Pressitt says the site’s focus is on providing journalists and bloggers with a primary research tool for stories. PR types can upload releases into the system that should then be available to these journalists and bloggers.

My very first experience with the site wasn’t great. When I first went to sign up (as a PR person) I was faced with these restrictions on the registration page:

“I confirm that the content I am about to publish is not related to adult explicit, alcohol, activism, extremism, petition, prescription or other drugs, religious, ringtones, tobacco or vitamins related themes.”

As a social media consultant with a variety of clients, projects and events to publicize, I was immediately put off by the limitations, namely because the two things I wanted to create social media releases for were a wine branding company (alcohol) and a philanthropic campaign (activism, petition).

Undeterred, I filled out the rest of the registration so I could at least check out the tool’s features. Pressitt is entirely free, compared to the existing social media release tool PitchEngine which I wrote about previously. Here is an example release I created on the PressIt site.

Here’s how Pressitt stacks up as a Social Media Release (SMR) tool:

1. Ease of use. Pressitt has a very straightforward fill-in-the-blanks format. The link to create a release is prominent and obvious. Once you start one, you have the ability to choose which brand to attach to the release to.
2. Content prompting. Pressitt offers basic fields for your release headline, overview, and core facts. It does not accommodate for the main body text, but instead prompts you to build your release with overview, core facts, as well as quotes and links. Unfortunately, Pressit doesn’t prompt you to develop a Twitter-friendly blurb for your release so you can easily tweet a link to it.
3. Multimedia Integration. One of the critical aspect of SMRs is the integration of multimedia into a release. Pressit lets you upload videos and images, as well as document files (.doc, .docx, .ppt, .pptx, .xls, .pdf and a maxiumum filesize of 8MB). While uploading my release to Pressitt, I ran into a technical glitch that I couldn’t get past. First, it would not let me upload .jpg files because it was expecting .jpeg files.  The site specified it could accommodate these files: jpeg, gif, bmp, png and a maximum file size of 4MB. I changed the .jpg to .jpeg and tried again. Pressitt gave me an error message saying .jpeg files were not allowed. So I converted the images in PhotoShop to .bmp. The site then gave me an error message saying .bmp files were not allowed. I gave up, so my test release doesn’t have any extra images.
4. Social Media Options. The second critical aspect of SMRs is social media integration. I was impressed with the extensive array of 16 or so social media posting options on Pressitt, including some that are probably more popular in the UK, such as Bebo and Propeller. Pressitt doesn’t seem to have its own URL shortener. It is also a little confusing to have Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin buttons at the top of page, but instead of being able to share the content using these services, these are meant to be links to the Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn accounts for the person sending the release.
5. Enterprise-level features. At this time, Pressitt doesn’t offer more enterprise-level features, or embedded social media newsrooms. While major companies might be using Pressitt, it is more likely for the ease of use and the fact there are fewer SMR tool options overseas than because of robust enterprise solutions.
6. Reach. It is a little too early to see if Pressitt will expand beyond being a UK- or Euro-centric tool. That isn’t a bad thing, but it just might not have the marketing muscle to make a big impact in the States.

The Verdict

If you are looking for a fast, easy solution without a lot of bells and whistles, Pressitt could work well for you. Me? I like the idea of using all the social media release resources available, particularly when I want a more global reach. I’m still disappointed, however, that some of my company’s clients will never be able to use Pressitt because of the site’s legal limitations.

Which SMR tool do you use and what do you like about it?

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As a web worker, I have clients who are always looking for new and more affordable ways to market what they do. I’m also faced with the constant need to better promote what I’m doing to continue to grow my business. The landscape on the web is undergoing a deep and vast transformation because of social media, and it is affecting the way we market what we do. Public relations will never be the same.

Two years ago, a company called Shift Communications introduced the concept of social media releases that incorporated social networks, microblogs, audio and video elements into text releases. A year later, they expanded their concept to include social media newsrooms, spiffing up the traditional text-heavy online newsroom with more multimedia bells and whistles. PitchEngine is a freemium Web app and hosting service that helps non-techies – and even non-PR-types – to build their own social media releases and social media newsrooms.

I’ve been exploring PitchEngine lately as a tool for both my clients and my own company. PitchEngine elegantly automates the creation of social media press releases and social media newsrooms. The creator of PitchEngine, Wyoming-based marketer Jason Kintzler, really “gets it.” He’s an avid social media fan, a brand manager for a popular outdoors products company Brunton, and leader of the Pitch Engine Ning group where “PR meets social media.” He’s in the thick of the conversation about how consumers are carrying the marketing conversations these days, and PR people need to come to the conversation in smart ways or get left behind.

The Moving Parts of PitchEngine

PitchEngine is first and foremost for the person who wants to build a social media release but doesn’t have the technical skills. You can create as many brand accounts as you want for free. Brands represent you or your clients and projects.

Building a social media release includes integrating a company’s Twitter account, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc., as well as easily embedding audio and video. The finished product has all the links and elements easily accessible in and around the main press release text. The release is hosted for free for 30 days and then expires and is no longer available which is a suitable duration for an effective PR campaign, however, also an incentive to purchase a subscription for a more permanent social media newsroom.

Even with the 30-day limit, PitchEngine is also a helpful press release distribution tool. Kintzler is about to announce that Google News is now picking up releases going through their system which gives the free service great reach and online PR cred. The PitchEngine system makes it incredibly easy to distribute your press release into your account on top social media sites including Twitter and Facebook.

Kintzler recently introduced an editable Twitter submission form because he understands that submitting press releases to a conversational community such as Twitter could be considered spam. Instead of just linking to the release, you can modify your message to make it less commercial and more relevant to the conversation.

The Costs and Savings of PitchEngine

Media types can use PitchEngine entirely for free and perform filtered searches for topic areas of interest. They can also sign up for free RSS feeds to continue to monitor for press releases on the topics of their choice.

Social media press releases are free and hosted for 30 days but long-term hosting is available for a subscription of $50 per month or $600 per year in a social media newsroom. Companies, organizations and individuals can link directly to their social media releases or newsrooms on PitchEngine’s site (such as this newsroom for Brunton) or bring the social media release feed into their web site (like Gerber Gear does). If you consider that a single press release sent through a popular wire service such PR Newswire or Business Wire costs $400+ for a single release, this is a phenomenal deal.

Sure, the biggie PR wire services will probably step up as competitors to PitchEngine in the near future but they won’t be able to be as social media savvy, nimble nor as affordable as Kintzler’s venture. There has also been a recent backlash regarding using social media for marketing and public relations as there is bound to be with the adoption of any social platform for commercial purposes. The conversation about social media marketing has only just begun.

How do you feel about using social networks and tools like PitchEngine to market directly to consumers?

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