Posts Tagged ‘pressitt’
CIPR Social media for PR practise workshop
November 6th, 2009
Yesterday I attended the CIPR Social media for PR practise workshop - focusing on the CIPR’s Education and skills group. Liberate Media was represented by my colleague Tim Greenhalgh, who was on the sharing best practise panel discussion with Simon Collister of We are Social and Nic Mitchell from Teesside University and led by Tracy Playle, Vice-Chair, CIPR Education and Skills sector group and Pickle Jar communications.
My colleague Andy Merchant and I led the afternoon session focused on building social media news releases with our Pressitt hats on. For those that don’t know, Pressitt is a free social media news release platform that Liberate Media developed with our partners Best Served Cold and launched earlier this year.
The morning session was focused on discussing the findings of the CIPR’s research into the use of online media in UK higher and Further Education institutions as a means of enhancing press and media relations, called PR 2.0 - managing news in a digital world, which launched on the day. (I’m chasing down a link and will update ASAP). The work group session was used to explore how PRs should use social and online media to communicate with journalists, looking specifically at the most useful online tools, how to manage time to engage with social media and how do you get senior management buy-in for supporting your use of social media, etc.
Of course they also discussed the findings of the research, which includes a host of interesting stats and feedback, my favourite of which was this little gem from an unnamed former FT journalist who confirmed the following about the traditional press release, which takes us back to where the social media news release movement all started.
“Press releases are nearly useless. They typically start with a tremendous amount of top-spin; they contain pat-on-the-back phrases and meaningless quotes. Often they will contain quotes from C-level executives praising their customer focus.
“Press releases are created by committees, edited by lawyers, and then sent out at great expense through Businesswire or PRnewswire to reach the digital and physical trash bins of tens of thousands of journalists … this madness has to end!”
His proposal: “Deconstruct the press release into special sections and tag the information so that as a publisher I can pre-assemble some of the news story and make the information useful.”
Hear, Hear!
In the afternoon it was over to Pressitt and the Social Media News Release. The session seemed to go well, and we had a mixed group in terms of social media understanding. When asked for a show of hands of people that had published an SMNR I received nadda, no hands, no expression…gulp, I thought, this could be difficult. However, preaching to the converted is easy, but helping PR professionals to understand the benefits of a social media news releases was much more rewarding.
We faced some tough questioning which we welcomed as this wasn’t an audience of converts, this was an audience of concerned professionals that wanted to embrace new tools, but needed to ‘get-it’ first of all. I think Andy would agree that this made us re-think our approach and we also got some good ideas for Pressitt 2.0, which we hope to launch in the new year.
After the event we had a great deal of positive feedback and promises from a number of people to give Pressitt a go, which at least one has already done, and after all that’s all we can ever ask.
So what did I learn from the event?
1. We still live in a social media bubble - it’s easy to talk about the development of social media in groups of likeminded social entrepreneurs, but is that helping the development of social communications?
2. It may seem obvious, but it’s true, if you want to develop a product, take it to people that have never seen it before and let them pull it apart! We probably learnt more from a group of SMNR novices than we would from hours of feedback from the so called experts
3. Every sector of PR is different we might argue that social media is the way forward, and I still stand by that, but its acceptance, relevance and use in the various industry sectors is vastly different.
Thanks to Tracy Playle, Vice-Chair, CIPR Education and Skills sector group and Pickle Jar communications who not only developed and led the session but gives up her time to the CIPR for free - top job!
And if you’re reading this and haven’t given Pressitt a go yet, please do - join up, develop your release and hit publish - it won’t cost you a thing. Then let us know what you think and we both might learn something out of it.
The trouble with press releases
July 31st, 2009
The age old argument that begins ‘the trouble with press releases’ has come to the fore again this week. The main cause has been a journalism.co.uk article that offered a crowdsourced guide to writing the perfect press release for journalists. This also sparked off a number of conversations on Twitter.
The journalism.co.uk article made complete sense, and I agree with the advice offered in it, or at least 95% of it, but the most depressing thing is that we as an industry (the PR industry) are still making the same old mistakes. To be honest most of the advice could have come from a training session I was given on press release writing in my first month at a PR agency many moons ago. I’m not trying to belittle the advice that was given, it’s just depressing that the same old issues keep coming up.
Looking beyond the usual press release clashes between journalists and PRs, I think there are wider issues that need to be considered. Firstly, in my experience it’s usually the client that demands less than newsworthy releases, and yes PRs should be firmer in their consultancy, but as anyone who has been on agency side will know, that’s not always possible. Secondly, and again in my experience, when talking to a journalist about a story I have, on a number of occasions, been asked ‘is there a release on this?’ which is slightly frustrating when we’re trying to take a more personalised approach. That’s not to say all journalists do this, but again we all know there are some.
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, there is nothing more I would like than to kill off the traditional release, and I think many PRs that I have spoken to would agree. They can be dull marketing documents that serve very little purpose and the good ones are vastly outweighed by the bad ones.
So what do we do? We need to convey the information in a relevant, accessible and useful way, but without the fluff and spin. Well this is a question we at Liberate Media have been tussling with since day one, and as many of you will know we’ve launched an alternative in the form of a social media news release platform called ‘Pressitt‘. This was originally developed as we couldn’t find a distribution service that suited our requirements, but as it evolved we felt it should be shared and we plan to work with the industry to build a service that is flexible and relevant in a social media environment, as well as a more traditional news environment.
