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

The Marketwire press release distribution service has announced that it will now deliver press releases to social media and online community sites like Digg, Del.icio.us and Newsvine. What a bad idea. Read their misguided press release here

The wikipedia definition of social media: "Social media describes the online tools and platforms that people use to share opinions, insights, experiences, and perspectives with each other. Social media can take many different forms, including text, images, audio, and video. Popular social mediums include blogs, message boards, podcasts, wikis, and vlogs.

Digg and Del.icio.us are among the communities where users rank news values and favorite links - not places you buy your way into with a press release.

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.