Making News Online in the 21st Century

Making news online in the 21st Century
Content Marketing Summit - IABC/SMC Louisville
September 21, 2010
Amy Mengel

Hello!
Amy Mengel
readMedia
amymengel.com
readmedia.com
@amymengel
amy@readmedia.com

History of the press release

Truth: Media rely on press releases
Local, state, regional: Most news comes from government, schools, small businesses. Ultimate source: the organizations themselves!
“More commonly than in the past…press releases from politicians, government agencies and companies were rewritten quickly by multiple outlets and posted on the Web with no additional reporting.”
—Pew Research Center
2010 ‘How News Happens’ Study
How many of us spend our time on celebrity publicity? Nuts-and-bolts news is different.

Newsroom pain:
Newspaper print circulation has dropped 25.6% percent since 2000.
All traditional media sectors saw decreases in ad revenue from 2008 to 2009.
Roughly 1/3 of newsroom jobs in 2001 are now gone.
Network news staffs at half of what they were at peak in 1980s.
“News hole” continues to grow, with content required for main publication plus online, blogs, social media
Source: Pew Project for Excellence in Journalism

Traditional media still drives online news!
Blogs rely heavily on traditional press for topics.
At local level, most news is repetitive. Traditional media still leads in breaking “new” information about a story.
Traditional media is now producing more than one third of stories via new platforms
Less local and hyperlocal news is available online, vs. regional or national
Stories with positive headlines shared 30 percent more than average on Facebook
Source: Pew Research Center: New Media, Old Media and How News Happens ; Wall Street Journal Digits blog

Press releases are content marketing!

It’s content marketing you control

The “new” press release
Double-duty: provides print-ready content for media and searchable news content for direct audience
Shareable: easy for people to post to social networks, embed on their sites, email to friends
Multimedia: enhanced with photo, video, slides, documents
Headlines as email subjects – must be enticing!
Relevant links included
Make it easy to get to other news from your organization
Get it to the media, onto Google, and on your website

Creating a flow of content
Finding unique stories
Transmedia storytelling
Web, social, traditional
Video, photo, words
Balancing publication with pitching
Push, pull, prod

Identifying stories in your organization
Create an editorial calendar
Routine/mundane activities can be interesting to outsiders
Use employees to help generate ideas
Find ways to turn outputs of your organization into content: databases, lists, maps, visualizations, research
Look at the variety of ways to tell a story and repurpose
Create many stories out of one by personalizing and localizing them: promotions, new jobs, awards

Case Study: Staunton, Va.
Media coverage increased tenfold
Classes sold out
Info readily available via Google
Increased awareness of initiatives in the community

SEO for online news
Each article/press release must have a unique, permanent URL
Headlines should be between 2-22 words
Plain text HTML is best. Google can’t find articles in drop-down boxes, Flash embeds or graphics
Google News doesn’t crawl PDF articles
Keep keywords in mind when developing content
Encode press release links to help track traffic

Features to include:
Basic company facts & bios
Media contact information
Press releases, with RSS feeds and subscription options
Multimedia: YouTube videos, Flickrphotostream, Podcast files
Downloadable files (logos, e.g.)
Facebook and Twitter widgets
RSS feed of industry news and organization’s news coverage
Related links/Quick links
Speaker/interview request form
The modern online newsroom

Walgreens
Searchable
Featured/latest release
Photos, fact sheets, reports, videos bios up front
Buried media contact info
Not very social
Nested navigation

CME Group
Email Sign-up/RSS options
Integrated Twitter feed
Industry news/research
Quick Links section
Would like to see embedded video on landing page
LinkedIn reporter community?

CDC
Huge variety of resources, channels and audiences
Site map helps to navigate
Sidebar story/PSA
Social media links from home page are lost
Can be overwhelming

Wrapping it up
Press releases are far from dead
Traditional media is still important: find ways to make their jobs easier and identify interesting stories
Include press releases as a tool in your content marketing kit
You control the content: links, multimedia, messaging
Don’t forget about SEO and the importance of syndication
Make your online newsroom a one-stop-shop for content, info

Questions?

Photo Credits
http://www.fromwhereisit.ca/more-news-otherworld
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ivy_Lee.jpg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:1906AtlanticCityTrainWreck.jpg
http://black-and-right.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/08/lindsay_lohan2.JPG
http://www.flickr.com/photos/11271667@N08/2376539888/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/cphpubliclibrary/3238562999/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/urban-spaceman/4387165333/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/storm-crypt/3009587485/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bewelcomepix/2528101893/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ljesmith/292424850/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/shereen84/3057344750/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/worldbank/3492673802/

Making News Online in the 21st Century

by Amy Mengel

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