On 28 October 1906 Ivy Lee, the man many regard as the father of public relations, sent the first press release. A statement of record following a major train crash from his clients, the Pennsylvania Railroad, the release was universally praised by pundits and public officials alike. This golden promise of the press release didn’t last long. The second press release followed six months later, putting forward a company’s case against its striking workforce. It was lambasted by journalists as an advert wrapped around a story. Press releases have faced criticism and disdain ever since.

 

Press releases are currently experiencing a resurgence, thanks in part to the growth in online news. Social media news releases (SMRs) are everywhere, and brands are beginning to feel the need for online newsrooms, which disseminate releases and other news in innovative ways. 

 

This month sees the launch of the second edition of the SMR Review. The Review, produced by social media advisor Sebastian Plasschaert, focuses on the technological and functional aspects of the applications available, pitting the different qualities of the various offerings out there. The newsrooms under review are:

 

• PressDoc

• PressPage

• PitchEngine

• MyNewsDesk

• Pressitt

• iPressroom

• Prezly

• Presskit’n

• PressKing

• GlideNewsroom

 

 

 

The SMR Review concentrates on Software as a Service (SaaS) SMR Web applications: applications that enable users to buy the service online and directly access an already developed online platform. Some solutions enable users to create and edit online news releases from existing templates. Others are almost exclusively installed and rigged for a specific customer, fully customised and with a corresponding higher cost for the initial setup.

 

All the options included in the SMR Review offer English as a backend and publishing language (frontend). However, they differ when it comes to other language options. PitchEngine, Presskit’n and Pressitt are 100% English for both the platform’s backend and publishing language.

 

The backend of Prezly is only available in English, while it offers Dutch, English and French languages as the publication-languages; meanwhile, PressDocs’ backend is also only available in English, but offers 11 publication-languages (English, Dutch, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Polish, Danish, Finnish and Swedish), and PressPage offers English and Dutch as back-end platform languages, and offers 6 front-end publication languages.

 

MyNewsDesk offers a wider scope of back-end platform languages: English, Swedish, Finnish, Danish and Norwegian. When the backend-language is set, the same language is set as publication language – but these languages can only be set for the entire newsroom, there are no multi-language releases possible.

 

Press King is ahead of the rest of the pack here, as it offers a powerful language-set for the back-end: English, French and German, and is also capable of producing releases in more than 50 front-end publication languages.

 

Meanwhile, since iPressroom and GlideNewsroom can be entirely customised, the applications provide the option to install the newsrooms and releases in any language – though the backend is available only in English. 

 

The easily accessible self-service SMR providers generally provide a fixed structure, and users have the option of adding just a logo and, in some cases, one or two colours. This is the case for Press King, PitchEngine and Presskit’n. 

 

Then there are the applications that offer more options when you upgrade to a paid subscription (i.e. PressDoc, MyNewsDesk, Pressitt and Prezly). With these providers, you can connect Google Analytics codes to your newsroom and construct a unique domain name. Customisation goes further with GlideNewsroom and iPressroom: these applications can be completely individualised, and the users alone create, maintain and distribute the content. 

 

PressPage has gone down a different route from the other applications when it comes to customisation. It offers PR agencies the ability to create newsrooms and releases totally in style with the corporate identity of the end user, and the agencies can design the necessary structures themselves. 

 

All the tools provide the ability to share relevant releases through various social media channels (Facebook likes, G+, tweets, LinkedIn, RSS feeds etc.). And compared with earlier editions of the SMR Review, more and more applications are now allowing users to import their contact lists and push out releases via email. 

 

Prezly offers simplicity and functionality by making it possible for users to create their own contact lists and sending a simple mailing in combination with simple user-level statistics. Press King offers the same options and adds a contacts database to it, with 25 countries from which the user can make a selection of pre-installed contacts. 

 

GlideNewsroom and iPressroom both offer the possibility to include distribution and offer some newswires on top of it, but MyNewsDesk comes out on top in this area. It allows the user to create their own distribution list and adds an internal MyNewsDesk network to it: journalists and bloggers can register with the MyNewsDesk network and subscribe to specific newsrooms. 

 

All the reviewed SMR providers present different business models and pricing structures. In the case of Pressitt, Prezly, MyNewsDesk, Presskit’n and PressKing, users can start immediately with a free account, and several paid options are offered on top of these free accounts (except Presskit’n, which currently appears to be completely free). 

 

With PressDoc and PitchEngine a user pays per release, with PitchEngine also providing the option to publish unlimited releases for a set amount each month. 

The custom applications are a jump up in terms of price, because of the high levels of individualisation they’re able to offer, and their rates are usually available on request dependent on the complexity of the setup required. 

 

When it comes to measurement, however, the providers surveyed don’t go much further than a Google Analytics option, and many of the applications only present users with data on the number of views. As online newsrooms continue to develop, it’s expected that greater analytical abilities will be built in to their services. 

The full SMR Review can be downloaded at http://basplas.nl, and will be updated in the future three times a year.