Social media news release wins innovation award

A Webitpr product story

Edited by the Marketingweek Marketplace editorial team May 27, 2008

Online news distribution company webitpr has been named 2007/08 digital innovator of the year at the North East Digital Awards for its implementation of the Social Media News Release.

The Social Media News Release (SMNR) is a new kind of press release tailored for the online world.

The award categories were split into three groups, Digital Users, Digital Suppliers and Digital Innovators, and included individual awards within each category.

Webitpr's SMNR platform won the Best Use of Emerging Technology award and went on to win the overall Digital Innovator award against another 13 entrants.

The SMNR concept was introduced in Europe by webitpr in 2007 and has since been used by a number of FTSE100 and Fortune500 companies including, ITV, Sage, Vauxhall and webEx, as well as number of PR and marketing agencies based out in the UK and US.

The SMNR combines a traditional press release with multimedia content and social media elements from sites such as YouTube, Facebook and Twitter, and is used as an online tool to allow news content to be easily shared and discussed.

Chief executive of webitpr, Adam Parker, said: "Everyone working in the PR industry knows that we're going through a media evolution at the moment, where the barriers to entry are low, multimedia is no longer a premium and a brand is in the hands of the consumer.

"It's obvious that the momentum in the PR industry is shifting this way also and we see a news release aligned with this change becoming common place".

Managing director of webitpr, Jonathan Dolby, said: "Winning the Digital Innovation Award is a testament to the hard work and effort we've put in to developing our SMNR platform over this past year".

Head of ebusiness at The North East Regional Development Portal and judge at the awards, Pascal Fintoni, said: "The level of competition from each entrant was extremely high but we were very impressed by the SMNR concept and how it is helping to meet the needs of the PR profession in the digital world".