Today’s journalists have far more resources available to them than when I first set foot in my very first radio and TV newsroom in the late 1980s.
Back then, paid news sources such as Reuters and AP Wire Service were among the main way journalists accessed worldwide information followed by affiliate radio and TV networks, and local sources.
There were no quick clicks to pertinent information for a journalist’s story. If public information was needed, a trip to the county courthouse to search for files was a must.
While the above sources remain today, the Internet has become a primary source for the media.
A study by TheNewsMarket of 248 professionals in the media shows how things have changed.
“66% of professional journalists from the survey in print, broadcast and on the web are visiting an online newsroom every week, with a third of them visiting daily.”
Many of these newsrooms are actually brand newsrooms run by corporations such as GE and Cleveland Clinic. Both corporations have hired journalists to start and operate their brand newsroom and both make it part of their criteria to tell stories in a fair and journalistic way. Both have gained significant followings, website visitors, and traditional media coverage based on content that resides on their brand newsroom website.
“Brands which maintain a newsroom’s presence on their own portal and cross-promoted on a video aggregation site are giving themselves the potential to double the rate at which their brand communications are picked up,” states TheNewsMarket study.
How To Double Your Chances Of Getting Your Brand Story In The News
Understand that journalists today are working with very limited resources. With even large newspapers shutting down for financial reasons and radio and TV stations laying off staff to cut costs, journalists are tasked with turning out more stories in any given day but with far fewer resources and support.
Today’s TV journalist has to package stories for the multiple newscasts the station airs, an Internet story, a print version, and maybe even record a radio version for a podcast or partner radio station. That’s often just for one story but the journalist might have several stories to complete that day.
The multimedia demands are challenging to meet. This is the golden opportunity for corporations if their brand newsroom is more than just a place where they stash old press releases.
Journalists perusing the Web want video, high-resolution images, and well-written, unbiased content from brands with expertise on the subject. It must be easily accessible and shareable. The study found that journalists would even register for an online newsroom to receive the content but not just to read a press release. However, the easier you make it for the press to access your valuable video clips and images, the better. It’s best to keep content to a single page with easy downloading options.
“If multimedia material is not offered to supplement press releases, brands are at risk of discouraging over half of media targets from publishing their story, or even being interested in their content and returning to them as a source long term,” states the study.
But here’s the key to double your your chance of getting your brand story in the news. Make your content from your brand newsroom very easy to share because, while journalists may directly visit your brand newsroom, it’s more likely they’ll see your content from a social media platform.
This means that the story starts on your brand newsroom site but must be amplified throughout the Web using social media in primary feeds such as Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook. Digital News Report 2015 found that journalists tended increasingly to find stories via a search engine or a social network rather than a brand’s homepage or main news website. But when journalists decided to publish or share the story, they linked back to where the story originated (likely the brand’s newsroom site).
Now, if you’re thinking all you have to do to attract media coverage is post some marketing and sales content on a page of your website and call it a brand newsroom, think again!
Over 60 percent of media professionals surveyed rated online newsrooms, in their current form, as only satisfactory and less than 17 percent rated them as very useful.
Here’s why the statistics are low according to the study.
- Lack of useful content and material in brand newsroom frustrated 45 percent of respondents.
- More than half of respondents were also ticked off because they couldn’t download high-resolution images.
- About 41 percent wanted an understanding from the brand of what clear rights were established for information about using the content.
Today, every company can be a media company. What this means is that companies now have the opportunity to tell their own brand stories by creating original and curated content. The brands that do it well by sharing and creating stories that help their consumers will prevail and benefit from greater ROI, customer engagement, and brand loyalty.
Google has stated that it will rank websites that have high-quality content higher in its search results. Google calls high-quality content E-A-T.
“The amount of expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness (E-A-T) that a web page/website has is very important. Main Content quality and amount, website information, and website reputation all inform the E-A-T of a website.”
This content published to a website regularly via an online brand newsroom helps not only with better rankings in search results but it also builds an educational library using content on and about the brand’s management & employees, affiliates & partners, industry influencers, experts, trending stories, and customer experiences.
Well-told journalistic and newsworthy stories attract, engage, and influence consumers. But they also can attract traditional media attention and coverage.
Key Insight: Journalists want multimedia content from your brand newsroom. It must be easily accessible, downloadable, and feature a newsworthy text story (not marketing content) accompanied by a video, photos, infographics, and other relevant graphics on a single page.
A study shows that video accounted for 50% of all mobile traffic in 2015 and will rise to as much as 70% by 2021. And, the brand newsroom is a key source for journalists with 66% of professional journalists surveyed visiting online newsrooms every week and a third of them visiting them daily.
“Brands that maintain a newsroom presence will be greatly enhancing their ability to capture the attention of journalists actively seeking out these sites to populate their outlets with stories.”
Want to learn more about brand newsrooms? Listen to some of these episodes of The Brand Journalism Advantage Podcast for conversations with industry experts from around the globe on creating your own brand newsroom, understanding brand journalism, and the importance of editorial calendars.
TBJA 178 Every Company Can Be A Media Company, How To BE The Media, Melanie Deziel
TBJA 088 Build Your Own Online TV Station For Business Success, Patrick Allmond
TBJA 159 What Is Brand Journalism & How Does It Help Your Company, Jim Molis
TBJA 175 How To Build & Run Your Own Media Property, Bernie Borges
TBJA 187 How To Create An Impactful Editorial Calendar, Aliza Sherman
