Pressitt the Social Media News Release service is searching for a talented web developer to learn the Pressitt system and help develop the platform further.

If the first project goes well there is plenty more updates/concepts/user feedback to be integrated into the current platform.

The Role: freelance/short term

To develop and improve Pressitt.com on a freelance basis or short term contract, as and when required.

Working closely with our lead developer and front end coder, you’ll be responsible for coding various parts of the site, including bespoke and custom newsrooms from basic php functions within Code Igniter down to in-depth classes.

Built on Codeigniter, Pressitt is a fully featured site with combined client-side and server-side technologies allowing users to create rich and detailed news releases.

Required Skills

• Object Orientated Programming
• Model View Controller/Frameworks
• Linux Systems Administration
• Content Management Systems
• Social Networking (Web)
• Internet usability
• Accessibility (Web)
• Front end coding and javascript

Required Products

• Codeigniter
• PHP
• MySQL
• jQuery
• XHTML/HTML
• CSS
• LAMP
• Wordpress (not essential)
• Zend Eclipse (not essential)

So, if you can deliver on the above, live preferably near London/the South East, are hard working and able to work to strict schedules, please get in touch via email at andy@pressitt.com

We look forward to hearing from you.

— Andy Merchant

White paper: Has the Social Media News Release (SMNR) finally come of age?

Guest blogger Nathan Greenhalgh introduces the results of research he carried out for Liberate Media to identify the issues around the traditional Press Release format and development of the Social Media News Release as an alternative. Director Wendy McAuliffe guided Nathan in the scope of the research and collation of the data, acting as mentor/editor for the production of the White Paper.

Pressitt launched in public beta last April, and to coincide with its re-launch and coming out of beta this month, we decided to carry out our own research into current perceptions around the traditional press release, and its successor the SMNR. Our findings are presented within our white paper entitled: Has the Social Media News Release (SMNR) finally come of age?

We hope you will find the time to download and read the white paper, which brings together some of the main industry arguments for and against the SMNR. However to entice you, here is an overview of our findings…

1)      The rules have changed and the traditional press release is no longer adequate. Increasing pressures on journalists, coupled with the rise of the “online citizen journalist” indicates that there will be more demand for a greater range of information than just text.

2)      Our research found that while general press releases are still useful, and up to now the vast majority of journalists have been happy to receive them by email, new pressures on time mean that they also need quick access to images, video and links.

3)      The style of information and formatting is crucial - that means no PDFs as the only source of information. Video is increasingly important, as are embeddable links and links to other sources.

4)      The SMNR has been sitting in the wings for a few years now, not quite managing to make the most of its potential. It would appear however that journalists could finally be coming round to making the most of the advantages SMNRs offer over the traditional press release.

Regardless of whether you are a Pressitt user or not, we would welcome your views on the subject. If you are new to the SMNR, we invite you to give Pressitt a go.

Download the white paper: (PDF) Has-the-social-media-news-release-finally-come-of-age ?

— Andy Merchant

The Pressitt social media news release team are always striving for ways to get PRs, brands, small businesses, and anybody else interested in the SMNR format, to share knowledge about this increasingly popular communications tool.

Today, we are pleased to announce a new social network: Pressitt SMNR Best Practice – that allows you to share best practice and helpful tips when creating your Pressitt SMNR. We hope Pressitt’s new social network will help to crowd source knowledge from those that create SMNR’s and feedback into the community with best practice, helpful tips, advice and any other thoughts. Of course the Pressitt team will be fully involved in the network, adding relevant links, new forums topics, user examples and generally answering your social media news release questions.

So, if you use Pressitt regularly, or want to find out how to create SMNRs, please get involved and share your thoughts, recommendations and ideas.

Pressitt Team

To get the latest Pressitt SMNR’s please follow us on http://twitter.com/Pressitt

— Andy Merchant

Last Thursday (5th of November) The Pressitt SMNR team were asked to present at the CIPR Social media for PR practise workshop - focusing on the CIPR’s Education and skills group.

Also in attendance was my colleges from Liberate Media PR and social media consultancy Tim Greenhalgh, who was on the sharing best practise morning 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.

Lloyd Gofton and myself Andy Merchant led the afternoon session focused on building social media news releases.

The Pressitt SMNR 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 we received No response. But 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, which made us re-think our approach and additionally gave us 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.

I will leave you with this, a quote from the CIPR’s research into the use of online media in UK higher and Further Education institutions.

“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.”

Now there’s a thought!

— Andy Merchant

We’d like to share a nice piece of feedback with you that we had about Pressitt’s Social Media News Release creation and publishing service.

The feedback was given by a gentleman called Chris from the Commission for Rural Communities.

Chris was a novice in the area of SMNR creation and publishing, and here is what he had to say.

“We have been delighted with our first foray into the exciting world of SMNRs, and Pressitt has made life very easy for us. It’s straightforward and intuitive to use and help is at hand if it’s needed. We’re also really pleased with the feedback we’ve had on our first release, and again it’s thanks to Pressitt for starting the ball rolling via Twitter. I would have no hesitation in recommending Pressitt to anyone thinking about doing a SMNR, but allow plenty of time to assemble all the content first – that’s by far the hardest part!”

The CRC produced a really great first SMNR -Drive to push investment to heart of rural England - SMNR, which included a number of YouTube videos and images which made for a feature-rich Pressitt SMNR.

If anybody else would like to share their Presitt thoughts or feedback please get in touch. We look forward to hearing from you.

— Andy Merchant

Pressitt has been in Private Beta for just under three weeks and we are now working hard to implement feedback and updates to the site. We’re not that far away from going into public beta!

First of all I would like to thank everyone who’s registered their interest in the Pressitt SMNR service, and we hope to allow more people to try the service really soon.

We have already received several positive pieces of coverage about Pressitt, beginning with a nice write-up in PR week, and we have also been featured in the web 2.0 directory Zappa, Brand Republic, Listio, Feed myapp and DIY start up news, along with bits and pieces of conversation within Twitter.

For anyone who has not seen what Pressitt’s Social Media News Releases look like, here are a few examples:

Adventure Ecology appoints Collective for website to showcase its next adventure, The Plastiki.

iBAHN conforms to EU Data Retention Directive

Kerb founder and games industry veteran join forces to launch next-generation games company

Keep an eye out for more features and updates coming soon!

— Andy Merchant

Pressitt Beta launch coverage in PR week:

Liberate Media, the digital PR and social media firm, has collaborated with its web development partner Best Served Cold to create a social media news release service called Pressitt. A Pressitt release includes the core information in a traditional release, along with supporting audio, images, video clips and downloadable presentations.

It can also do a lot more!

— Andy Merchant