You may or may not have heard of a newsroom for a business as a great marketing tool for your business. It’s a great place to develop social media attention, list events, press releases and other news journalists and thoses interested in your business can learn more about you. Traditionally, a newsroom was the place where journalists, reporters, editors, staffers and others worked together to craft the news. Today, social newsrooms work about the same except they are designed to work online instead of a physical location. A web based business has often built a media page or prepared a media packet. Now, it’s a bit more extensive. To stand out in the competition and display your entire range of assets, create your online social newsroom as your media center.
Design your social newsroom to help people find information about you that can be used to craft their stories about you and the business or to know if you meet their criteria to be a part of their media story. Your newsroom will have a distinct personality and set-up to reflect who you are and your business in the best light. Generally, you should offer a variety of information to answer questions from a diverse audience. You can visit newsrooms or create one of your own to help people find your information to use in their stories.
Here are elements that you could include in your social newsroom:
1. “One Sheet” Information – Speakers use these; if you are open to speaking at events, it’s good to have one so that they know what subjects you speak about and how to contact you.
2. List of Press Releases – Use this area to make a repository for all your press releases. This is a good way to keep it them all organized and to let the media see the news that’s out there about you.
3. Event Lists, Past and Future – Not only should you keep a list of your past events, it’s important to slip in announcements for future events too. Of course, link to pages with more information about these events.
4. Images the Press Can Use – Headshots, product shots and more are good to be housed here too in downloadable form, with permission to use for the press.
5. Collection of White Papers – White papers are most commonly use in larger businesses to help customers understand a topic better. They are becoming more popular with entrepreneurs and can be displayed here.
6. List of Publications – Great place to list anything you’ve published, including links to articles off site such as guest articles, books, kindle books, information products and so on.
7. Links to Videos – This can be videos that you’ve produced, interviews you’ve done, or those related to your content in some way.
8. Streaming Related Content – Your Twitter feed, blog feed, and other related content will work to help disseminate information about your topic.
9. Other Items of Interest to Insiders and Outsiders – Anything that can work to educate both insiders and outsiders about your business will be useful to put in your social newsroom.
10. Social Media Share Buttons – This is the start of what makes your newsroom social; the ability for others to share what they find.
11. Discussion Forum – Engagement is an important component of a good newsroom. Starting a discussion forum for those who might be interested can help improve engagement.
12. Contact Form – Even if you don’t want a forum, having a way for people to easily contact you, such as a special email address that you check often, is needed in your newsroom.
13. An Organizational Chart – If you have employees, this is good to have. It is similar to what any larger organization should have listing the people who work with you, their position and line of responsibility.
This new concept of a social newsroom is something for every savvy business woman to consider as a part of her website. It doesn’t have to include all of the listed elements or be too elaborate. You want to be sure to give journalists and those interested in your work a sufficient amount of information about you and your business. It’s another place to house all the information in one place for easy distribution for you and the media. It provides for even more content for your website and no one will have to ask you for the information unless they want a special quote. They can just write a story based off the information they find on your social newsroom.
What do you think about this concept? What elements would you include your Social Newsroom?
