After the Social Media Press Release, the Twitter Release...

Social Media Press Releases or SMPRs have still a long way to go but already some are taking the next steps...

Muck Rack, a Twitter aggregator site which publishes the latest tweets from (mainly US based) reporters is now launching the "Twitter press release"; a 130 character long pitch.

The one line press releases which are published through their service are then displayed prominently on Muck Rack's Twitter feed and MuckRack.com, the website.

The cost ?: 1 USD/character with a minimum of 50$. Up till now I can only see 6 "twitter releases" from several organisations.

The latest release entitled "American Freestyle Motocross Association @ X Games next week http://bit.ly/9myUrp" & published 2 hours ago got 31 clicks on its bit.ly link.

Ok so this is a novel idea but at the same time I doubt that reporters on Muck Rack will be helped with a deluge of one liners in Twitter format...

At the minimum the system should allow to filter releases just as it assigns reporters a certain beat. I understand that this is a potential feature they will add...

Till then, reporters will have to search through the releases on the search page.

Comments

[Steven]

We have been discussing this at the office today. It reminds me of services who promise a huge database of contacts and send press releases to all of them for a minimal cost. Even in traditional PR this was not done... a personal relationship with journalists that enables sniper tacktics in stead of carpet bombing is far more effective.
Twitter is a great tool to get to know journalists without pitching them. It's a chance to show that you are far more then a guy who is trying to pitch a story.
If you ignore the possiblity to conversate with journalists, you might as well just send an e-mail to a database with a subject field of 140 characters or less. My 2 cents... :-)

[Philippe Borremans]

Thanks Steven for your 2 cent. I agree that you get to know some reporters better by following them on Twitter... But I also like the fact that Twitter pushes us (PR guys) to frame our message in less than 140 characters... No place for the usual BS like "solutions", "innovations" and other "power words" our industry tends to overuse... Tagging & hash-tags could be a solution for Muck Rack but they will have to move fast in order to make it worthwhile for the reporters. Thanks for the comment !