No News Like Niche News

Once in every long while I feel like I really gain some headway towards fully wrapping my head around the all encompassing term, social media. This being one of those times, I feel compelled to share what (i think) I've learned.

Yesterday, in a random stroke of luck I stumbled upon a tweet linking to an article titled 48 Social News Websites: A List of General and Niche Social Media Communities, which as I'm sure you may have guessed provides an extensive list of social media news sites.



Before I read this post, my reference point for social media news sites were digg.com, technorati.com and icerocket.com. Admittedly, it was incomplete at best.

I was stunned to see there were social news sites for everything from green news at Hugg.com to SWiK.net, "A community driven resource for people who use open source software."

And this article only begins to scratch the social news surface. The author even references a list of "380 Digg clones."

I feel encouraged.

Each of these niche markets represents another opportunity for PR practitioners to engage their target audiences through a mutually beneficial medium. Although I agree this sounds a bit textbooky(i know this isn't a real word), I'm glad to say I really am beginning to understand how to utilize social media for the benefit of a campaign or organization.

Brand Name Social Media News Releases

If you're like me, then you may be wondering what a high-profile, brand recognizable social media news realease actually look like. Learning about the theory of SMNR's is effective only to a point...

Searching through PROpenMic I found an article asking: "Who Uses a Social Media Release?" with a link to a blog titled "PR squared."

In one of co-founder Todd Defren's posts he talked about the growing popularity of the social media news release. What really caught my attention were the sheer number of high profile scoial media news releases he gave examples of.

In reality, not all of the releases are as well made as they could have and perhaps should have been. However, they provide a basis for soon to be practitioners like myself to understand how to format and improve on current social media news releases.

Even better, PR squared authors posted their own suggestions for formatting social media news releases.

So, if your feeling a little overwhelmed this can work as a good starting point for developing your own personal style for your social media news releases.

Why Do Social Media Campaigns Fail?

I just read an excellent article about the difficulty of generating tangible results from social media camapaigns. This brings up a great question, what are the criteria by which to determine the success of a social media campaign?

In an article posted by Caroline McCarthy, media analyst Adam Sarner expresses his belief that social media campaigns need "...a way to serve both the company putting out the campaign and the audience interacting with it."

How do we as PR practitioners begin to engage our audience in a way that goes beyond just creating "buzz," but also drives people to action (whether that be to engage a specific brand, or influence an action)?

Fortunately, I've been able to find some useful information about how to engage consumers. on he blogs about engaging consumers through the use of widgets.

According to Spoon, good widgets are the result of 3 factors:

• Give Users a Reason to Come Back


• Make it Customizable


• Market Softly and Carefully

I Suggest you check out the articles, they are good sources for beginning to piece together the puzzle that is a successful social media campaign.