See if you can figure out what this means? I want to take you to two or three places online that in the aggregate baffle me.

First, this news article dated today opens with this line: A PR firm has created a new kind of news release that has many features designed specifically for the internet. It goes on to clarify by saying, The "social media press release",… features hyperlinked text, audio and video content relating to the company, and the option to social bookmark with Digg, del.icio.us and Reddit.

What interests me is that no where in this news item is there any link to the featured news release or anything else for that matter. By that, I'm just saying that while PR firms rush to add social media features, at least some media types either don't get it, won't get it, or could care less. But wait… this news site is from an organization called directtrafficmedia.co.uk which uses this tag line: "Online marketing and link building specialists." [boldface added by me for emphasis].

Thinking it would be informative nevertheless to learn more about this new press release optimized for the Internet age, I went here to webitpr, which is identified in the news item as the firm to have innovated this new approach. But when I went to their recent news, I couldn't find the release referenced in the news item… maybe they haven't posted it yet? So then I figured I'd just look at the most recent one on the list. Here it is.

It has five links: three back to the webitpr home page from which I just came (although if you got this release in an email a link like that would be useful, but probably one would suffice?). The other two links are to webitpr's services. Call me crazy, but that doesn't do much for me. You? (I figured maybe the PR firm would have a blog, being into social media and such, but couldn't find one of them either.)

Now I'm no expert on social media news releases… I actually think the phrase is oxymoronic (not a word, but you know what I mean). But don't you think a link to a podcast (preferably independent), links to additional third party source material, etc. would make this release a bit more sociable? A video taped user case study?

It makes my head "spin."

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This is a great post by Catherine Toole on the e-consultancy news blog. Entitled "My 7 deadly sins of writing for social media…", she pretty much covers all the things you should be advised to avoid if you're about to blog. I know because like her, I've experienced all of these to one degree or another.

Numbers 1, 3, and 6 on her list speak to things that can be exceptionally painful.

If I were to add anything to the list, it would perhaps be one or more of the following:

#8. Failure to edit aggressively… and this goes for the blogger and his or her own posts as well as contributed post from guests, particularly if we're talking about a corporate blog. It can be tough to tell the VP of Marketing that writing isn't his or her strong point, but quality blogs don't publish bad writing.

#9. Becoming addicted to analytics… while there's nothing wrong with wanting to know if a site is gaining traction, watching and checking analytics all day long, every day, is a waste of time.

#10. Do not list after the look and feel of thy neighbor's blog… by which I mean to say that copy cat blogs (I'm talking layout here) are about as low rent as copy-cat web sites. Social media pioneers should welcome the opportunity to be creative and not look around town to see what everyone else is wearing.

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Here’s a news item about a global survey of attitudes toward social media technology. You may find this useful if you’re in corporate communications anywhere in the world. If you’re fearful of the technology, wary of its implications, and don’t really know what the heck it is all about, you’re not alone. But soon you will be.

The global survey is loaded with good information and solid strategic implementation advice from several heavy hitters working inside some of the biggest and most successful companies on earth.

It also offers one of the best, most practical explanations of social media that I’ve seen lately…

For the purpose of this survey, social media was defined as: The online technologies and practices that people use to share opinions, insights, experiences and perspectives with each other. A few prominent examples of social-media applications are Wikipedia (reference), MySpace (social networking), YouTube (video sharing), Second Life (virtual reality), Digg (news sharing), Flickr (photo sharing) and Miniclip (game sharing). These sites typically use technologies such as blogs, message boards, podcasts, wikis and vlogs to allow users to interact. Source: Wikipedia: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_media.

Got ambiguity? Get a look at this global study and report.

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