The News Is Dead. Long Live the News!
“How is what you’re doing any different from online PR? It sounds a lot like an online newsroom.”
I get this question a lot. Even seasoned PR pros and communicators tend to conjure up the image of an online newsroom when I talk at conferences and workshops about the strategies we use to build online news sites for businesses. But “newsroom” doesn’t begin to cover our innovative approach.
Traditional media struggles to survive.
When we at News Strategies™ create a powerful, engaging online news site for a company, we go way beyond the tactics of a traditional top-down newsroom. Our breed of brand journalism involves customers, employees, stakeholders and communities through an open exchange of news and sharing.
Why do it this way?
Because these days, people aren’t simply consumers. Their feelings about a company’s product or service are influenced by who that company really is — its leaders’ behavior, where its products are made, how it treats employees, how it treats the environment, how it handles a crisis, and so on. And all those millions of customers, investors, suppliers, employees and partners are capable of sharing their opinions on dozens of online platforms.
A traditional newsroom isn’t positioned well to meet the new demands of today’s information consumers. Brand journalism marks the shift away from traditional top-down messaging and toward engaging in an authentic way with all audiences.
Brand journalism is not the same as press releases.
Here’s the difference:
- It’s believable. Brand journalism through a dynamic online news site safeguards and manages a brand’s online reputation not by blasting out press releases, but by presenting well-investigated, compelling news stories, photography and broadcast-ready video — produced by news journalists. It lays out issues with transparency.
- It’s transformative. It transforms a company into the credible voice of an industry. It allows the public to connect with a company’s values by revealing more about the people within it.
- It’s open. It deploys the voices of many to tell stories and paint a complete picture of the issue or industry, in their own words. It publishes scores of authentic, otherwise-untold stories. Traditional newsrooms focus on the voices of a few folks at the top of the org chart.
- It’s about two-way conversation. It taps into social-media tools such as Facebook and Twitter to listen and interact with a fragmented audience.
“Every company is a media company”
In an increasingly noisy world, companies can’t afford to simply set up a newsroom and have a one-way, varnished conversation with the public.
The Internet has upended the way people expect to engage with businesses. There are millions of people out there with things to say, and who have all the new-media tools they need to broadcast their message. Any rogue individual or disgruntled employee with a laptop and a decent camera can go online and wreak havoc on a company’s brand with a click.
In the digital era, businesses that want to own their category, protect their brand, and become a trusted source must act like a media company. Some businesses — such as Cisco — are already onboard with this idea. They’re using the same strategy to produce real, high-quality news. They’re the ones who are able to respond, react and take the lead within their category.
Related posts:
- Long Live Storytelling
- Brand Journalism Creates Another Viable News Outlet
- The Death of Traditional Online “Newsrooms”
- Primary Audiences for Online Newsrooms
- PR vs. News Style
Category: Brand Journalism, Featured
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