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

This is the second part of our tricks and tips blog post series, focused on getting the most out of Pressitt Social Media News Release creation and publishing platform.

In part 2 we will look at your identities and boilerplates.

Pressitt allows you to add as many identities as you need. So if you’re an agency with multiple clients you can have and individual identity for each one. The identity must consist of a logo that represents your brand and a bolierplate to go with it.

Once the identity is created it can be selected every time you create a release for that brand.

What is a boilerplate?

A boilerplate is usually found at the end of a press release, and briefly describes the company or organisation detailed in the release. The same boilerplate is usually used on every press release the company issues. It is important to remember boilerplates should be up to date, clearly written and short in length.

The boilerplates on Pressitt SMNRs are found at the bottom of the release. Here is an example of the boilerplate currently found on all Pressitt SMNRs.

Why are the identities so important?

Identities play an import part of the Pressitt SMNR creation process for a numbers of reasons.

1. By adding an identity you get home page advisability, along with visual exposure of your logo. A Pressitt SMNR without an identity will not feature on the home page, but will be found in the release pages and the brand’s relevant category page.

2. By adding a boilerplate as part of the identity creation process your are offering the viewers of your SMNR additional information and a chance to add extra keywords to help with your SEO visibility.

We hope this gives you a few more ideas when creating your SMNR. Come back soon to see the next Pressitt SMNR tips and tricks post.

— Andy Merchant @andymerch

Pressitt Social Media Newsroom competition

In order to celebrate the launch of our new Social Media Newsroom offering, we are offering a limited number of free bespoke news release templates and Social Media Newsrooms, which of course can be used in conjunction with the Pressitt platform and easily linked to from your own site.

What are we giving away?

Three packages are up for grabs that include a Social Media Newsroom and bespoke Social Media News Release template that our designers will mock up in the style of your present website.

Your Social Media Newsroom and release template will be given a unique url: yourbrand.pressitt.com
View an example newsroom here: Bright One

The Rules

The competition will run for one month after the publishing date of this post. (29th July 2009)

The competition is open to agencies, corporations, challenger brands, and anyone who has a passion and interest for the Social Media News Release and is going to use it!

To enter, all you have to do is sign-up to Pressitt with a valid email address. No Google, MSN or Yahoo sign up’s will be entered into the draw (make sure you only enter once).

All previous active members who have signed up with a valid email address will automatically get entered into the prize draw.

To qualify for entry, you need to have released one newsworthy SMNR on the Pressitt platform.

The draw will be made by an impartial adjudicator.

The winners will be contacted via email and sent a briefing sheet for completion of the Newsroom and bespoke release template.

A bit about the Social Media Newsroom.

The Social Media Newsroom is a unique company landing page offering access to all of your multimedia news releases. It is a first touch for brands wanting to engage and participate with online communities, including journalists, bloggers, and even consumers researching your product or service.

Follow us on Twitter and find us on Facebook to get competition updates and news.

Good Luck

— Andy Merchant @andymerch