Preliminary results of a social media news survey conducted by TEKGROUP International and Associate Professor Ken Payne of Western Kentucky University seem to underscore the importance of the online newsroom to corporate communicators. The survey - which specifically measures acceptance, attitudes and use of social media tools to follow, share, and post news and information - has garnered more than 400 responses to date and is scheduled to continue through June 1.

 

A telling indicator for the corporate world, more than 42% of respondents indicate they make use of corporate websites when following, sharing or posting news and information with 26% saying they visit very often and 17% all the time. And possibly more important for those looking to scale back their online newsroom budgets, fewer than 10% of the respondents say they never reference press releases when following, sharing, or posting news and information with more than 40% indicating very often (23%) or all the time (18%) use of the PR staple.

 

 

 

“This finding specifically supports the notion of symmetry between social news and online newsroom content,” said Steve Momorella, Partner and Co-founder of TEKGROUP International, Inc. “What we are seeing is news consumers using the corporate online newsroom as a principle source for information when following or sharing news using social media tools. And they are doing this in huge numbers.”

 

Also on the corporate plate, almost 75% of survey respondents indicate they frequently (32%) or sometimes (42%) visit a corporate web site after learning of a news story through social media channels with roughly half of all respondents saying they sometimes (32%) or frequently (18%) use social media tools to fact-check corporate websites and press releases.

 

“As reported in other social media surveys, our respondents indicate they are using social media tools habitually with almost 90% saying they use Twitter, Facebook, and blogs on a daily basis to follow/monitor news and information,” said WKU Professor Ken Payne. Slightly less say they use the tools to share/recommend daily news and information (70%), with even fewer writing/posting news and information using social media tools (60%).

 

“This finding is even more interesting when compared to the low number of respondents who use the tools for other daily tasks such as research job opportunities (15%), find a place to live (4%), find someone’s contact information (14%), or find directions (15%),” Payne continued.

 

So how important have social media tools become for the news and information industry? Survey respondents see this as a no-brainer with almost 88% responding favorably for following/monitoring news, 94% for sharing/recommending news, and 87% for posting/writing news and information. The most popular social media tool for tracking news and information seem to be Twitter (60%), followed closely by Facebook (53%), with these respondents indicating they use these tools all the time. Surprisingly, blogs (24%) and sharing sites such as Flickr and Youtube (18%) are not used regularly for social news tasks.

 

Other findings of interest include:

 

·         Although social media seems like a recent phenomenon in the press, the majority of social media participants in the survey have been at it for 3-5 years (27%) with 24% indicating saying they have been avid users of social media tools for more than 5 years. Moreover, many survey respondents indicate they are engaged in social media activity up to 4 hours per day (32%), with most logging around 2 hours per day (34%) either from home (90%) or from work (70%).

 

·         Even in social media circles, search remains king with nearly 50% of respondents indicating they start their news following/monitoring process on a search engine. However, slightly more than 21% indicate they are starting their news gathering process by directly accessing traditional news web sites such as NYT.com, CNN.com, or BBCClick.com. The same number says they are starting on a social media site such as Twitter for Facebook.

 

·         A nagging question of late for the online-news publishing world is the reliability and accuracy of social media news sources. For those actively participating in social media newsgathering and distribution, it seems social media are viewed about the same (41%) as traditional news sources for reliability and accuracy with only 10% of respondents labeling social media as much less reliable or accurate. However, when it comes to timeliness there is no contest with almost 70% of respondents indicating that news gathered via social media sources is much more (40%) or slightly more (30%) timely than traditional news sources.

 

The Social Media News Survey will continue through June 1 with the final survey analysis due June 15, 2010. For a copy of the complete results contact Steve Momorella (steve@tekgroup.com) or Ken Payne (ken.payne@wku.edu), or go to http://www.tekgroup.com or http://newsroom.tekgroup.com.

 

If you are an avid social media news consumer you may participate in the survey by following this link: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/38QH7PR. Thanks in advance for your response.

 

 

 

Most organizations have great stories to tell. New products are coming out, new services are being offered, charitable efforts are being extended in local communities, and countless other newsworthy events are going on within a company at any given time. In today's digital era, there are also numerous online tools available to corporate communicators to help them create, manage, distribute and monitor their news.

 

It is no longer enough to issue a release over the wire and hope for the best. It is not sufficient to post a news story on your online newsroom and wait for people to come and read it. With so many places on the Internet vying for people's attention, and with cable TV, satellite radio and citizen journalist outlets springing up daily, communicators need to rise above the noise and make their voices—and more importantly, the voices of their organizations—heard.

 

Today's message looks different than those of the past. The content may be the same—after all, a good news story is a good news story. But the appearance, audience and availability of that message have all changed.

