re looking for while allowing software to filter releases based on the meta data hidden inside. It’s the very definition of the semantic web. While this is great for bloggers–consider custom RSS feeds that parse press releases based on meta data!–this does nothing for traditional journalists who still print out press releases and stack them on their desks. So, most of the novelty of the SMPR is lost on a large portion of its target audience.

That is, unless the goal of the SMPR is to develop a new target audience. If the Social Media Club is anticipating the demise of traditional media outlets in favor of blogs, then the SMPR is a step in the right direction. But again, if such a sea change were to take place, we’re still many years ahead of the event. In the meantime, some attention should be paid to Gallaga’s problems with the SMPR and the PR industry in general:

• Journalists need customized releases aimed at individual reporters. PR people should build a rapport with local reporters.

• Tell the journalists why the information they are being given is important. Explain what impact the news will have on their readers.

• Send repeat releases (e.g. earnings statements) using a template like the SMPR. It allows the reporter to scan the document and find exactly what he or she is interested in and discard the rest.

• Get rid of the jargon and B.S. Persuade management to let you put your press release in plain English.

Many of these issues can’t be fixed with technology. And if PR writers take Gallaga’s suggestions, they’ll be catering to the journalists. A lot. But they aren’t the only people who want PR writers to cater to them. Consumers are now reading more press releases thanks to the Internet and corporate websites, and their needs are very different from the needs of journalists. They want a sales pitch instead of quotes from CEOs, and I guarantee you they will not read anything loaded with jargon.

It seems that the goal of the SMPR is to make the job of the PR writer easier–write one document to make journalists, consumers, and intelligent software happy. What’s happened is the opposite, though, and three disparate audiences are now calling for separate, customized documents. The SMPR represents an attempt to create a shortcut across three avenues of distribution while requiring the least amount of work to reach the largest number of eyes (be they digital or otherwise). While it’s an admirable stab at efficiency, the SMPR is too broad. In trying to reach several audiences at once, PR firms stand to alienate themselves from everyone.