NewsHubby: DIY Press Releases for Tech companies

Every hard-boiled start-up will know the importance of PR. It’s a domain where your company’s self-image spearheads every decision, and how to present, improve and spread that image around is certainly a skill in itself. Often this skill involves writing press releases, the most straightforward way to get your news into the hands of journalists.

Now you may have read our five tips for writing a press release (if not, we strongly recommend you do), and if so, you’ll know that writing a good press release is not something you’ll do in ten minutes. Or is it?

It could be, at least according to NewsHubby.Newshubby is a DIY press release creation platform that puts you through a formatted, easy to use journey to construct, host and distribute your press releases. The way it works is pretty straightforward: you choose the type of press release you have in mind (i.e. funding announcement, product/feature launch and so on and so forth), set the release date of your press release, and answer some questions regarding the chosen topic (provide a quote, provide title, add links etc); and with a simple click your press release is automatically generated for your use. If the result is to your liking, the platform offers to send the press release to the relevant media (for a price, that is).

Of course you’ll need to sign in, and from here on you will be introduced with a set of question that will work as a base template for your future press releases. This part could indeed take some time to complete and for good reason as the questions are the fundamental pieces of information that will shortly elaborate on what your company does, how it does it, who does it compete with, how is it funded etc (which is also why you should ensure your answers are neat, clear and matter-of-fact). After this bit, the doors of creation are opened to you.

Alexandra Bylund, founder of NewsHubby and co-founder of image stock platform Foap, comments how the press release start-up first came to life:

“The idea came from when I was working in my former startup, Foap. We were very successful in reaching out to media worldwide. We were even featured on international TV several times. This was when we launched the company or when we got bigger fundings. We didn’t tell the world about other important things that happened through the journey though. For example when we got huge brands as customers etc. We were so focused on the product, the team and the sales that we simply didn’t have the time to create press releases. After Foap I wanted to simplify the whole PR process to actually make it possible for companies to reach out in a quick and simple way”

And this is where NewsHubby’s blessing, as well as curse, kicks in. Tech writers will equivocally tell you that the right hooks in a press releases can make a huge difference in the quality of the article (or determine whether an article is written or not). It’s understandable that smaller businesses may feel that they have better things to do than write press releases from scratch. but that should really depend on the circumstances of the announcement itself: Smaller announcements, and stuff that really does not have that much context to provide in the first place, can be turned into press releases but in the case of announcements of bigger importance, it might well be worth your while just writing the release yourself.

Characterless or rushed press releases are a pain to read, however, a platform like NewsHubby could just as well deliver a tool that truly facilitates media relations by making press releases much easier to come up with. In the end, sending an dull press release is better than sending no press release at all, as long as all the information is in place. There are two sides to the coin.

Typically, NewsHubby’s clients are all kinds of companies who want to reach out to worldwide media, but for now NewsHubby focuses on the European and US tech industry. The company currently runs a freemium model, which means access to the DIY service for creating press releases is free of charge. The number of DIY guides are limited to only a few types of press releases, however. Distribution costs $700/ press release.

The Premium membership – $140/ month (minimum 3 months subscription) – grants you access to all types of press releases as well as unlimited amount of press releases distributed.

NewsHubby competitors include PR.co, PR Newswire, Pressfriendly and Pressking.

NewsHubby also has a pretty interesting (and active) blog, so in case you’re interested in gaining insights into the nature of press-releases, do check it out.