 

Traditionally, organizations generated text-only press releases and sent them out over a wire. They spent a lot of money on glossy press kits that were mailed or handed out at trade shows. With the advent of relatively inexpensive products that anybody can use, communicators can now quickly create high-quality images, audio and video that can be combined to more effectively tell a story. News releases can include hyperlinks to help direct readers to supporting information. Additionally, news stories can take the shape of a quick blog post—or an even quicker tweet—and can be sent "as it happens"; in the past stories had to go through many levels of approval before ever seeing the light of day.

 

Next, the audience for your message has changed. Now your news can be targeted to investors, analysts, employees, potential clients and customers, franchisees, sales agents, citizen journalists and bloggers, in addition to the mainstream media.

 

Finally, the availability of your organization's message has been altered. Your news is now part of a 24/7 cycle that constantly needs to be fed and monitored. Events in your industry and surrounding your company can break at any time, and in any number of media outlets. Today's "new" message, while still obviously centered on a good news story, is much richer in content, much more sought after by different constituents and available worldwide and instantaneously.

 

Now that we've looked at the news content that makes up your message, let's focus on how to make it available, noticeable and shareable online. Marketing your message is not about using your online newsroom to shout at or indiscriminately push your news to people. It certainly isn't about using it to create a revenue stream. It is about using today's tools to promote your news content. How? By listening to, engaging with and conversing among people on social media, by sending crafted pitches to journalists via email and by highlighting and promoting your news on your corporate Web site and related industry websites.

 

Marketing your message gives you the ability to tell your stories to the world—quickly, efficiently, measurably and cost-effectively. And by initiating the conversation, and inviting feedback and constructive criticism, you are able to build brand loyalty, define product champions and provide content to positive influencers that can help further extend your message, your brand and your organization.

 

We've identified many methods you can use to help market and promote your news content. While there is a book's worth of information to share, I've selected four techniques I think help best define some of the available digital tools:

 

1. Search engine optimization. A large percentage of people find news stories on Google. As cliché as that sounds, you must consider the search engine behemoth as a primary outlet for your organization's news stories and event announcements. This means that your stories need to be optimized to give you the greatest chance of visibility as people are searching for news in your industry.

 

First and foremost, make sure the URL of your online newsroom reflects the branding and existing structure of your corporate site. For example, "news.companyname.com" and "newsroom.companyname.com" are examples of URLs that will have a high Google ranking and will leverage the existing strength of your corporate site's relevancy. Further, ensure that title and first paragraphs of your story contain strategic keywords that define your content and message. These keywords are what people will be searching for, and they should be easily identifiable on your news release Web pages.

 

2. Social media. A lot of you may already be "marketing your message" by reaching out to people on Facebook, YouTube or Twitter. If you are tweeting links back to your blog or online newsroom, or posting your news stories on a corporate Facebook account, you've probably already seen the power of social media in promoting your news. As you develop stories and news announcements for your organization, you can help build brand loyalty by sharing those stories with people using social media.

Take that a step further by creating RSS feeds on your online newsroom that allow people to automatically share your news and events with their website visitors. Finally, by integrating a blog with your online newsroom, you can give subject matter experts within your organization a voice to share their knowledge in a way that also helps promote your company or clients. We recently did a presentation with the PRSA outlining several additional methods to help integrate your online newsroom with social media.

 

3. Email alerts. Most journalists prefer to receive email announcements as one format for story pitches. Granted, some people not familiar with the process of cultivating targeted email lists might not find a high level of success with this method; however, sending email story pitches to carefully culled lists or through a service such as HARO consistently generates readership and eventual coverage. Business Wire, Vocus, Cision, BurrellesLuce and others have very segmented media directories of hundreds of thousands of opt-in journalists. These databases, when used correctly, are responsible for thousands of news stories being generated by mainstream media each day. Should this be your only method of reaching out to the press? No. Can you ignore this method? In my opinion, it is too successful to be neglected.

 

4. Web 3.0— the mobile Web. Some say they know what Web 3.0 is. Some say they do not. And then, some say both. No matter the jargon, one thing is clear: The next wave of digital communications and news distribution is going to involve mobile technology. Cell phones, Blackberries, iPhones and iPads, and several products that are still on the drawing board are going to be significant factors in how we interact with each other. By ensuring that your news stories and corporate announcements are available in a wireless, mobile format, you will be better positioned to get your message to a wide audience of stakeholders, influencers and consumers.

 

In summary, most organizations have great stories to tell. By using some of the above techniques, you can effectively promote your news stories and corporate events by using digital tools to reach out and extend your organization's key messages. This will in turn help build brand loyalty and help you identify influencers within your industry. By marketing your message, you will be able to differentiate yourself and provide a distinct voice in an ever-crowded sea of news.

