News you can trust – the social media way
Just a quickie to highlight two related posts on social media approaches to the traditional news release.
- Michelle of FutureGov has highlighted a great example from Defra where the standard press notice went out with a companion blog post.
- Meanwhile Steph of DIUS has written up his and his colleagues’ experiences of trying to weave digital engagement into the work of the press office – with great results. He writes:
Naively, I initially thought we could write a spec for a software tool to help us deliver SMNRs [Social Media News Releases], and roll it out. It quickly became clear that actually, there are more cultural change and technical obstacles involved in preparing, creating, publishing, promoting and assessing SMNRs than I first realised.
This feels right at the cutting edge of government digital engagement work right now: to find ways to integrate the new channels and ethos into the well-established business processes of a Whitehall newsroom. Not something I’ve dabbled with myself beyond a bit of online buzz monitoring, but will look to do so now. Thanks for the inspiration, both of you.
Another interesting find on this subject here.
Related posts (auto generated)
If you enjoyed this post, why not leave a comment or subscribe to my RSS feed to get future posts delivered to your feed reader?
Comments
[...] and Neil have both recently written about the challenges of the ’social media release’ and [...]
You?re really thankful for this post, I?ve been really enjoying checking up your posts from time to time. Looking forward to see your future posts
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.
Hello, I'm Neil Williams. I'm a government web geek, a dad, a husband, a grower of veg, a keeper of hens and a lapsed comedy writer, roughly in that order. 
The traditional press or news release if you prefer is much valued by government press offices the world over. However this much vaunted communication tool is under threat. You need to ask the question how does a government department release news.
Traditionally via a press release. However could not a blog entry be a form of press release. You are a busy HMA or government figure increasingly your select blog audience are the press. They take quotes direct from the blog as they would have past taken from the press release. You are asked what is your position on the Eurovision? you could reply “see my blog”. If a government official has presumed competency to publish blogs and takes responsibility for that content, in effect they bypass the traditional press office. This raises the question does government web communication weaken a press office or does it have the opportunity to renew and enhance their power?
Can a blog ever replace the press release? perhaps not the web can affect how they are written, what they will contain and how they are delivered.