Thursday, November 3, 2011

Revamping an Antiquated Online Newsroom

Many organizations are still stuck with a 20th century, web 1.0 newsroom. You know the type; the generic, all-text webpage that pushes press releases to anyone and everyone. Now, over a decade into the 21st century, these newsrooms are about as antiquated as your dad’s old Windows 95 desktop and just about as effective.

An online newsroom should be a one-stop shop for all the news and information about a company, not just a glorified bulletin board. Here are a few tips on how to evolve your organization’s newsroom from blogger, professor and social media strategist Sally Falkow:

· Social Media Integration: An effective online newsroom offers links to all of the organization’s social media content. This includes company blogs, Facebook pages and Twitter profiles, as well as LinkedIn profiles and biographies of executives. All content should have social media share options to allow newsroom users to spread content anywhere instantly.

· Incorporate Multimedia: Newsrooms should use multimedia to augment user experience. This means that organizations should include pictures, graphs, videos and sound to spice up humdrum press releases.

· Content Syndication: Newsrooms should publish all content in RSS feeds linked directly on the organizations newsroom. This puts all relevant information at a user’s fingertips.

· Enable Searches: The quickest way for newsroom users to find the content they need is through a simple search. Use key words in published content to facilitate easy, effective searches for everyone.

· Content Prevails: The most important thing to keep in mind when designing a newsroom is that content still reigns supreme. Focus on quality, relevant content to maximize a newsroom’s impact.

Have you created or redesigned a newsroom lately? Anything you would add? Let us know!

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