 

Becky Frusher is in control. But, that wasn’t always the case. As the communications manager for the largest fitness and nutrition franchise in the world, Becky struggled to service the information needs of not only her external media, but the company’s franchisees as well.

“We had a press area on the corporate site, but someone else was in charge of putting up the content,” Becky explains. “So I would write a press release, then send it to someone else, who may have sent it to someone else - there may even have been a forth person involved – and that press release may or may not have ever made it to the site. Certainly it would have been old news by the time it was posted. I was just really frustrated with not having a dynamic and up-to-date pressroom.”

 

“Now I’m in control of everything,” Becky boasts. “I can post 50 things in a day if I want…or not. What I really love is that even when I’m away from my office I can login and link to videos that have just come out. I can post new press releases. Or I can link to stories I found online – which I can then push to my twitter account. Even when I’m on vacation I can look like I’m working – because I am working. It just doesn’t seem like it!”

 

In the process Becky also discovered a second key audience for her news content, one she admits may have been overlooked in the past.

 

“Just the other day a franchisee was putting together an information packet to try to convince a local hospital to work with them. The franchisee knew about our existing partnership with the Cleveland Clinic and wondered where he could find press materials to show to the hospital under consideration. All I had to do was point him at the online newsroom. There he had everything from TV clips of the Cleveland Clinic talking about the partnership, to the press releases, to online articles. With the online newsroom I don’t have to worry about where the material is on my desk or in my files. It’s all there and anybody can access it.”

 

Initially social media was not on Becky’s radar – until she learned that integration was only a mouse click away.

 

“I really was hesitant to dip my toe in social media, and then when I saw how easy it was to push the content out when you’re posting to the online newsroom,” Becky said. “I signed up for a Twitter account in July and we now have almost 350 followers - which I think is pretty good since we did not advertise it at all. And a lot of our followers are Curves franchisees that want to get Curves news. Then they are re-tweeting it or posting the content on their Facebook or other social media site. It’s so easy! There’s no reason not to do it.”

 

And how does Becky measure her success? “We just did our first press kit on breast cancer awareness and, because my media list is not huge, it wasn’t a big number for downloads. But, it’s a number – and I’m happy. That’s certainly more than I could have ever done before. I couldn’t have even tracked downloads before. And now I can track my programs and see what’s going on.”

 

At TEKGROUP International we know Becky – and we’d like to know you too. For more information on emerging trends in online newsrooms and marketing your public relations content please download our white paper. Or better yet, why not send us a note and schedule a demonstration today. We may even introduce you to Becky.

 

TEKGROUP International – Market Your Message

 

 

 

Becky Frusher is the Communications Manager for Curves International (www.curves.com), the largest fitness franchise in the world with nearly 10,000 locations in over 70 countries serving more than 4 million women.

Amy Kemp is a member of the “C-suite.” As senior communications manager for the premier mountain resort company in the world, Amy spends a good deal of time coordinating calendars, collaborating campaigns, and combining content. But with three distinct operating divisions and 5 world-class resort destinations, this is no easy task.

 

“We have teams who are located with our specific brands at our specific resorts – and they are not all in one place,” Amy explains. “We have a PR team at Vail, one at Beaver Creek, one at Breckenridge, one at Keystone, and one in California at Heavenly – and we’re corporately based in Broomfield, Colorado. What the online newsroom allows us to do is have one portal for all our news content – it becomes a shared platform even though we are scattered about.”

 

Amy sees the online newsroom providing consolidation for her publics as well. “We are a very diverse and broad company so the online newsroom allows us to serve both our internal and external stakeholders,” Amy continues. “The media and our key stakeholders can gather all their content in one spot - whether they are looking for information about our company, or they are looking for information about a specific brand - they can find that too.”

 

And so far the collaborative news strategy seems to be paying dividends in high customer satisfaction. “The one area where we’ve received a lot of positive feedback is the multimedia area,” Amy confided. “We just released our new social media platform and we’ve definitely heard from our stakeholders. They like the fact that they can download the photos they want after browsing through the low-res versions in our photo library first. The fact that we’re serving up the visuals as well as the text – they like that a lot.”

 

Vail Resorts’ launch of a social media platform within the online newsroom coincided with a much broader corporate commitment to Web 2.0. “We see social media as mission critical,” Amy explains. “We’ve said publicly we are shifting more of our marketing and advertising dollars away from traditional media to more engagement media. In fact, we just started our first blog!”

 

 Although it’s still a work in progress, Amy continues to look for “interesting ways we can interact and engage with not just the media but other stakeholders.”

 

“The online newsroom allows us to do that,” Amy said. “We’re providing the traditional press release in conjunction with a related story on our blog and a quick headline on Twitter, and the Twitter feed links back to our online newsroom.”

 

Now that’s synergy!

