The Social Newsroom

Twitter is already playing a large part in the news industry: it’s where many people find breaking news and journalists go to locate sources close to a breaking story.  And Twitter has big plans to become even more entrenched as a news source. They recently posted this job opening:

Twitter is playing an integral role in the evolution of the news industry — both as a tool for reporters and newsrooms and as a way for consumers to find news in real-time. Twitter has already changed the way news breaks and provided journalists new ways to connect with their readers. We are looking for a seasoned leader to shape and drive the next growth phase of Twitter’s partnership with the news industry. We believe Twitter is a valuable complement to the great work already being done and want to find ways for Twitter to help ensure the industry’s success.

How does Twitter envision their role in the news business? This is what they expect the new hire to do for Twitter:

You will be responsible for devising and executing the strategies that make Twitter indispensable to newsrooms and journalists, as well as an essential part of the operations and strategy of news organizations and TV news networks. You should have a strong vision for the broad potential of Twitter and news, while also being able to rigorously manage and scale the news team’s daily impact.

And these are the key results they hope this person will achieve for Twitter:

• Develop a multi-year year strategy for news that drives substantial increases in:
  • Volume and quality of professional news content on Twitter, especially in breaking news
  • Number of journalists using Twitter, both as a tool to aid their reporting and also as a tool to distribute their content
  • Volume and quality in usage of Twitter as a source in news stories (online and in print)
  • How widely and effectively Twitter products are used by news organizations—from embedded timelines and Tweets on news sites to adoption of on-Twitter products like Twitter Cards
  • Volume and quality of on-air integrations across TV news networks
  • Frequency and engagement level of user behavior around news content on Twitter

No small undertaking.  And a clear indication of Twitter’s commitment to becoming a major influence in the news industry.

Is Twitter an integral part of  your Digital PR and media relations strategy?  If not, you might want to rethink what you’re doing with Twitter. It should be way more than just an outreach activity.

1. Use Twitter to find journalists, bloggers and influencers who should be part of your media relations plan. (Learn to search Twitter bios)
2. Build relationships with them on Twitter
3. Make Twitter part of your news syndication network – distribute your news there.
4. Optimize your Twitter bio and all tweets for search.
5. Display your Twitter feed in your online newsroom

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There are many reasons why a company should be active and engaged on social media.  Many of them are positive and can help a brand expand. The immediacy of the medium, the ease of access and the rapid sharing of negative content can also become a major issue.

CIO Magazine reports that one disgruntled ex-employee of music retailer HMV hijacked the Twitter account of and let the world know what was occurring internally as the firm went into administration. Don’t think this couldn’t happen to you – most companies are only one tweet away from a similar situation, says Anthony Mittelmark, an enterprise-grade digital expert and director at PwC Australia.

That view is borne out by the Digital Crisis Preparedness Report conducted by Burson-Marstellar.  They found that almost 80% of firms worldwide fully expect a crisis to occur in the next twelve months and half of them think it will be fueled by online comments.  It can happen in the blink of an eye.  One tweet is all it takes.  If that gets picked up and retweeted or blogged by someone of influence with a large following online the traditional media will not be far behind.

Ask Nestle.  Or Papa Johns. Or Progressive Insurance.  And the list goes on.

Can this be avoided?  Yes, say the analysts at the Altimeter Group. Three-quarters of the online crises that occurred in the last few years need not have happened at all.  The problem was that the brands were caught with their proverbial pants down.  Their employees were totally unprepared for an online attack.

What can you do get prepared?

1. Keep control of your social media passwords. Know who has access and change the passwords immediately if someone leaves the organization. If you know one of the password holders is going to be let go, change the passwords before you tell them. Change the passwords regularly  for security.
   
2. Be prepared for a hacker attack.  It can happen to anyone. Have a plan.
3. Training and education: make sure your employees responsible for social media are prepared for a negative incident or crisis. The Nestle Greenpeace attack and the Burger King incident were both accelerated by a lack of skills on the part of employees.
4. Have a social online newsroom that publishes all your content and engages your various audiences.  Prepare a “dark” crisis section that’s ready to go in case of an attack or a disaster.

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Ragan.com recently announced their awards for online newsrooms – Cisco took top honors.  Their newsroom is a good example of what a company or organization should be doing in 2013. http://newsroom.cisco.com.

Of course this kind of newsroom is probably not feasible for a small to medium sized business.  But you can still have all the bells and whistles needed in an online newsroom that provide the content the media values in the format they want.

What should be in your newsroom?  According to Econsultancy you must have:

1. Value-added content – it is not only the media that visits your newsroom today.  Yet Econsultancy found that only 22% of the brands they evaluated offered added-value content such as blogs, news opinion pieces, tips, customer advice and education.
2. High quality multimedia content – Econsultancy reports that 40% of companies fail to provide even the most basic of image libraries. Where they did exist, they were poorly stocked. Only 9% included infographics and only 51% featured video content.
3. Social Media tools to amplify the content -  Only 55% of the brands assessed in this report offered sharing tools with links to social networks.
4. Make it easy to contact you – 24% of the brands evaluated failed to list a phone number for a representative in their newsroom. Only 19% provided regional contacts and 45% failed to include contact details on press releases.
5. Make it easy to find – put a link to your newsroom on the homepage.  Optimize all the content in the newsroom for search.  Your newsroom should be the #2 listing in Google for a search for your brand name.  It should show up at #1 for a search for “Company name + news”

There are many more features that you ought to have in your online newsroom – use this checklist to evaluate how effective your newsroom is.

