How to Write a Social Media Press Release

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8.    Relevant links: This is a good way to promote your company and what you've done a bit more. If you have related releases, include links to them here. While this particular product might not be a fit, if you've kept someone's interest this long, they may find your other products of use.

9.    Tags: Recommended sharing methods, whether via social bookmarking sites, Twitter hashtags or Facebook fan pages.

10.    Contact: This may sometimes be overlooked, but don't forget to include your name, email, Twitter alias and more. If you are willing to put all of that info out there and stand behind your release, it lends it a bit more credibility.

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How to Write a Social Media Press Release: Biggest Mistakes to Avoid

While the elements you do focus on are relatively uniform, there are also things that can quickly turn your social media release into junk mail or a one-time visit from a journalist, customer or blogger. Those mistakes include:

•    The release is too focused on your company and not on the product or service you are offering. Let the user learn about your company when they want to visit your website.

•    Content is full of marketing lingo rather than being conversational/shareable

•    Written to appeal to a broad audience on the web as opposed to specific bloggers or consumers.

"A traditional press release focuses on a product launch or putting a product into seasonal contact, and the main purpose is to either get print coverage or blog coverage," says Michelle Olson, an account director at New York's The Lane Communications Group, where she focuses on beauty and skin care companies. "But a social campaign is not only launching a brand new product, it's launching a new social component, whether it's a website, instructional YouTube video, or something similar. Because users always want something extra now, whether that's online or at the retailer. The better your social media presence, the more apt people are to try out your product."

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How to Write a Social Media Press Release: Distribution of the Release

Distribution is obviously vital to the success of a traditional press release. There are plenty of free and paid services offered for public relations professionals, but it really depends on the reach you are looking for out of your campaign. Are you looking for local or national coverage? Do you want bloggers or traditional journalists? Do you want it to be a one-time hit or a viral campaign? These are all questions you should ask yourself before you begin distribution. In terms of social media releases, however, the process is a bit different.

"Social media releases can be effective but it's a good idea to put content into networks, where people are looking for it. But something that people don't really realize is that social media releases can't be distributed," according to Sarah Skerik, vice president of social media at PRNewswire, a paid press release distribution service. "They can be spidered by search engines, and shared - but they can't be pushed by wire services. Many multimedia-type releases just sit on the vendor site. If there's no real distribution, it's best to have this sort of great content pulling traffic to your own web site."

Since they can't be distributed by traditional means, it becomes even more imperative that your release be inherently shareable, tweetable and likeable on social channels.

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How to Write a Social Media Press Release: Measuring Engagement and Following Up After the Release

It's next to impossible to measure success of a social media press release without setting up a type of measurement, which needs to be done before you send out the release. Turner recently wrote a post on Mashable.com about How To Calculate The ROI of Your Social Media Campaign. In essence, there are three types of measurement to focus on in any social campaign, those being qualitative, quantitative and ROI. For marketing directors, they should be most focused on ROI. But for public relations professionals, it's really the other two that matter most.

"In terms of PR, you want to know not only who is sharing the information that your release provides, but how they are sharing it," Turner adds. "So in terms of quantitative, it's all about raising the number of Facebook likes, Twitter shares, and more. From a qualitative measurement perspective, it's really about what they are saying about your information. For example, are they calling your product cheap or inexpensive? From a branding perspective, those two words have a considerably different meaning, so you sometimes need to help guide the conversation."

And Turner's final point there is one of the biggest things you must do as a PR professional when writing a social media press release—engage. Just as you want your customers, journalists and bloggers to actively share the product and come back for more, the key to social is making it a two-way conversation. If someone asks a question about the campaign, respond quickly. If they want to know where they can find more information, write them a message or direct them to the company website.

"No customer wants to call a 1-800 number anymore," Olson adds. "Everyone wants to take their question and post it on the company Facebook page or tweet about it and then receive an instant response. So as a PR person, you need to make the consumer feel like a VIP in a way by giving them that personal touch. Because in a way, social media campaigns can be less expensive than traditional advertising and it can be a great alternative for smaller companies to try and compete with larger brands. But if you don't concern yourself with engagement, it can really hurt you and you could lose a customer."

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Lou Dubois is a Philadelphia-based Social Media Editor for NBC Universal's local news affiliate (WCAU-TV). He is an experienced writer, editor and marketer who has worked with and written about Fortune 500 companies and small businesses, focusing on social media, emerging technologies, small business success, entrepreneurship, sports business and corporate policy.  Previously he worked for Social Media Today, Sports Illustrated, the Associated Press and SOBeFit Magazine, along with various newspapers. @lou_dubois