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Making news online in the 21 st Century Content Marketing Summit - IABC/SMC Louisville September 21, 2010 Amy Mengel
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Making news online in the 21st Century
Content Marketing Summit - IABC/SMC LouisvilleSeptember 21, 2010
Amy Mengel
History of the press release
Truth: Media rely on press releases
“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 Center2010 ‘How News Happens’ Study
How many of us spend our time on celebrity publicity?
Nuts-and-bolts news is different.
Local, state, regional: Most news comes from government, schools, small businesses.
Ultimate source: the organizations themselves!
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
The modern online newsroom
Features to include:– Basic company facts & bios– Media contact information– Press releases, with RSS feeds and
subscription options– Multimedia: YouTube videos, Flickr
photostream, 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
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/
