A Really Bad Idea: Marketwire To Distribute Press Releases to Social Media

Im afraid this may be the beginning of a trend with recent movements in the press release wire industry. Everyone is talking viral marketing but trust me viral branding and grassroots PR are reving up in the major corporate world at large. PR cant look back to the old ways now.

I think the first paragraphs of the press release are confusing.

Marketwire is not "delivering" press releases to digg, del.icio.us, etc. They're just adding links that allow people to submit the press release to these social media websites:

"Market Wire enhances the press release with social media links that allow readers to recommend news to other online groups, blogs, message boards and podcasts" (3rd paragraph).

This is a service that PRWeb is already offering.

Now, the challenge is how to write a del.icio.us or digg-able press release :)

Actually, it's pretty funny to write a bad press release about press releases.

Since a press release that anyone wants to read, let along DIGG,is rare as hen's teeth, i wouldn't expect press releases to suddenly get newsworthy.

Turns out, they WERE actually submitting releases to Digg. They've switched things in the past month or so, but I found out that they got into some hot water for, essentially, spamming the Digg service. Not surprising.