Next-generation online newsrooms bring stories alive
Imperial Sugar online newsroom - ISCNewsroom.com - powered by Wordpress
Ever since the dawn of what’s called Web 2.0 around 2004, a wide spectrum of exciting online tools have fueled an explosion in blogs, online sharing, web-based communities, social networks, streaming video and greater user control over online content. It’s all designed for better communication and connecting online.
The original and mostly static style of HTML Web sites has gone the way of the hula hoop. Today, blog technology rules, not only as the preferred “under the hood” software of an estimated 200 million blogs worldwide, but also to power countless online news outlets, social media sites and an exciting new generation of interactive online newsrooms, powered by the dynamic features of Wordpress (wordpress.org).
A primary objective of these newsrooms is to help manage the online conversation by becoming an active and primary exchange for news, information, stories, comment and sharing:
- News stories are written by working journalists in a concise, balanced and legitimate news style, free of sales pitches and self-promotion.
- Profiles of employees, executives and experts alike, are drafted as appealing features, giving personal insight and showing a distinctive human side to an organization.
- Photos, shot by accomplished photojournalists, are used widely and add rich dimension to online newsroom stories. Online photo galleries provide easy access to high resolution images by the media.
- Contact links instantly alert specific people assigned to media inquiries or questions from customers.
- Social media tools are built-in to each story to provide easy posting to Twitter, rating on Digg, emailing to a colleague or any number of social networking sites.
- Search engine optimization or SEO runs invisibly and automatically to ping or alert every search engine to new activity and stories and to boost the all-important ranking on major search engine pages.
The online newsroom of the Imperial Sugar Company, launched in May 2009, has become the most popular site in the global sugar industry. It was developed and is managed by the corporate journalists at News Group Net LLC.
This story is a feature in the January/February issue of IABC Communications World. Click here to download.
Filed Under: Corporate Journalism • Featured
About the Author: David is a veteran communications strategist ... writer ... blogger ... online publisher ... and Emmy Award winning former CBS Network News correspondent. He lives in the Washington, D. C., area, and works worldwide.
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by David Henderson, thoughtLEADERS and topsy_top20k, topsy_top20k_en. topsy_top20k_en said: RT @DavidHenderson: Next-generation online newsrooms bring stories alive http://bit.ly/4tg9vv [...]
Effective communications always comes down to knowing your audience and giving them what they need and want in a way that answers questions and solves problems.
Veteran journalist David Henderson “walks the talk” and that’s what makes his advice on establishing online newsrooms so valuable.
Companies need to take special note of Tip #1 where David advises companies to leave the “Sell” out of a release — just the facts, with information about how to find out more.
One huge difference to note is the whole area of SEO Optimization. Now that companies have the opportunity to be their own “newswire,” they certainly need to frame stories that will be found.
Thanks, Shari … the secret of the next-gen online newsrooms is in the word, “news.” It’s no longer a dusty, dull repository for news releases that no one cares about. News releases neither news nor stories but rather promotion or marketing oriented announcements. What I write about and am creating for clients are active, working newsrooms, regularly updated, with legitimate news stories.
David