And Do You Need It

I’ll be honest, I read Social Media Newsroom Writing” and was immediately confused. I’ve been thinking about this for a while since the term came up, and I still don’t get it. I believe this is a classic example of PR jargon, marketing semantics and established ideas colliding in the digital age. I’m sure marketers need to think about how their website can act as a hub to encourage interaction with customers, influencers and other stakeholders, and it’s too important to consider this a PR responsibility. The site’s “News” section with boring and monotonous press releases is no longer enough.

What Is A Social Media Newsroom?

It’s probably best to start with the question, what is a traditional press room on a website or a web press room? In its simplest terms, it is a collection of press releases, a list of important people, or an organizational chart. In larger organizations, you’ll see downloadable guides, attached white papers or e-books, sometimes videos or AGM notes. how to become a content creator The occasionally downloadable annual report. The problem and the two missing ingredients

I’ll play my neck here. Journalists aren’t as helpful as they used to be, but newsrooms are focused on them. I’m sorry, that’s what I said. However, journalists remain an integral part of a much more complex medium to communicate and share your brand story. So if you centre a “newsroom” around journalists, you were missing a real opportunity in 2011.

The reality is you need to consider a broader influencer network that includes journalists looking for the helpful content. This mix would consist of customers, journalists, industry experts and commentators, and bloggers. Think about what you can do for them to help you. It  certainly requires more than what we are considering right now. Here’s an interesting article from First Direct, but they seem to focus on journalists if you look at the social newsroom itself, so over you’re missing out.

Because social media is about people – in this case, your target audience of influencers you want to communicate with – the social element is about building and nurturing relationships with them, not just journalists and certainly not all of them. Mass promotion of corporate content (no matter how well categorized) fails to meet the relationship-building challenge. In my opinion, two ingredients must be added to the shareable newsroom to make it a social media newsroom.

Missing Ingredient

A relationship is about listening. Two of the most respected examples today are Dell and Gatorade. So the foundation of a social media newsroom would be to define influential outposts and then monitor them, even in the simplest sense. It would allow people to proactively engage with influencers (not just journalists!) and educate target audiences about their rich content and resources. Sure, I’m guessing you’ve come up with exciting content for this audience; maybe that’s missing ingredient #3! That audience doesn’t need to come to your newsroom as often either, due to the lack of ingredients

Interaction Or Compromise Of Missing Ingredients

I think it’s an interactive process that brings the social into the social media newsroom. With simple integration, you can provide curated content and panel and page interactions in your social newsroom (Twitter and Facebook make it easy), which in turn brings your pages to life and provides a form of social resistance of your brand in social media spaces and industry outposts.

Consider website engagement via social tools and objects – it starts with simple blog comments via a social FAQ (or Q&A) by simply asking for attention in a WordPress poll (embedded in a blog post) to get some level of engagement. Again, Cisco seems to be doing an excellent job in some respects in this area.

Also Read: What Is Market Segmentation? – Features, Examples, Benefits, And More