Deirdre Breakenridge

I’m really excited about Event Camp on February 6th. I’ll be traveling into NYC and speaking at the Roger Smith Hotel to discuss best practice Engagement Strategy for events (from planning your event to measuring participation/engagement).

I had the honor and the pleasure of participating on a panel at the Inbound Marketing Summit (#IMS09) in Boston on October 7, 2009. I joined several colleagues including Jason Kintzler of PitchEngine (@jasonkintzler), Melanie Stachowiak of MarketWire (@melaniestack), Paul Roetzer, PR 20/20 (@paulroetzer), and David Weiner, PR Newswire (@davidweiner) to discuss the state of the PR industry and PR 2.0, with a strong focus on the value of the news release vs. the Social Media Release in a changing Web 2.0 world. Well suited for this discussion were panelists from two PR agencies, two wire services and the founder of a Social Media Release platform and social network that enable PR to effectively package stories with social content.

In November, I’ll be moderating a panel at the PRSA International Conference in San Diego with several noteworthy authors. I’m really excited to have Joseph Jaffe (Join the Conversation), Ariel Hyatt (Music Success in Nine Weeks) and Juliet Powell (33 Million People in the Room) joining me for the panel session. We will be discussing the topic PR 2.0: R(e)volution. As a Public Relations professional, I’ve found the word “Revolution” or “Revolutionary” to be over used. I guess it’s because of the many news releases I’ve seen over the years that have talked about, “Our revolutionary or groundbreaking brands, products and services that will change your business, industry and the world.” For me to place Public Relations in the same sentence as the word “Revolution” – this is no ordinary shift for the profession.

I think that the Vocus Virtual Conference is an example of social media learning at its best. The conference was about leveraging social media, it was promoted through social media and the attendees were provided with an interactive environment where they could network and collaborate together around a number of interesting topics.

There’s always a tremendous amount of discussion around the Social Media Release (SMR). I still have executives asking me about its value, whether is it necessary to use, if it the SMR should replace a traditional release and the list goes on. I remember in 2007 when I first interviewed Phil Gomes, SVP of Edelman Digital, in my book PR 2.0, New Media, New Tools, New Audiences, he knew that the SMR was a useful tool for all companies, not just technology firms. I agree with Phil and have been using the SMR with great results.

Almost daily, I find myself explaining and counseling on the differences between the Social Media Release (SMR) and the traditional news release. When I look at the SMR template and the traditional press release, I immediately notice the differences just based on the information in the SMR and the way it’s organized.  SMR’s are not [...]