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Building Your Online Press Room |
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The Number One rule for developing an online Press Room is to think like a journalist. Think about the information that could be most helpful to someone writing a story about your company and then make it available.
Like many things that can impact on how a company is perceived, doing a good job at an online Press Room is a complicated process. And it's one that can have a substantial positive payoff.
To learn the best and worst practices of Web site Press Rooms, we analyzed the content of approximately 50. We looked at the Fortune 10; at top Internet-only companies; bricks and clicks companies and Internet-only firms which have had controversial or negative news in the past year.
We also interviewed journalists at top newspapers, magazines and online publications and asked them what they look for in an Online Press Room.
Don't be afraid to include negative information - they'll find it anyway In the best online Press Rooms journalists are given solid, relatively fluff-free information - sometimes even negative information - that can help them write
their stories.
Journalists we interviewed said they look at company press releases to see how a company presents itself, but that they would not run a press release verbatim. Press releases in an Online Press Room also may be helpful for financial results.
Publicly traded companies are obligated to feature press information on their Web sites. But a lot of smaller companies can increase their chances of getting press coverage by learning from the Best Practices of giants.
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Journalists' Number One Request
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The Number One use of the Internet by journalists is research. They come to the Press Room of a site needing to quickly learn how to contact the PR department for information. Incredibly, many Press Rooms of major corporations give only a general e-mail address and not the PR staff contact names and phone numbers. In those cases, the purpose of having a Press Room is hard to fathom.
Google's Press Room http://www.google.com/press/index.html gives editors immediate access to the company with a Media Hotline
Google Media Hotline
For immediate assistance, please call: +1 (650) 930-3555
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Don't Hide the Press Room
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You'd never know some companies even have a Press Room because they use a completely separate URL, which is not accessible from the main site. Only the incredibly persevering or the invited may visit those Press Rooms. Who knows
why?
In a widespread practice that makes no sense, a lot of companies require registration for entry to the Press Room. Some take 24 hours to provide a password. Not much help to a reporter on a deadline, looking for a PR contact.
We call the lack of contact names and phone numbers the Web Wizard of Oz Syndrome, and consider it a worst practice.
Some companies allow public access to the Press Room but password protect the names and numbers of the PR staff. This is understandable because the home, office and pager numbers of PR staff are provided in the password
protected areas.
When specific PR staff names and numbers are inaccessible to the public, it is absolutely crucial that a direct contact number for the department be provided. It is advisable to note on the contact page of the Press Room that the PR staff deals only with the media and to offer names and numbers for consumer
concerns.
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Let Customers In Too
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Presumably companies believe requiring registration will help them keep track of who's keeping track of them. And they seem to want to keep riff-raff like customers from knowing the company story.
Given that most Press Rooms contain little more than press releases, it is hard to understand why in the world would they issue releases and then deny public access to them. Besides, there's a name for most customers who want to know all the details about a company: investors. Why turn them away?
Customer complaints are an early-warning system for problems Are companies concerned that they will hear from customers, who may have figured out that the PR department is an effective place to take a complaint?
If so, they should realize that customer complaints can be an early warning system for potentially significant problems. And they should be glad to get the chance to help the customers resolve a problem before it becomes widespread.
Few Press Rooms include articles about the company that have run in the media.
Almost none include negative coverage in their site. Yet it is futile to hide news about a company because anyone who knows how can find the information quickly and easily by using a variety of online research facilities.
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Media-Friendly Press Room Features
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The point of the Press Room is to make finding information about the company easy for a reporter. Companies that understand this have media-friendly Press Room features including:
Gateway http://www.gateway.com/about/spotnews/prcontacts.shtml has the best way to say their PR staff only works with the media: "Gateway press contacts are only able to provide assistance for qualified members of the news media. They are not qualified to respond to product or technical support needs, nor donation requests. If you are not a member of the news media, please feel free to visit our pages for Product Service and Support and the Gateway Foundation."
Reality PR on the Internet is a whole new game. Play it well and you may reap
substantial rewards. Your site's Press Room is a good place to start.
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About the Author
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B.L. Ochman BLOchman@whatsnextonline.com Marketing strategist, journalist, speaker http://www.whatsnextonline.com Moderator, I-PR, the world's largest interactive community of http://whatsnextonline.com/
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