Pressitt the free social media news release creation and publishing site,  is currently offering all registered Charities free newsroom and matching templates, as part of its recently created newsroom service - read the full news release here.

To register you interest and claim you newsroom and matching release template please email us on [email protected]

Michelle Gilbert, head of corporate communications at Eurosport, comments: “Pressitt is an excellent service offering companies and organisations fast and effective social media solutions for their digital PR needs. We at Eurosport have been particularly impressed with Pressitt’s enthusiasm, high level of customer service and help in establishing our newsroom and leveraging our social media news releases. We are looking forward to a fruitful working relationship on these and other projects in 2011.”

Pressitt is an advertising free platform which is highly moderated, meaning your news will only sit alongside recognised brands and organisations.

Current newsroom examples include the DFID and Eurosport.

— Andy Merchant @andymerch

Eurosport becomes the first brand to showcase Pressitt newsrooms

Pressitt, the free Social Media News Release (SMNR) creation and publishing platform, today announces the launch of customisable newsrooms. The newsroom functionality allows users to create their own online branded news environment.

Now journalists, bloggers and anyone online will be able to find news information published by brands and organisations in one central, branded online hub. Additionally, the newsroom template will also serve as a branded release template for all past and future releases that are indexed on Pressitt.

Eurosport , Europe’s leading sports entertainment group, has been quick to jump onboard and become one of the first brands to utilise Pressitt’s newsroom feature as part of its social media plans for 2011.

One individual newsroom is priced affordably at £15 per month, but is free to all registered charities.

Newsroom features include: the ability to customise the header, footer and background of the newsroom to match the brand’s look and feel, and add Twitter and Facebook widgets. Fonts, links and text colouring are also adjustable to create a branded social environment to host a brand’s latest news.

Michelle Gilbert, head of corporate communications at Eurosport, comments: “Pressitt is an excellent service offering companies and organisations fast and effective social media solutions for their digital PR needs. We at Eurosport have been particularly impressed with Pressitt’s enthusiasm, high level of customer service and help in establishing our newsroom and leveraging our social media news releases. We are looking forward to a fruitful working relationship on these and other projects in 2011.”

Andy Merchant, director and co-founder of Pressitt.com adds: “Over the past year the free Pressitt service has been highly successful at giving brands and agencies an excellent multimedia-enhanced alternative to the ageing press release. Now with the addition of the customisable newsroom, combined with a release template service, we hope to encourage brands to use Pressitt as an online hub of information to showcase their latest news.”

Users who blog about Pressitt will also receive a special discounted offer of £12.50 per month for the first year only.

— Andy Merchant @andymerch

Pressitt, the Social Media News Release and creation platform, have tool has developed a new motion graphic video.

The video overviews exactly what Pressitt does and how it can help your brand to communicate via the social web, in just over one minute.

Let us know what you think?

Social Media News Release creation and publishing platform - Pressitt from Pressitt on Vimeo.

— Andy Merchant @andymerch

We are always looking at innovative ways to help you to make the most of Pressitt, and with this in mind we have produced a document that will help pre-plan and create your Social Media News Release before publication to our site.

The  editable PDF document  will guide you through the creation process, allowing you to create your release in draft before adding it to the site. You can also  add notes with ideas for images and documents that you would like to see on the final SMNR.

We hope this will help you to plan the detailed elements of your release and also achieve sign-off from clients and internal teams as required.

The downloadable and editable PDF pre-release document can be found on your profile page or here.

We would love to hear any feedback on the document or recommendations to enhance it further.

We look forward to viewing your Pressitt SMNRs.

— Andy Merchant @andymerch

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 [email protected]

We look forward to hearing from you.

— Andy Merchant @andymerch

As you may or may not be aware, Pressitt, the Social Media News Release creation and publishing platform, is very much a part of Liberate Media and its partner Best Served Cold.

What is Pressitt?

Pressitt allows you to create and publish a rich multimedia asset-assisted news release. Your release acts as a hub of information, giving Journalists, bloggers, and your online community more information to easily research your brand.

Once you have created your release it’s then up to you to use it as part of your blogger/journalist outreach campaign. We are not a newswire. We are a platform to create and distribute content in a relevant and useful manner.

Once published, your release is made available via RSS, categorised and searchable via tags. It is also tweeted via the Pressitt account, indexed by Google news and all other major search engines.

