For the past few months I have been exploring the possibility of a career in Investor Relations. I have done research online, read books, and scheduled informational interviews with several distinguished professionals in the field. When doing my company research before going into these informational interviews, I heavily relied on the information provided in their online newsrooms and investor centers. I found that some sites were easier to navigate, some provided more concise yet informative descriptions about the company, and some were better linked together than others.
Although investor centers in a publicly traded company's website should be tailored to the information an investor or an analyst may be seeking, it is much harder to determine what is important to have in a general online newsroom. Online newsrooms do not have as specific of an audience; people visiting the site may include media representatives, employees, students, consumers, some inquisitive people, and many more.
As public relations students/professionals, we need to be skilled in a variety of areas, including writing website content and developing online newsrooms that are useful to all of our audiences.
Jessica Levco outlines 10 things to attract and enlighten journalists in the article "Create an online newsroom that reporters will love."
1. List contact information - Include phone and fax numbers, e-mails, and any social media identifiers
2. Make it easy to find - Put the link on the top of the homepage
3. Keep the URL short and simple - Follow the format "news.companyname.com"
4. Make press releases searchable
5. Talk about your competitors - Become the preferred provider of news in that specific industry
6. Include a subscribe button - Allow subscriptions by e-mail, text or RSS feed
7. Eliminate passwords - Don't put more hurdles than necessary to access information
8. Include copyright information - Protect your information by asking for attribution
9. Provide multimedia content - Include photos, graphics, videos, podcasts and press kits
10. List bios of key executives - Include biographical information, their experience and responsibilities
Do you have any other insight into what aspects make an online newsroom useful?
No comments:
Post a Comment