TrueInsight Newsletter

Start the Presses
Why Your Site Needs a Newsroom Now

Ben Franklin famously observed that “fish and visitors stink after three days.” But if Mr. Franklin were here today, he’d probably add “website content” to his list of short-term offenders.

Stale content gives the impression of a stale business. If a customer arrives to see nothing’s been updated in a month, a year, or more, he may assume that your company has been idle for the same amount of time. He wants a business that can solve his real-time needs, and a business that appears to be trapped in the past just won’t cut it.

Fortunately there is a simple solution for keeping your site current: an online newsroom.

An online newsroom brings with it two important benefits: it gives you an easy outlet to keep your content fresh, and it adds an element of “stickiness” to your site. Stickiness is a common word used to describe a site’s ability to retain visitors and compel them to return. When visitors know that your site is a destination for up-to-date, new information, they’ll return to it again and again.

There’s also a very obvious marketing benefit to having a newsroom: it’s a one-stop public relations hub. Just like consumers, journalists go online first when they’re interested in learning more about your organization. A media-friendly newsroom makes it easier for journalists to do their jobs—and happy journalists can lead to bigger and better media coverage.

But wait—I don’t have any company news!
Yes, you do. Every company that succeeds does so through growth and change, no matter how small the growth or change may seem. A new hire, a new service enhancement, a new shipment on a popular item—anything new to your organization is news.

Well…what happens if nothing new happens for a while?
Ok, admittedly there’s not always going to be something new going on at your company. But we’re willing to bet there’s something afoot in your industry (think new trend reports, new statistics, new legislation, etc.). Make your site a destination for people who want to find out the latest happenings in your vertical. Peruse the online and offline trade publications you read regularly, and post write-ups on the news you find most interesting. (Don’t forget to credit your sources when necessary!)

Isn’t a newsroom a huge time commitment?
Not if you have the right tools. Provided that your website is built on an easy-to-use content management system (CMS), like TrueBlue, TruePresence’s proprietary CMS, adding new news content should take you a matter of minutes. (Bonus plug: TrueBlue even has a special News module that makes it very easy to add, edit, organize, and archive your news posts.)

If you have the right tools in place, simply set aside 30-45 minutes every one to two weeks to research or write your content and then post it to your site. Mark it as an action item on your calendar to get yourself in the habit.

One final note before we move on: if you find you’re unable to update your online newsroom at least once every two weeks on average, lose it. Outdated news will put you right back at square one.

How do I get started?
Check out your content management system’s (CMS’s) newsroom capabilities—you may be able to add news posts to your site in a couple of steps. If you don’t have a CMS for your site (in other words—are you constantly calling up your web designer and asking her to change your site’s content for you?), talk to your webmaster or your Internet marketing consultant about getting one. A CMS allows you to not just add news posts, but update and change all your site’s content yourself, including text, images, event calendars, job postings, and more, saving you a lot of time, hassle, and money in the long run.

I’ve already got a newsroom. What more do you want from me?
If you’ve already got an online newsroom, that’s great, you’re ahead of the game. But how user-friendly is it—particularly for busy reporters who need a quick sound bite? Take a look at your current newsroom and evaluate it using these questions:

>>Is it easy to find? A link to the newsroom—or at least a page within your newsroom (e.g. your latest press release, your most recent media clipping)—should be prominently displayed on your home page.

>>Is a password or registration required? If the answer is yes, remove that extra layer immediately. No one needs another password or user name to remember, least of all busy journalists who will just get frustrated and move on.

>>Is contact information front and center? Make sure the name, email address, and phone number of your primary media contact(s) are prominently displayed throughout.

>>Is information indexed properly? You can post all sorts of different content to your newsroom, beyond company updates, to build a complete online media kit—formal press releases, media clippings, executive headshots and other camera-ready photos, and more. Just be sure to organize the content under intuitive categorical headings to make it easy for users to navigate, and always list items chronologically, starting with the newest item first.

Keep your site fresh. Give your visitors a reason to return. And make it easy for reporters to report on your business. An online newsroom lets you do all three, and that’s good news indeed.