Coming soon

We are currently in the process of adding an exciting new string to the Pressitt bow. The new element has been driven by the large amount of positive user and fan feedback we receive.

At this stage, I don’t want to give to much away, but all I will say is that this new element will take Pressitt to the next level and help brands further engage with target audiences. Watch this space!

Get involved

We are committed to furthering the Social Media News Release format, so if you like Pressitt, want to get involved, have feedback, or would like to talk to us about any potential partnership opportunities please get in-touch by emailing [email protected]

We look forward to hearing from you.

— Andy Merchant @andymerch

We all know the traditional press release is still a staple communications tool for the PR professional, and although there has been much discussion surrounding the demise of the text-based press release, it is still used by many agencies and brands.

The social media news release offers additional links to content relating to the news announcement, core facts rather than spin, as well as images, video, and sharable elements that make the news live for the reader, as below.

However, we would love to know more about how the SMNR is impacting on the daily lives of journalists of all types. For example, are you seeing more SMNRs from brands and agencies? If so, are they useful? Do you prefer traditional text-based press releases?

Any feedback we receive will go towards the ongoing development of the Pressitt SMNR platform.

If you can spare a few minutes to provide your feedback in the comments section below, or get in touch directly via [email protected] we would be most grateful.

View the features of a more helpful style of release below.

— Andy Merchant @andymerch

Anchor House the hostel and life skills centre for homeless adults has recently undergone a website update including a Social Media Newsroom and bespoke news template provided by Pressitt, the Social Media News Release and publication platform.

The Anchor House Newsroom can be found at http://anchor-house.pressitt.com/ and will now act as a hub for all the Anchor Houses press release and news. The Pressitt newsroom will help Anchor House to engage with bloggers/journalists and other interested parties with its deconstructed approach to sharing news across the blogosphere. All Pressitt news is indexed by major search engines and Google News.

Anna Richardson, marketing consultant for Anchor House comments “Anchor House is a forward thinking organisation that believes it is vital to embrace new communication tools. Tools such as Pressitt help us to widen our audience reach and engage our community with relevant and useful content. We are extremely pleased with the newsroom and the work carried out by Pressitt”.

Pressitt is currently the only free Social Media News Release Service in the UK and is being utilised by a wide variety of organisations from UK start-ups to Fortune 500 companies.

— Andy Merchant @andymerch

The Pressitt team have put together some  key points to help you fully appreciate what Pressitt Social Media News Release service has to offer:

• It’s free to sign up and free to use - no strings attached!
• There is no advertising on your SMNRs.
• All SMNRs are indexed by Google News, all major search engines, the Pressitt Twitter feed, and the Pressitt site via its categories and tags.
• Brand logos will feature prominently on your SMNR-  next to your title.
  
• Each brand/identity has its own unique RSS feed.
• Your releases doesn’t expire after 30 days - it only expires when you delete it!
• Easily edit your release after publication.
• You can add up to 8 images to each release, all of which are easily downloaded by the user.
• You can add as many YouTube video as you like to support your SMNR.
• You can add as many contact details as you need, with the addition of social contact profiles.
• All previous releases are visible on each SMNR.
• You have the option to add relevant files to your SMNR to support your release.
• Easy to follow relevant links section.
• Digestible format: introduction, core facts, main text, quotes, press contacts, previous release, relevant links, images, videos and tags are all clearly defined for ease of use.
• Help and tips throughout the creation process.
• Search boxes with auto complete.
• Accessible social sharing icons.

I hope this gives you a taste of Pressitt’s functionality and watch out for more upgrades coming your way soon.

Click here to see some user examples.

— Andy Merchant @andymerch

Just in case you missed it over the last few weeks, Pressitt has been going through a number of changes, most noticeably with a site makeover. In the midst of all these changes was the news that all Pressitt releases are now syndicated to Google News.

This development will ensure higher visibility and greater traffic to your release, we hope you notice the difference.

However, this is not an invitation to spam us with un-newsworthy releases and as a consequence Pressitt will be monitoring and moderating its SMNRs more closely than ever before.

If you’re not sure what Pressitt does and doesn’t allow in terms of content, please read our editorial guidelines before you submit your next release.

We look forward to viewing your Pressitt Social Media News Release.

— Andy Merchant @andymerch