 

“The online newsroom allows us to capture everything that we’re doing no matter the channel,” Amy said. “What were trying to do is pull all our content into one shared platform so anyone can see everything at one time – the full view of how we’re telling our story across multiple channels. It’s absolutely critical. Our business is so visual, and people are so passionate about it, having a multi-media, multi-channel platform allows us to tell a story from multiple perspectives.”

 

At TEKGROUP International we know Amy – and we’d like to know you too. For more information on emerging trends in online newsrooms and marketing your public relations content please download our white paper. Or better yet, why not send us a note and schedule a demonstration today. We may even introduce you to Amy.

 

TEKGROUP International – Market Your Message

 

 

Amy Kemp is a senior communications manager for Vail Resorts, Inc. Prior to her current position Amy was the communications manager for Keystone Resort, one of Vail Resort’s 5 world-class destination resorts. Amy also served as the business and marketing manager for the Keystone Neighborhood Company, and as a reporter for the Summit Daily News in Colorado.

Scott Monty is a connector. He connects interests with the skill sets needed to make things happen. As digital and multimedia communications manager for the only American car company to say ‘no thanks’ to government bailout money, Scott leads a team of online publishers and new media specialists who are listening online and connecting content to customers every day.

 

But what Scott really likes to connect is new and traditional communication campaigns.

 

“The social media planning process starts out with the identification of an objective or challenge – we need to know what we’re trying to achieve before we can decide if we’re going to be successful at it.” Scott begins. “With the Fusion41 campaign, for example, we wanted to build a level of consideration and awareness around the vehicle, which was already one of the best selling vehicles out there.”

 

The new media development team chose an old fashion method to begin the process – brainstorming. “We started by throwing ideas out – standard stuff. Then our agencies got involved and came back with additional ideas or fleshed-out concepts that we refined. The whole thing ends up being a co-development process between our teams and our agencies.”

 

“As we moved forward we figured out what the areas were where we could measure tangibly – whether its PR impressions, pass-through rates, or levels of engagement,” Scott continues. “Then we used a variety of resources to actually do the measurement – social media as well as traditional methods that we’re using on a regular basis – to capture both online and offline mentions of the company and our specific products.”

 

The tangible results of the Fusion 41 campaign, the company’s first foray into social media and consumer engagement, formed the matrix for what has become the most visible and talked about social media campaign by a major international brand to date – the Fiesta Movement.

 

“We have all sorts of statistics such as the number of views for YouTube videos and impressions on Twitter and Flickr photos,” Scott recalls. “But there’s also an offline component, such as how many hand-raisers we have – how many people have said ‘yes…I’m interested in hearing more about this vehicle when you’re ready to launch it.’”

 

50,000 hand raisers to be exact – 97% of which are not current customers. Plus a 38% level of awareness for vehicle that’s not even in America yet. “That’s the equivalent to some of our vehicles that have been in market for 2-3 years. Numbers like these are unheard of in this industry,” Scott said.

 

 

But what’s it all worth? Scott has an interesting take on counting things in social media.

 

“To ask what the ROI of social media is overall is the wrong question – it’s the right instinct but it’s the wrong question. It’s like asking what’s the ROI of putting your pants on in the morning – you know there is a value to it but it’s hard to quantify and if you don’t do it there’s consequences.”

 

According to Scott, running a social media program by chasing numbers is not the way to do it. “Social media is much more akin to public relations than to advertising or sales. The benefit is at the broad end of the funnel – the awareness, perception and knowledge – rather than the final intent to purchase. Direct mail and e-mail campaigns do that job much better.”

 

And for the future, Scott has a warning for all the PR pros still dangling their toe in the social media water.

 

“I think a lot of organizations need to get up to speed with where the technology is today,” Scott said. “We’re on the cutting edge right now, for a lot of reasons. But, social media is not completely mainstream. There are traditional PR methods that we will always use, no doubt about it. But today it’s about connecting social media to a marketing communications strategy. It’s how you think about how the three forms of media – paid, earned, and now owned – and how they interact with each other that will make the difference.”

 

Scott notes that traditionally each of these has lived in its own silo and has done its own job. “But there’s more possibility now in terms of leveraging one to help the other – we’re going to see a greater cumulative effect of digital media as a result.”

 

At TEKGROUP International we know Scott – and we’d like to know you too. For more information on emerging trends in online newsrooms and marketing your public relations content please download our white paper. Or better yet, why not send us a note and schedule a demonstration today. We may even introduce you to Scott.

 

TEKGROUP International – Market Your Message

 

 

 

 

 

Scott Monty is the Digital & Multimedia Communications Manager for Ford Motor Company. He is also the content creator for the Social Media Marketing Blog, arguably the most visible and widely followed marketing communications blog in the social media space.