Friday, February 10, 2012

Online Newsrooms: New Survey Shows What Journalists Want to See

What’s in? Online newsrooms. Call it the new ‘black’, the must have Social PR communications tool that today’s journalists expect and publicists -turned -content- marketers need.

TEKGROUP International officially released the results of a national survey today highlighting the importance of creating a content rich and up-to-date online newsroom, known as the centralized hub of digital communications for organizations large and small.

Close to 100% journalists said online newsrooms are a must!
Publicizing, optimizing and socializing the company news comes in many forms. The art of reporting today ranges from +1 feeds, Likes and Tweets to Shares and now even Pins leaving journalists a candyland of chicklets to subscribe to. The result? Almost a 100% of journalists gave a thumbs up to several online newsroom aspects and the powers they possess.

Journalists surveyed expect organizations small and large to:

have an online newsroom available to the media.
provide access to news releases within their online newsroom
find PR or media contact information readily available within an online newsroom
offer the ability to search news archives within an online newsroom

Do more with less time and be twice as good!
Today’s journalists and public relations professionals are expected to do more in less time. With news breaking in a tweet, journalists need quick access to a company’s expert resources whether it be a fact sheet, blog, Twitter stream, images, video or audio.

24/7 Reality: Online newsrooms get your voice heard
Journalists working on fast moving stories often seek background information and quotes from expert sources. Online newsrooms designed with a CRM function or blog-like architecture empower companies to react to news in real-time without the red tape of having to go through a traditional website. Online newsrooms help a company easily and quickly push stories and opinions out to the media (and the search engines).

Google Karma: More online visibility and branding with online newsrooms.

Content marketing and the online newsroom
Considering Google’s Search plus Your World update, online newsrooms that are updated frequently with quality news and content can only be a bonus for a company’s branded online visibility.

More than 50% of journalists are visiting your online newsroom once a week and 64% on a monthly basis, that number should motivate company newsmakers to deliver fresh content and package it in a way that is organized as well as user-and social media friendly.

Size does NOT matter to journalists!
Expertise in a subject comes in all sizes with 87% of journalists surveyed said they visit both large and small-to-medium sized organization online newsrooms.

Once known as the placeholder for archived press releases, today’s online newsroom is the command central for all company news activity actually helps level the playing field for small companies to compete with Fortune 100 companies.

Email is not dead…yet
Email is in, phone call and text are out! The results of this year’s survey point to a strong reliance on e-mail as the preferred method of news and pitch delivery. 95% of working journalists prefer to receive news, information and story pitches from a company via e-mail alerts.

As more and more people use mobile devices, it is no surprise to see that more than 60% of journalists see the ability to receive news via their mobile device as important.

Check list
What else do 2012 journalists expect an online newsroom to have?

Press releases
Photos – high res and low res
Logos
Video
Social media networks
Corporate blog via the online newsroom

While content might still be king, the online newsroom might be the PR ace.

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