Social Media Marketing is facilitated by the (sometimes overwhelmingly) vast amount of social media platforms around the world wide web. Depending  upon what kind of business you have, you will use some sites more than others.

Social news networks are extremely important to businesses, in that, they post press releases and pick up top stories from around the web. Some of these sites require submission of any press release or news to be vetted by fact checkers and/or other staff who may deem the content not newsworthy enough. Others rely on user generated content as the news and immediately publish what is submitted. Some sites have voting features and news feed aggregators, as well.

Today, I am profiling a site called NowPublic. This site is based on user generated news submissions. Site members have the ability to edit the stories, almost like a wiki page.

In addition to user written news, members can also grab stories from other spots on the web and submit them to NowPublic.

Remember, this is a social news site, so if you are submitting a press release for  your business, it has to be something that other people will find newsworthy. Otherwise, it will be buried beneath a mountain of user submissions. Building relationships, as with any other social media site, is an important part of the process.

In general, social news sites are only worth an investment of your time if you build your networks there as you do everywhere else. If you aren’t interested in that much personal contact, you can always submit a simple press release to a standard news site. Social media devotees rarely like being “talked at” instead of being engaged in the process. Submitting a press release to a social news site without any other community interaction is the social media equivalent of a hit and run.

So, do take the time to determine what your level of investment is in social news sites. Then, take advantage of these great free public relations opportunities. It’s a good way to get the word out about your business.

Tags: Social Media Marketing, social news

This entry was posted on Monday, November 10th, 2008 at 4:47 am and is filed under Social Media Marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.