View Entry

Company: webitpr Limited
Project: Social Media News Release

http://www.webitpr.com/realwire.asp?id=21

Dates: Jun 2007 to Jul 2007

How did the project start?

The online world is changing drastically. New forms of online media such as blogs, podcasts, social networks and viral videos are growing in both influence and popularity at an exponential rate. Consumers are beginning to turn away from traditional media such as newspapers, TV and radio, and people are increasingly using the web as their primary source of news.

The project was inspired by a PR agency based out of Boston, Massachusetts, who created a PDF template as a basic idea of the potential of a new kind of press release to address the changing online landscape. This new press release is named the Social Media News Release (SMNR) and has provoked acknowledgement and conversation among many of the leading thinkers in the online PR and marketing arena.

We took this design idea and actually our own version of the SMNR which serves as a platform to help the PR industry (many of whom are our clients) meet these challenges and to provide press release and multimedia content in a way which can be used and shared over the web using social networking sites including, YouTube, Facebook, delicious and Twitter. As of writing, webitpr, is the only company with a SMNR offering in Europe.

What options did you consider?

The main premise of the SMNR is to provide easily accessible content to bloggers and other social media users so they can use and share it on their respective sites. However, there are literally thousands of social networking sites available with each having varying degrees in popularity. Because of this, the SMNR platform has been built to accommodate new introductions of social networking sites as and when they grow in popularity.

As an example, YouTube grew to be the second most visited site in the world in two years which illustrates the dramatic speed at which the online media space is moving. Should a new popular site appear the SMNR has been built to accommodate this.

What help and expertise did you receive?

The creation of the SMNR platform was done entirely inhouse. From humble beginnings, webitpr has been working in the online media space for over seven years. Each of the company’s staff has a variety of expertise predominantly in the online distribution and online PR and marketing areas, and is aided by a developer to handle the technical aspects of the project.

Did you face any challenges or learn any lessons?

We faced a number of technical challenges such as creating the RSS feed so the content is prevented in an RSS reader the same as it appears on platform. Also it took us sometime to gain permission from RSS analytical data company, FeedBurner (now owned by Google) to allow us to use their API so clients can track how many RSS subscribers our clients’ news releases have.

On a different level, as a company that services the PR industry we are met with the day-to-day challenges of educating the industry on the complex online media and how the SMNR can help to get their message out to the global online audience.

What are the outcomes and how has it improved your business?

The SMNR platform has been deemed a great success. We have distributed a number of SMNRs on behalf of FTSE100 and Fortune500 companies, including, Europe’s largest commercial broadcaster, ITV, leading accounting platform, Sage, car manufacturer, Vauxhall (owned by General Motors) and online software company, Webex (owned by Cisco Systems).

As well as this we have extended our reach into the American market by distributing SMNRs on behalf of companies based out of New York and Ohio.

Sample SMNRs:

http://socialnews.itv.com/?ReleaseID=8069

http://socialnews.itv.com/?releaseid=7244

http://blogit.webitpr.com/?ReleaseID=6166

http://blogit.webitpr.com/?ReleaseID=7817

http://blogit.webitpr.com/?ReleaseID=7155

http://blogit.webitpr.com/?ReleaseID=6499

Our management team frequently speak at PR and marketing events in London about the SMNR concept and we have received press coverage in all the industry publications because of it.

To help with both the promotion and education of the SMNR concept we created a promotion video describing the SMNR’s history, how it works and the benefits of using one which we added to YouTube. So far it has garnered nearly 4000 views and is top of the search results in YouTube when using ‘social media’; second using the phrase ‘news release’ and third using ‘press release’. It has also been shown in presentations at large PR events in locations in the United States. The video can be viewed on YouTube here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cD_mYKc20OY

What are your plans for the future?

The plans for the future are to continually advance the SMNR so it can adapt to the ever-evolving online media landscape. We are also in the early stages of implementing the Social Media News Room which will be used to house our clients’ SMNRS.