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 would like to take this opportunity to thank all the brands, agencies, government departments and everyone else who has used Pressitt’s free, SMNR platform so far.

At this stage we would like to ask for your help to showcase the positive effect a Pressitt Social Media News Release has had on your campaign or organisation.

What Pressitt is looking for:

• Any case studies using Pressitt as part of your social media outreach campaign
• Any feedback from journalists or bloggers as a result of being presented with a Pressitt Social Media News Release
• Feedback from clients that you have produced a Pressitt Social Media News Release on behalf of
• Anything else of interest related to Pressitt.

Anything you can offer will be greatly appreciated, please email [email protected] with any evidence.

We look forward to viewing your next Pressitt SMNR.

— 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

Today I wanted to highlight the fact that the SMNR is not a ‘fire and forget’ tactic. It’s not a newswire either.

The SMNR is useful because it opens up conversation and allow brand owners to engage with online users and vice versa. The conversation shouldn’t end after a few hours, days or weeks.

The beauty of the SMNR concept is that you can keep the conversation alive by re-visiting your SMNR and updating it with fresh content and then re-publishing and re-engaging with your audience. It’s the start of the conversation, not the end of your news.

Ideas to update you Social Media News Release:

• New quotes or updated quotes
• Fan videos/images
• Additional links to other news coverage or user generated content
• Update on the announcement
• New findings/research
• or even just to update your contact details
• Updated product shots
• Expert commentary from other sources

Standard newswires would charge to do this, but Pressitt allows you to make any amount of edits for free.

I hope this small snippet of advice allows you to use the social media news service of your choice more effectively, if you have any further queries, please get in touch.

— 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

How to get started and build your first Pressitt Social Media News Release.

1.       Register for an account, it’s quick, free and easy.

Getting to know Pressitt

First view the Pressitt features, examples and editorial guidelines

Building your first SMNR

Once you have signed in you will be taken to your Profile page, this is where the fun begins.

1.       First you need to create a brand identity; a brand signifies who the release is from. Without adding a brand identity your SMNR will not feature on the home, loosing maximum viability.

2.       Once you have added your brand identity it’s time to move on to creating your SMNR. Choose your brand identity from the drop down menu.

3.       Choose up to 3 categories that best suit your SMNR to sit in on the Pressitt site. If you don’t see a suitable category let us know. [email protected]

4.       Add a title, overview, body text and core facts; core facts are key nuggets of information about your release.

5.       Fill in your contact details, and also add your social contact details, so interested parties can contact you via social networks and micro blogs.

6.       At this point SAVE and CONTINUE onto the next editing page

7.       Next you can add YouTube videos to your release just copy and paste the page URL to the given space.

8.       Add quotes from industry experts to back up your release content.

9.       Add relevant links; this is a great chance to give viewers of your Social Media News Release additional information on your brand, link to your company social media profiles such as Facebook, YouTube, and Flickr. Also link to any research used in your release and even other coverage your release has attained.

10.   Click the previous release check button to have other SMNRs from that brand featured on this release.

11.   At this point SAVE and CONTINUE onto the next editing page

12.   Add images and document to supports your release. Images play an important part of the visual aspect of your release.

13.   Add descriptive tags.

14.   At this point SAVE and Preview your release.

15.   On the preview screen check you are happy with the end result, go back to element you wish to correct but make sure you SAVE the edit.

Publish and share your SMNR

1.       After viewing your release click publish to make it LIVE, your SMNR will now feature on the Pressitt home page and its pre selected categories.

2.       Use the social bookmarking icons to submit your SMNR to social news sites such as DIGG and MIXX, micro blogs such as twitter and of course you can also email a link of your release to all your friends and contacts.

3.       Don’t worry if you forget to do this we will send you a helpful email reminder.

For further help please check out our Help page

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

The Pressitt Team

You can download the PDF version of the Pressitt SMNR quick start guide here.

— Andy Merchant @andymerch