Please don’t think this post is meant as a promotion for Pressitt, it’s not supposed to be. We don’t charge for Pressitt releases, as we believe social tools should be free. But my point is, yes, PRs, journalists and clients are cheesed off with press releases, some are trying to change that by good practise in communicating stories and obeying advice as set out in the journalism.co.uk article. Others are doing something about it by developing new methods of news distribution. However, it seems too many are still doing nothing. Wake up time is long overdue.
Social Media News Release service Pressitt launches in Public Beta
April 20th, 2009
Social Media News Release (SMNR) service Pressitt today launches in public beta, following a successful month of private beta testing.
Developed by digital PR and social media consultancy Liberate Media and web development firm Best Served Cold, Pressitt has already been trialed by an impressive list of high-profile and challenger brands and organisations. These include Johnson’s online parenting community BabyCentre, the Government’s Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills, online music provider Napster, digital creative agency Collective, digital entertainment and internet solutions firm iBAHN, digital engagement agency Kerb and LED lamp producer Greengage Lighting.
In just over a month, the service has already secured a Google PageRank of four, and attracted a significant level of private beta interest.
Pressitt enables PRs and businesses to create their own SMNRs (also known as a Social Media News Release) and publish to an online community of journalists, the blogosphere and the general public. A Pressitt release contains all of the core information found in a traditional press release, but it is presented in a more digestible format along with images, video clips, links to previous Pressitt announcements and other relevant online information such as homepages, social media profiles and downloadable presentations or PDFs, ensuring all story assets are saved in one central online place.
Based on early user feedback, a range of service updates will also be launching to coincide with the public beta launch. These include brand-specific RSS feeds, enabling individuals to easily keep track of Pressitt releases published by companies of interest, and a tool called PressTwitt which allows Pressitt releases to be shared via Twitter easily. Screencast videos are being developed to provide additional guidance on how best to use Pressitt, and A new homepage design is also going live in direct response to the feedback of private beta testers.
The service is currently free to use, and a premium paid-for version with enhanced functionality will go live later in the year.
Additionally, Pressitt is also unveiling a bespoke version of the service, which enables organisations to have a customised SMNR template designed to reflect the colours, style and branding of their organisation. Those wanting to take it one step further can show-off their bespoke releases in a Social Media News Room, offering a completely branded environment housing all of their corporate SMNRs. A Social Media News Room can be a part of a company’s existing website or hosted via Pressitt.
Wendy McAuliffe, director of Liberate Media and Pressitt, says: “The private beta phase has been incredibly successful, and we’re delighted to be coming out of it after just one month of testing. The Social Media News Release has been a hot topic within the global PR industry for a while, and we’re pleased to see that businesses and brands of all sizes are eager to trial this up-to-date press release format. Early user feedback has been constructive and encouraging, and we’re making service updates as quickly as possible to ensure we’re continually innovating and responding to the needs of our users.”
Greg Doone, managing director of Collective, adds: “We’re proud to have been one of the first organisations to trial Pressitt, as we’re keen for our company news to be as ‘social’ and shareable as possible. We develop a wide range of multimedia assets for high profile brands such as Honda and EA, and Pressitt provides us with the perfect environment to showcase these to our blogger and journalist targets in one central online location.”
Please see latest news from Social Media News Release service Pressitt below:
http://pressitt.com/smnr/social-media-news-release-service-pressitt-launches-in-public-beta/35/
PR firms creating social media tools and start-ups
March 12th, 2009
PR firms are usually the ones pitching and seeding news stories, not creating them. So it’s great to see PR firm Waggener Edstrom creating a new tool called Twendz. Twendz is a Twitter tool that pulls in the latest tweets on any given topic, and shows you what the overall user sentiment is, be it positive or negative. A great idea and definitely something the PR industry needs to help the measurement quest.
PR firms are typically the ones who come up with the ideas but hardly ever get any credit for them, so maybe the tide is turning. Will we see more PR companies creating tools themselves, via partnerships or by building new development arms within their companies?
It’s good to see the likes of Waggener Edstrom develop Twendz, and earlier this month you may have seen that at Liberate Media we launched our own service called Pressitt which allows the creation and distribution of Social Media News Releases. It just goes to show that PRs want to evolve and be thought of in a different breath.
Social media news release (SMNR) gathers pace
March 3rd, 2009
It’s great to see Brian Solis, a SMNR evangelist and fellow PR consultant, team up with Jason Kintzler over at Pitch Engine. I believe this partnership strengthens my belief that the social media news release will finally gain the attention it rightly deserves.
The Social Media Release modernized an aging 100-year-old tool and adapted it for the social web, making the foundation for a new type of press release relevant again. But, perhaps most importantly, the Social Media Release was our chance to not only invigorate the traditional press release, it provided visionaries and evangelists with the ability to embrace new tools, mediums, and narrative voices to tell stories more convincingly to those seeking information, their way.
Brian then goes on to talk about Pitch Engine not being a wire service.
It is a social platform to quickly and easily create, host, and share visually rich and dynamic social media releases.
This is the model we have based our own SMNR service on. Pressitt follows the Pitch engine model and sits comfortably beside it.
So with the Pressitt service now in private beta and Pitch Engine coming to prominence in PR circles, things are looking good for the SMNR. With the open channels of conversation, sharing of ideas and groups such as the Social Media Release Workgroup, we can all work together and collaborate to improve the SMNR offering.
If you have an interest in the SMNR format, please register your interest over at Pressitt, we are currently looking for Beta testers. Also go check out Pitch Engine, it’s a great site.