This post is about the good ideas that have been generated re: PR, social media, news releases and more. What my students desire is to see how journalists are reacting to all of these new ideas. Media relations is, after all, a large part of many PR practices. We have yet to see any significant research (actually, no research at all) as to whether the new approaches will work. So help us, please.
An heuristic effort is one that “encourages a person to learn, discover, understand, or solve problems on his or her own, as by experimenting, evaluating possible answers or solutions, or by trial and error: a heuristic teaching method.” We need your help in pursuing research on the issues of hreleases and social media newsrooms.
What we are seeing in the hrelease, social media press release and social media news room efforts are experiential learning activities. It is collaboration. It is the essence of what this interactive conversational media represents. Just read the conversations it has generated.
I love these learning and experimental efforts. I’m often confused, even saddened, by the way they are so quickly written off by observers. To me, blogging and wikis and all of the interactive online dialogs are the best part of the WWW. In fact, the best part of blogging to me has been the wide variety of ideas and opinions it opens up to students. That is why I’m so happy that so many PR practitioners are choosing to blog.
So, whether we are talking about Todd Defren at PR Squared and his Social Media Newsroom Template or his “Social Media Press Release” Template; or, Chris Heuer’s Idea Engine and Brian Solis at PR 2.0 – Silicon Valley and all of the people involved in the Social Media Club … it is all one big collaboration.
Comments and input from those like Brian Oberkirch about “The Case for hRelease” and Tom Foremski’s rant on the press release and attempts to change it are all equally important.
Phil Gomes, Rick Murray and Ming Lee at Edelman have given us StoryCrafter and Shannon Whitley has given us PRX Builder.
Everyone is learning. I don’t think any of the participants in the collaborations actually purports to have all the answers. Now, my students want in on the action in a little deeper inspection of all these ideas.
What is the one of the important things that is missing? The research to see how journalists will react to these new ‘animals’ like the hrelease, newsroom and social media in the PR/Journalist symbiotic relationship, overall. My students have done research on social media adoption by newspapers. Now, this semester, they are embarking on research to see how journalists react to these new approaches.
Anyone want to participate? Want to help us, please?
Leave a comment and we can hook you up with the student group that is doing the research. Anyone that may provide contacts and introductions to national journalists in the top 50 newspapers, for instance, will likely help the students achieve a more successful survey effort. In their previous efforts, it was easier to get through to the 51-100 top markets.
My hope is that three different research teams will focus on three different groups of journalists. Those are:
- local journalists in a regional area, like Alabama, or any other state,
- national journalists in the top 50 newspapers,
- one specific trade group or market segment – to be determined.
What are your thoughts? This way we’ll have an idea of the viability in a large section of PR that seems to go unnoticed in these discussions – local PR practitioners and journalists. We’ll also address national media. The trade group, or market, can be anyone’s choice – as long as we can get to a significant respondent pool.
Wouldn’t it be nice to see if these people actually find benefits in all these new tools or approaches? How about gathering their input as to ways the approaches might be improved to increase acceptance and adoption by journalists. Or, we might just find that they aren’t desired at all. Who knows … until we ask.
I’m just testing to see if merely posting this in a blog will bring in participants, by the way. We’re going forward with it regardless. But, we’d love to have help and guidance. Thanks.
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