Reference to: Die! Press Release! Die! Die! Die!

Today when Todd Defren from SHIFT Communications was talking about the social media press release he referenced a blog post called Die! Press Release! Die! Die! Die! by Tom Foremski, saying it was written at a tipping point for public relations and helped spark the creation of the social media press release.

The title made me laugh and Mr. Defren's comments about the post inspired me to go find the post, just to see what it said. You can find it here, at the Silicon Valley Watcher site. The post touches on what many people are and were annoyed with about traditional press releases - it seems like a lot of fluff and 'spin' that we as public relations professionals try to avoid. It also offers some of the ideas that were incorporated into the social media press release.

Anyway - it was a funny title with interesting content and I wanted to share. Enjoy!

Blog Action Day

This past Monday, October 15, 2007 was the first annual Blog Action Day.
Basically, this was an initiative to have as many people as possible all over the world blog about environmental and conservation issues to raise awareness of environmentalism.

It seems it was quite successful. On the wrap up site there are some incredible statistics.

Over 20,000 blogs registered and more than 23,000 blog posts turned up in a Google Blog Search of "Blog Action Day". 19 of Technorati's top 100 blogs posted about Blog Action Day on Monday, and "Blog Action Day" was Technorati's top tag AND search phrase for the day, hitting over 90 percent.

Blam!

I can almost feel the power of social media oozing out of my keyboard. I did my part to register and contribute. Check out my water conservation initiatives for the week on my blog.

I think Kevin Stirtz of the American Chronicle sums it up best when he wrote:

One reason I like Blog Action day is it demonstrates the viral power of an
idea. It shows how far and how fast something can spread via word of mouth,
using today's technologies. I also like it because it shows the vitality and
importance of New Media (of which blogging is a major player).

The brilliance of this idea lies in the fact that an incredibly huge impact was made on content in the blogosphere that stemmed from some emails and a few single bloggers. The cost was next to nothing and the reach was worldwide. Even traditional news sources like FOX and BBC found it compelling enough to jump in on the action.

So I am now even more of a believer in the power of social media, and I can't wait until next year to see how much farther this one idea can expand through people and technology.