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How we decide what to build next has always been based on two things:

As product builders, it's been incredibly exhilarating to see people use Prezly in ways that we'd never even imagined. One example of this evolution is Prezly Stories. 

Where we'd designed Stories to make publishing multimedia press releases easy, 

. You used them to make stunning newsrooms for 

 and investor updates, crisis hubs and portfolios, newsletters and blogs.

And this made us realize that it isn't up to us to decide how people use Prezly. Our job is to build a product that lets you publish and share stories the way 

So, that's what we're doing. And we're starting with Open Newsroom Themes.

While there are many ways to use your Newsroom straight out of the box, Open Newsroom Themes will make the possibilities endless.

Simply put, these are templates you can use to determine how your newsrooms look and function. They will give you the tools to communicate with your network the way you want, in a fast and simple way.

 your newsrooms however you want using the 

You will no longer have to go through us for custom work, as clients like 

You will be able to code custom newsrooms for yourself and share them with others, use Prezly as a backend for your website, or even as a frontend for a site you host on Vercel, Netlify or anywhere else. 

All without losing any of the benefits that drew you to us in the first place.

You can use our open Prezly API to power parts of your site, for example a changelog, learning resource or help center.

As a first step, we've created three designs that you'll soon be able to activate for your Prezly newsrooms, and we have many others planned.

Some will be oriented around images and be best suited to visual-rich industries, like fashion, travel and gaming. Others will prioritize text, and work better within a corporate context. Some will highlight individual writers, others place focus on the organization behind the text.

For now, I invite you to meet the first three Newsroom Themes: Bea, Marcel and Syrah:

Bea is an evolution of the classic Prezly theme and provides a clean layout suited to any sector.

Marcel is a more traditional blog theme, perfect for corporate news or technical updates.

Syrah prioritizes visuals, with bold header text, elegantly curved edges and plenty of white space.

Soon you'll be able to transform the layout of your Newsrooms

Announcing Open Newsroom Themes

Thank to everyone that joined us for Friday's live demonstration of the new Belga–Prezly integration, which allows you to automatically sync your Belga.press coverage into Prezly, and distribute Prezly Stories via PRpro as you publish them.

(For Anglophones, the English demonstration starts at 6:32 😊)

Belga–Prezly launch webinar

How can we work together to make our clients even better?

Prezly's Jesse Wynants and Patrick Lacroix, Belga's CEO, begin by stating that both Prezly and Belga have PR at the very heart. 

While Prezly already offers a purpose-built PR CRM, newsrooms, and distribution through campaigns and pitches, the integration with Belga adds two further things: 

The latter includes both French and Dutch media, with the option to add more regional press or even international partners. 

The integration gives you the ability to track your coverage in real time while linking it with your contacts and newsrooms, effectively pulling that data together to give you an overview of which journalists are engaging the most with your stories, and which of your stories are getting the most traction. 

And because it's automated, there's no extra work required from you.

Belga integration demo

What is the added value for communication agencies?

Jesse: Prezly always focused on PR agencies. In one account, you can manage clients and newsrooms; coverage is linked to press releases. The same will be offered to Belga clients. You'll get a report in Prezly which you can share with your client, who can easily see the coverage that resulted from your press release. Next to that, the coverage is also linked with your CRM, so you'll be able to see who is most engaged with your content.

Patrick: I think the added value is also that Belga.press clients can monitor their coverage in Prezly, which is more efficient. For those who don't do the monitoring yet in the Belgian press database, I would strongly advise to use Prezly to discover this. And you can post the press releases from agencies directly in the systems of the involved news media via PRpro.

Can you see the reach & AVE from the coverage?

While this is not currently shown in Prezly, you can see it in Belga.press, together with analytics reports.

If I send out a press release through both a Prezly campaign and PRpro, does that effectively mean I am sending it out twice to the same people, or will this be automatically detected?

There is a difference between the two – Prezly campaigns are sent directly to your contacts, whereas PRpro delivers your press release to an editor's terminal.

Will it be possible to add a qualitative rating to the coverage? There's a difference with a mention on p36 and front page news.

Not for this first version of the integration – we've kept things simple. However, this is perfectly possible to achieve and we are reviewing use cases to see which features to implement next. If you have any ideas or feedback, please 

The input of a press release in BelgaPRpro isn't that ergonomic. Will this improve with the collaboration of Prezly?

It's important, as a Prezly client, that you don't have to input your press release more than once. That's the advantage of this integration. Once you create your press release and publish it on your newsroom, you can indicate to also push it to PRpro. It's as easy as ticking a checkbox and everything is done automatically.

How can this integration get us more results?

Patrick: If there are more results, you will be able to measure this thanks to the integration. You will be able to engage more intelligently with the needs of editors. The press releases you enter in PRpro are a fully fledged news source. Why do I say this? Around 4000 journalists use the Gopress database daily. Between now and the end of the Easter holidays, they will all change to Belga.press. Why do they use this? Mainly to do research when they're writing an article to see what has been written on the subject. They don't do this through Google, they choose a dedicated tool for this. At this moment, no one press release is in that database. The Prezly integration will mean that the database will be enriched with all those press releases.