Although 98% of the top 100 firms have an online newsroom, it seems that too often it is one of the check-marked actions that then gets forgotten.  The 2013 Online Newsroom  report from My Newsdesk reveals that more than a third (35%) don’t keep their newsroom content up to date.

Just having a newsroom is not enough.  You have to keep it constantly updated with content that will be interesting and useful to bloggers, the media, investors and the public.  While most firms keep their press releases current, many leave annual reports, staff bios and product listings to stagnate.

Although the media is demanding more visual content with news releases, and research shows that adding visual can get as much as 9.7X more views on a release, 70% of the top 100 do not provide any images or video with their releases.  The members of the media panel at the PR News Media Relations Summit in December all said multimedia with a release would significantly increase the chances of the release being picked up.  A Media Bistro editor recently advised PR people to “Always think multimedia.”

The report shows that only half (51%) of the newsrooms surveyed provide video content and 40% had no image library. That’s not the whole problem though – the other half that have video and images don’t provide them in a format that’s easy for the media to use.

Other findings from the survey include:

- 21% of brands used newsrooms to provide additional content such as related news, advice and blog links;

- 26% fail to provide contact details in the newsroom;

- 45% fail to provide contact details within a press release;

- 70% do not offer an email alert service;

- 39% of newsrooms have no search option.

Back in 2004 usability expert Jakob Nielsen said corporate America only rated a “D” in PR because the online newsrooms of the Fortune 500 did not meet the needs of the media. We don’t seem to have made any headway at all.

How do you get an A in PR with your newsroom?  David Armano of Edelman Digital has some sound ideas about the need for a social online newsroom.

David Armano of Edelman Digital wrote a great post about the need for brands to become publishers and explained the need for a social-creative online newsroom as part of that process.

“If your company doesn’t have the above model in place a year from now, you may regret it.  It’s all going to come down to this: content, quality, frequency and relevancy.  If companies are to become media, they must master the art and science of merging marketing with a real-time news cycle,” said Armano in this article.

The news and media landscape has been turned on its head in the last ten years. Newsrooms no longer operate like they used to.  Journalists have to cover several beats, watch feeds of related stories online, troll social media, find sources and then produce multimedia assets with every story. See this story about Andy Carvin of NPR and how he reports the news.

This is a marvelous opportunity for savvy companies that can see the possibilities of a collaborative media relations model.  Here’s how it is done.

1. Do an audit of all the people in your firm who have expertise in a particular area.
2. Create a database of experts and their topics of content.
3. Post this list in your newsroom.
4. Refine your media list – find the journalists and bloggers who write about those topics.
5. Identify stories that these media outlets might be interested in developing.
6. Put together a team that can investigate and develop the story, with supporting images, graphics, slide shows, videos that would make this story come alive.
7. Pitch the idea to the journalists and offer your experts and your team to help them craft the story with killer multimedia assets.
8. Add a ‘story ideas’ section to your newsroom, with elements of news stories that could be developed this way.

The new media landscape may be radically different, but it is filled with amazing PR opportunities.

To learn more and hear examples register for our next webinar

Toprank Marketing posted today about the social media use of Fortune’s fastest growing companies.  Their analysis of the top 5 show that only one of them is actively engaged on Twitter.

This post prompted me to look at something a little more basic- their online newsrooms. Even though social media is maturing and we’d hope that companies such as these would be more active in the field, good PR and providing corporate information to the media is something every company should be doing well.

The 2012 Online Newsroom and Media Relations survey shows that journalists and bloggers want:

• Immediately visible and easy-to-find press contacts
• Press releases by year and by category
• Visuals -ready-to-use images and video
• Graphics with financial information
• Embed codes with images and videos
• RSS feeds
• Links to all social content
• Tags on all content so it is easy to find in search
• Social sharing options

So let’s take a look at their newsrooms and what they offer, relative to what the media is asking for today.

#1  Allergan

Press Contacts:    Yes

Press Releases in Categories:  No

Visuals with press releases:  No

RSS feeds: No

Image Gallery:  No

Video Gallery:  No

Embed codes:  No

Corporate and expert bios:  Yes

Connecting to social content: Yes, a link to their Twitter account.  It was started back in 2010 and was inactive until recently.

Social sharing options: No

SCORE: 3/10

#2. Susser Holdings

Susser Holdings owns the Stripes convenience stores.  Although Susser Corporate is not active in social media, the Stripes convenience stores certainly are.  However, the corporate site could improve their online newsroom to serve both investors and the media.

Press Contacts:    No.  The contacts are on each press release, but not immediately visible in the newsroom.

Press Releases in Categories:  No. And their press release are in PDFs, which require a download.

