Online Newsrooms: Control the Narrative

Today, I’ll be discussing my views on the importance of maintaining an online newsroom. As online media gains momentum in the world of communications and journalism, no company or organization should be without an online newsroom resource.

The idea behind an online newsroom is to generate a one stop shop location for all interested journalists, stakeholders, and customers.

An online newsroom, like the American Red Cross Newsroom, is a treasure chest of prepackaged information that is easy to use. The ARC ‘s newsroom is different from their website. Their website contains training information, event information, and how to volunteer. Their newsroom is almost strictly used for must need information on the most current crisis they are aiding.

The online newsroom has news releases; facts on the current disaster, interviews, photos of the disaster, media contact points for local, regional, and national levels, broadcast quality b-roll, and completed news stories ready for print.

If you are a journalist covering and disaster, the Red Cross now has you completely taken care of in a one stop shop. You can grab a completed story which are ready for print, or download the b-roll; ready for broadcast.

Here is a perfect break down of the intent of their newsroom:

http://newsroom.redcross.org/

• Items in the left hand column are in chronological order. Pick the information as quickly as you find it, and help us spread the word.

• Items in the right hand column are in “summary” style. If you are on a deadline and just need a quick list of statistics or services, you can grab them from the category links on the right.

• “Announcements” are essentially housekeeping messages to the media. If we add a section of information, or want to designate an after-hours on-call contact, that will fall under “Announcements.”

• “Alerts” are items that we’d like shared with the public as quickly as you can. Broadcasters, or even newspapers with websites can pull this information as often as they’d like (and we’d be pleased if you did!)

• “News Releases” are traditional news releases, ready for you to clip and run with as much or little editing as you’d like.

The importance of this site to journalists cannot be down played. The American Red Cross now has, from a PR and journalistic standpoint, made themselves the ultimate resource. This means they now control the content.

The Red Cross is in the business of Crisis management, so there is a lot to be learned for those PR practioners who work for businesses who will experience a crisis (that is everyone!)

An online newsroom is something a company should have in the waiting. When a crisis hits, you can fill the newsroom with all your information. From pictures, interviews, complete stories, press releases, and b-roll.

If journalists only need to visit you for what they need, then you have the power to control the narrative. You can feed them what you like.

The idea is genius.

Control the narrative.

My vote counts!

Today’s entry pertains to the power of influence though people you know. Elections took place yesterday all across the U.S. Election Day can be a sad day for American patriotism. We live in a nation where more people vote for American Idol than political elections. In some countries, people are literally shot at on their way to the polls. The only problems most Americans face is adding twenty minutes to take advantage of an incredible right often taken for granted.

I had a very full day yesterday and was actually not going to end up having time to stop by and cast a vote. This was until my professor walked into class with a sticker on his shirt that read, “My vote counts.” This inspired me to be late to my next class and go vote.

I thought about the power of a simple sticker, a piece of recognition, had on my decision. Being from Texas, a state as red as they come, my vote was not necessarily the most important vote, but seeing my professor’s sticker did draw me to action. I wanted a sticker. I wanted to boast on campus that I had fulfilled my patriotic duty.

This idea of inciting action made me think of how social media could use “stickers” to differentiate and excite people. Once I got home, I discovered I was not the only one who thought of this idea. Facebook had made a universal change to the top of all Facebook home pages. You could let the world know you voted. When I signed on late last night, 11 million people had voted. This is the message:

Why am I seeing the Election Day message on my home page?

We show the Election Day message to all users who are accessing Facebook from a country that is currently in an election period.

I was excited to click the, “I voted button.” I soon found out, however, that tons of people lied about voting. My roommates, who just told me they didn’t vote, had said they had voted to Facebook. This made the power of the online sticker less effective.

The reason the sticker got me to do something was because the only way to get one was to go vote. If Facebook could have somehow verified who had voted, then the app could have actually gotten people to vote.

For PR professionals to get people to take up a cause I believe a differential mark, that is exclusive, can motivate people. This can be true with a simple sticker on someone’s person, or a differentiating mark on social networking sites.

If businesses could somehow reward customers with some online uniqueness, only attainable from within the store, people would potentially react the same way I did. People could display all their “rewards” to the Facebook world. It would grow as a collection. It could drive people’s will to collect.

Just talking from experience on the power of a simple sticker and thinking out loud about how to effectively use this principle on social media sites. Any other ideas on how to use this idea?