MyPRGenie Archive

Last October we interviewed MyPRGenie CEO Miranda Tan at her office in NYC. MyPRGenie offers a way for companies to distribute their press releases for free or low cost depending on the selected options. Today MyPRGenie is launching the 2.0 version of their platform.

Miranda notes that the updated service is a, "social media communication platform and publicity engine". When you create an account on MyPRGenie, you can search a database of 550,000 press contacts for distribution. The contacts come from a new partnership with PR Newswire. The goal of the new version is to allow PR professionals and companies can use our platform to connect, manage and track all their PR outreach. 

MyPRGenie will also allow companies to upload media/text files into a company news portal which journalists and writers can pick up when needed for a story.

Perhaps this new version of MyPRGenie could be exactly what I’ve suggested regarding conferences. Create a conference portal where all companies post their information and journalists/bloggers can login and select the information and companies they are interested in meeting and/or learning more about.

Today I had the pleasure of meeting with Miranda Tan, CEO of NY-based MyPRGenie. Miranda is an 8-year veteran of the PR industry and wanted to create a better way to send releases and help companies create buzz. The goal of her company is to make the press release process easier (and less expensive) for everybody. Here are my notes from our discussion.

The tool is setup to automate the press release process and it helps you to get your message out there to the right reporters, editors and publications. Miranda says that one of their strengths is in their targeting process — rather than send out a blanket release, they help you target the right reporters and publications for maximum buzz potential.

The basic service is free and allows you to send the relase to 20 sources. Above that the prices range from $199-$750. After leaving her office, I thought about the price a bit more and think $750 is a bit high for a small business — might be ok for a well established company perhaps.

The service has been written about in the WSJ twice and was called an "innovative small business solution". Typically 2-3 releases are sent daily using the system since the launch about three months ago. Their clients range from social networking tools to non-profit organizations and are worldwide in location.

One of the things I liked about MyPRGenie is the ability to add a customized note to the release when sent out to the reporters. This makes it more personal and also allows the sender to frame the release properly. They also use their own tool to market their own tool!

The team is split with 10 people in the NY office and 50 developers in Pakistan. MyPRGenie is currently privately-funded.

The tool has some analytics capabilities built in today and Miranda noted that their first quarter 2008 upgrade will include comprehensive analytics. I think it’s important to know which reporters have opened a release so you can follow-up if appropriate.

We discussed a topic that I hear about a lot which is that the press release is dead. Miranda believes the press release industry is changing and MyPRGenie will always stay on top of the innovations that are created.

If you are looking to send a release for free, check out MyPRGenie. Thanks to Miranda for spending the time with me today.