Some time back, press releases were perhaps meant only for the journalists. Not so anymore.

Today the consumer is fast becoming the fourth estate. With the increasing influence of social media in our lives, we are now reading/listening and expressing our views using blogs and podcasts, watching videos on YouTube, sharing pictures on Picasa and Flickr and sharing our lives and views with the virtual world through social networking sites like Orkut, Facebook and giving updates through Twitter. Now, if we want to share some information with our friends, we just don’t send them links, we want to share the videos, photographs, audio with each other.

Now if corporates want to target this lot, the traditional plain Jane press releases are a complete no no. We use what is called the Social Media Press Release (SMPR) that enables all these sharing in an interesting manner with ease. Since this not only provides the opportunity to share information in a way our new age consumer wants but at the same time also gives enough opportunity to engage the consumer and the critics in an ongoing dialogue.

One of the companies that use the Social Media Press Release effectively and efficiently is Ford . I particularly liked the “Digital Snippet” concept in this Social Media Press release only because it is like providing information to the blogger the way he/she would like to see, share, and publish through his/her Google reader or Bloglines.

Now how do we create a social media press release? The latest template has been developed recently by Social Media Group. This can be downloaded here.

There is another format developed by Shift Communications that can be downloaded from here. This particular template was simple to understand and easier to information as was briefed in within template limits.

If not for anything else, the Social Media News Release can come very helpful in certain traditional PR practices say for example in creating a video news release. Using the new release format, you can skip the tedious process of having to burn dozens of copies of CDs.

So are you using any social media press releases for your company/clients? What are your experiences? Share them for the community here.