Visuals with press releases:  No

RSS feeds: No

Image Gallery:  No

Video Gallery:  No

Embed codes:  No

Corporate and expert bios:  Yes – no tin the newsroom, but on the site.

Connecting to social content: No

Social sharing options: No

SCORE: 1/10

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
#3.  CVR energy

Headquartered in Sugar Land, Texas, CVR Energy is an independent petroleum refiner and marketer of high value transportation fuels in the Midcontinent United States.  Their newsroom is very basic.

Press Contacts:    No.  The contacts are on each press release, but not immediately visible in the newsroom.
Press Releases in Categories:  No. And their press release are in PDFs, which require a download.

Visuals with press releases:  No

RSS feeds: No

Image Gallery:  No

Video Gallery:  No

Embed codes:  No

Corporate and expert bios:  No

Connecting to social content: No

Social sharing options: No

SCORE: 0/10

#4.   Con-Way

Con-way Inc. (NYSE:CNW) is a $5.3 billion freight transportation and logistics services company headquartered in Ann Arbor, Mich. Con-way is in the transportation and logistics industry and delivers services through its primary operating companies of Con-way Freight, Con-way Truckload, and Menlo Worldwide Logistics. Their newsroom has many of the features the media wants today.

Press Contacts:    Yes

Press Releases in Categories:  No

Visuals with press releases:  No

RSS feeds: Yes

Image Gallery:  No

Video Gallery:  No

Embed codes:  No

Corporate and expert bios:  Yes

Connecting to social content: Yes

Social sharing options: No

SCORE: 4/10

#5.  Huntsman

Huntsman is a global manufacturer and marketer of differentiated chemicals. Our operating companies manufacture products for a variety of global industries, including chemicals, plastics, automotive, aviation, textiles, footwear, paints and coatings, construction, technology, agriculture, health care, detergent, personal care, furniture, appliances and packaging.

Their investor relations section of the site has many more features than the newsroom.  They could easily add the side navigation to their newsroom section too.

Press Contacts:    No.  There is a contact on the press releases but not immediately visible in the newsroom.

Press Releases in Categories:  No.  The releases are not divided by years either.

Visuals with press releases:  No

RSS feeds: Yes, but it is not visible in the newsroom.  It is only available from the investor relations section of the site.

Image Gallery:  No

Video Gallery:  No.  there are presentations and webcasts in the IR section, but nothing in the newsroom

Embed codes:  No

Corporate and expert bios:  Yes, but only from the investor relations section.  There is nothing in the newsroom to tell you it is there.

Connecting to social content: No

Social sharing options: No

SCORE: 2/10

If you’d like an evaluation of your newsroom and a demo of what a newsroom ought to look like visit http://www.press-feed.com

One digital PR tool every practitioner should be using is a dashboard that helps you track and monitor your online activity.  If you are working in an agency or large firm you probably have access to a sophisticated subscription service.

If you are an independent practitioner,  a small shop, or even a mid-sized business, you might find those fees too onerous and be looking at your more fortunate colleagues with more than just a hint of envy in your glance.

If that is the case, take a look at the new Netvibes dashboard.  It is quick and easy to set up, they have a slew of new widgets that make it possible to display your Facebook and Twitter feeds in the dashboard, do searches on news, blogs and microblogs, and run your replies right from the dashboard.  You can also connect and display your Google Analytics data, so you can keep track of how your content brings traffic back to your newsroom and your website.  And best of all, it is completely free!  Sweet!

Using this dashboard in conjunction with your online newsroom extends the value of your digital PR tools.  The newsroom allows you to control your news and social content.  You can post and publish without the need to learn to program, or have to wait for IT or a webmaster.  And with the dashboard you can see where your social and news content is published, shared or commented on.  You can see who re-tweets it. And you can reply right away from the dashboard.

At PRESSfeed we assist our newsroom clients to set up a customized dashboard that works for them and we show them how to use these digital PR tools to best advantage.

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In a recent Pew Research report about how people get their news today, sharing was highlighted as one of the integral activities associated with news content online.

“If searching for news was the most important development of the last decade, sharing news may be among the most important of the next.”

Share This just released the results of a study of sharing behaviors which shows that while sharing is still unexplored and untapped by many publishers and advertisers, it is shaping the way users interact with each other and with content online.

Here are some of  key findings:

• Sharing generates almost half of the traffic for websites and brands that is created by search
• Sharing also accounts for 31 percent of referral traffic
• Shared links are, on average, clicked on 4.9 times each
• Everyone who shares is an influencer on that specific topic
• Sharing is a viable marketing solution for reaching audiences when they are most receptive to a particular category of content or information

So are US companies and marketers aware of this effective social media marketing tool?  Is it indeed an unexplored and untapped opportunity?

We studied the websites of companies both large and small in the US to see if they are connecting to their social content and offering share options on their websites and online newsrooms.

• 34% of Fortune 100 companies have share buttons on their website
• 13% have share buttons on their newsroom content
• 22% of INC 500 companies have share options on their website
• 6% of INC 500 have share buttons on their newsroom content

Last year the CMO Council talked about the “Engagment Gap.”  Now we have a “Sharing Gap.”

If you would like to tap into these behaviors,  ask us for a demo of the social media newsroom.