Jesse: Prezly completes the circle. You can already do outreach in Prezly, manage your contacts and newsrooms. With this link, you'll learn which press releases 

, which engage the most contacts, who you have a good relationship with, and who provides a lot of coverage. Then you can learn to build on what works best for you.

You say in the demo that we can deliver recorded content to our stakeholders. But what about reproduction rights and copyright?

. So you'll need a login for Prezly and BelgaPress to access it. If I'm correct, most of your stakeholders will have a login; if not, we can provide them with one. It comes down to the logic of a pay wall. You won't download the article and send an email, you'll send a link. And like this, your stakeholders will need an account of the system you're using. We can do this. It's also our ambition to make this as widely used as possible. The old copyright system will be replaced by digital authentication.

We still have a Gopress contract. The switch to the new platform is for after the summer. Can we already use the new service?

Patrick: Definitely! For all questions, email 

 and we'll explain what to do. I use it several hours a day for several months and I'm pleased with it. This is ready for Prezly customers.

Is there a difference between a press release that is taken up by PRpro (paid) and a press release that is taken up organically by Belga (native)? Can media see this difference?

Patrick: Yes, it will mention PRpro. It's a separate news source, as it should be. This is mostly appreciated since it indicates a certain form of collaboration. Of course, it still has to be newsworthy to the editors, but I can't vouch for that. 

Is there a danger that journalists will be flooded with press releases, now also via PRpro?

Patrick: Actually, less. We are now on a new editor system, much like other platforms. It's more user-friendly for the editors. Emails are great for individual journalists, but we have to look at both sides of the coin. I think the mailbox will lead to more flooding than the PRpro platform. But we'll need both the coming years.

Jesse: Definitely! Some journalists get 150 emails a day. Our approach lies in Prezly's contact database: you know what journalists did in the past, what you collaborated on, so you know better who to approach for each story.

Do you have access to the journalist database? Currently, this is not possible in PRpro.

Jesse: This is not possible in Prezly. We choose to have clients build their relations. That's more intense, hard work. Thanks to the integration, you can monitor certain topics and when stories for that topic are published and logged as coverage, Prezly will automatically create those authors as contacts in your CRM. You won't get their email address, but you'll get a nice overview on 'who writes about x?'. And like that, you can start building a relationship with those people. I believe that that is a more long-term way to build a list of contacts who trust you and with whom you have a good, reciprocal relationship.

Patrick: In PRpro, you can search the name of a journalist and see what they've written on your brand. However, there's no separate author field. We had this in the past, but it was rarely used. We mostly look at organizational editorial efficiency instead of the individual journalist.

If you have any questions, please get in touch with Belga at prezly@belga.be or Prezly at hello@prezly.com.

Organize your contacts, publish your news, pitch the media and track coverage all from one platform. With prices starting at 40€ per month, what's not to love? Try us free for 14 days :)

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Kate Bystrova

Vanessa Tassenoy

Details from the Belga–Prezly launch event, including demo and Q&A

Watch a recording of the launch event featuring a demo of how Prezly's Belga.press and PRpro integrations work

Details from the Belga–Prezly launch event

Belga sent its first messages to the world on 1 January 1921. From correspondents telephoning to get their news to editors, to relaying stories from trips abroad through Belradio's radiotelegraphy and long-wave antennas, Belga has always been driven by developments in technology.

Today, Belga once again places itself at the technological forefront of the public relations profession by integrating its platforms with Prezly, Belgium's foremost leader in PR software.

Prezly's software provides a complete solution for communications professionals, enabling PR teams to manage their contacts, publish multimedia stories in branded newsrooms, distribute content through tracked campaigns and pitches, and – most recently – log their coverage.

The new integration automatically pulls coverage from users' 

 account, linking it with the author of the coverage in their CRM, as well as with the newsroom story covered – fully centralising their PR.

Also included in the integration is Belga's 

 service, allowing users to instantly distribute their press releases to all of Belgium's general media simply by publishing through Prezly. 

This automation will not only save PR teams hours of manual work, it will also surface new opportunities among contact lists and identify the most effective stories by factoring in campaign performance metrics.

The Belga–Prezly integration has been tested and is already being rolled out to joint clients, such as Mark Van Hamme, the inhouse PR Communications Manager at sustainable energy supplier Eneco: "It saves a lot of time. It makes my life easier and the outputs more effective."

"For years now, the PR profession globally has struggled to take advantage of new technology to make their processes simpler, faster, and more effective. By partnering with an established tech player like Prezly, we aim to modernise public relations and create a new global standard in PR management." 

– Patrick Lacroix, CEO at Belga

"We at Prezly are absolutely honoured to be joining forces with the most established news agency in the country. By combining Belga's unparalleled experience with Prezly's technology, we are confident we can drastically improve the working life of every communications professional in Belgium." 

– Jesse Wynants, CEO and co-founder at Prezly

The partnership will be officially launched at a joint event between Belga and Prezly at 11am CET on Friday 26th February, which will include a product demonstration showcasing the new coverage and PRpro integration. Registration is free at 

Belga announces technology partnership with Prezly as it celebrates 100th anniversary! Join the launch event and demo on Friday 26th February.

16 February 2021: Belgium's national news agency embraces the future of PR by announcing a new partnership with Prezly, the region's key player in communications technology.

Belga announces technology partnership with Prezly as it celebrates 100th anniversary

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