Member Article

New distribution platform targets bloggers

North East based online news distribution and monitoring company, webitpr, has launched the Social Media News Release (SMNR) – a new kind of press release that makes content easily accessible and usable for bloggers and other users of social media. It is thought to be the first introduction of a SMNR by a European company, and the platform incorporates all the elements of a traditional press release but with additional functionality to include multimedia content.

Inspired by the original template design pioneered by a US based PR agency, the SMNR can contain images, hyperlinks, embedded video, audio files, social bookmarks, links to blog posts and RSS feeds. The company has started rolling out the service to its existing PR agency and corporate clients throughout the UK and parts of Europe.

Stephen Davies, Social Media Manager at webitpr, said: “The SMNR is much more catered to the sharing, collaborative and conversational nature of the social media world as it allows anyone to take content from it which can be added to blogs or exchanged with others making it much more viral in nature.

“As well as providing additional multimedia and social media options, the SMNR has been ‘deconstructed’ to cut out the spin often associated with press releases. Everything is still available including the core news facts, the pre-approved quotes and boilerplate - but each is displayed in their own separate section making it easier for bloggers or journalists to pull out the content that’s relevant to them.”

Adam Parker, webitpr Chief Executive, said: “This is another extension to our online PR services which will grow in increasing importance over time. Because social media platforms including blogs and social networking sites such as Facebook are turning consumers into actual producers of content, we feel this is a step in the right direction to adapting to the changing media landscape.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ruth Mitchell .