Some current surveys of journalists and journalists indicate that most choose to use on line media rooms/press kits instead of the old skool tough copy press kits. Why? The Internet is open 24 hours a day, seven days every week. A busy reporter on deadline can go online and cruise from one online press kit to the subsequent while not having to watch for an overnight bundle or fax.
Many businesses and publicists are embracing this new generation in media members of the family and are in a mad sprint to increase on line press kits of their very own or for his or her customers. Like a Web web page, an internet press package should include certain factors, should make some functions more outstanding than others, and be easy to navigate. Here are some “do’s and don’ts” to keep in mind before you dive in and start developing an online press kit.
Online press kits Should:
Be easy to locate if connected to a first-rate Web web site. For example, if ABC Bottled Water has a public or consumer Web website online already hooked up, a separate media room may be linked to the Web web page’s home page. This hyperlink need to appear prominently – either within the website online’s menu or on the house web page. Reporters don’t have time to search for it. Also, if the media room is related to a “important” website, the media room have to proportion the primary website’s “look and experience,” so that reporters don’t feel hyperlink they’ve been forwarded to a few unrelated website.
Provide substances normally utilized by the media. A popular press package normally consists of a backgrounder, FAQ, and profiles of key people/spokespeople. This is what a reporter will want to see while she or he visits your on line media room. The motive of supplying those common documents is to minimize any more work a reporter will need to do to get what he/she desires. Other critical gadgets to include are excessive-decision, digital pix, high-decision digital brand pics, and of path, press releases. A exact on line media room will come geared up with a media library wherein all forms of files may be uploaded, stored, and dispensed, such as trendy press kit materials.
Include the media coverage already received. When a agency, organisation, or person has been covered by the media (ideally favorably), it helps to “legitimize” them. Be careful about copyright troubles whilst reposting articles, though. If you or your organisation has regarded in the media, use anything from audio clips, video clips, and hyperlinks to media outlets’ Web websites for your on line media room’s “In the News” page. Check with the media venue for reprint permission.
Include media touch statistics prominently. If the character coping with media relations isn’t an worker of the business enterprise/organization, make sure that the touch info in the online media room directs newshounds to the person who is. If a reporter reaches out and his/her request is misplaced in our on-line world, chances are, they gained’t come back.
Online Press Kits Should Not:
Combine information for each the general public AND the media. Ideally, the facts supplied for the media should be break away content meant for the public or customers. One motive is that it makes it extra tough for the media to find what it desires, and every other is because it reduces your manipulate over the info furnished to the media. Messaging is very important, and at the same time as it may from time to time vary for the public, it must constantly be steady for the media – in the end, your messaging is what they’re using to cover you with.
Require a reporter to make numerous requests for extra information. There are usually going to be a few matters which you do not want to offer online on a regular basis. This may want to consist of positive images or ebooks. Keeps those times to a minimum! In cases like those, it’s miles nice to mention “please touch us for pictures of this occasion,” or “please contact us for a pattern e-book.” Some media rooms have very constrained report space, which might also require you to add low-resolution pictures to shop space. Asking journalists to contact you for high-decision photographs is all right, too. The factor of an internet media room is to provide the media with most of what it needs.
Be out of date. Update press package materials as wanted, and try to hold a present day press launch to be had – despite the fact that it wasn’t disbursed at the wire or to newshounds immediately. By maintaining a timely deliver of “information,” in your media room, it will be apparent to the media that it gets your attention.
Other Helpful Tips:
Use hyperlinks – now not email attachments! Media rooms with media libraries ought to permit you to upload your documents and create a URL to their place on-line, which you could provide to the media instead of an e-mail attachment. When changed into the remaining time you opened an electronic mail from a stranger that had an attachment?
Have a weblog? Link it on your on line media room. Blogs are a amazing way to talk about your employer, reason, or industry and are regularly utilized by individuals of the media while getting to know someone/some thing for a tale. If you’ve got one, upload the link in your media room. If you don’t have one, recall getting one.
By following these recommendations and by means of putting your self in the footwear of a journalist, you will be able to develop an internet presence that is each informative and convenient. Do this and also you’ll meet the needs of the media and boom the likelihood of gaining editorial publicity.