posted by Nicolette Beard @ 2:34 PM
Digital media has turned traditional news sourcing on its head. Journalists now set up news alerts and RSS feeds to track industry news, companies and subject matter experts.
So when a journalist visits your online press room and discovers a plethora of PDF-downloads, what do you think his/her reaction might be?
1) Exit stage left. One extra click is not worth my time.
2) I’ll download the document and may write about you, but I’ll make my displeasure known. (“Hey, I’m only human.”)
3) This is so 90s. Is there a more cutting-edge company worth investigating?
The above imagined scenarios can be measured in higher bounce rates, fewer downloads and infrequent news stories and/or interviews in major news outlets.
When you make your content less accessible, you want to factor in “lost opportunity” costs.
From a technology viewpoint, while it’s true that search engines can now “read” news releases, presenting your news only in PDFs is making a search engine work too hard. If you must post PDFs, be certain you have an HTML version, an RSS feed and submit to newswire services.
If you assume that your audience is accessing your site on a computer or Smartphone equipped with the necessary software to decode the document, you could be right. You also could be wrong.
Key influencers and early adopters are increasingly using mobile applications. You don’t want anything to impede deadline-driven news or to dissuade a potential investor.
If you make your content hard to find, you may find yourself victim of The Law of Unintended Consequences. In other words, you don’t want to overly frustrate your key constituents, whether they are journalists or investors, by making them work, search, click, download and read, over and over again.
Good user experience isn’t a concept limited to ecommerce sites.
Resources: 5 Reasons Why Your Press Page Should Lose the PDFs
Related Posts:
10.13.2009
posted by Robin Tooms @ 10:42 PM
That was one of the recent questions posed at the 2009 PR Day Conference, hosted by PRSA, in Houston this past week. It was refreshing to hear that even though many of the tools have changed, the idea that a solid PR foundation – knowing the basics – is still needed. Being compelling and telling a story well is as important now as ever with the proliferation of conversations and channels. If you want your story to be remembered and shared, it has to have a strong core and enough “threads” that tie it into other issues people care about.
Here are some high-level key points from the speakers that day:
- Our PR audience (who we are trying to reach) has changed
We need to think of our audience more as participants instead of thinking of them as readers. They are no longer just “consumers” of information, but potential publishers of information themselves. The era of social media has created an active set of “citizen journalists” who create blogs and more. - There’s a lot of Twitter talk (but is it justified?)
Never has a mere 140 characters been more powerful, right? One think everyone seemed to agree upon was that Twitter is just a tool – a microblog. Peter Shankman, the keynote speaker for the day put it best when he said that the act of “tweeting” is actually different from Twitter, the branded tool. The act will very likely survive even if the brand does not. - Good PR is, and always will be, about relationships
PR, like many professional services, is best when you have strong relationships with your media contacts. These days, it’s not longer just about nurturing traditional journalists, but online media and thought-leader blogger as well. While this sounds intuitive, in practice it may mean interacting with and approaching those contacts using different methods that you’ve used before.
There were so many great speakers, but I particularly enjoyed Gerald Baron’s presentation on “Social Media: The New Realities of Crisis and Emergency Response Communication” where he covered case studies on the L.A. Fire Department, the US Airways incident on the Hudson River and the issues surrounding student notifications after the Virginia Tech shooting. In this, Gerald also reminded us of the basic Crisis Communications formula, which works in both good times and bad:
TRUST = the RIGHT ACTIONs + COMMUNICATION
On Mashable yesterday, there was this article on “HOW TO: Use Social Media in Your PR Pitch Plan” posted that gives pointers on using social media to pitch stories. This is a useful article since the PR Day event reminds us that we do need to try new approaches that will help to get our stories and expertise out to our intended audience. Read through and see if there is a tactic here that you might want to incorporate into your practice.
Savage also got the chance to talk about the intersection between Branding and PR with our presentation, “He Stuck Cheese Up His Nose? The Brand Impact of Web 2.0 and Social Media.” Take a look!
PR professionals know the negative impact of social media. (Remember Domino’s rogue employee video or the “Motrin Moms?”) But don’t fear! When planned strategically and executed consistently as part of a company’s total approach to communications, companies in any industry can drive results and build positive online reputations. In this session, you’ll learn how to leverage your company and employees to yield better communications and search results and generate ideas for your social media strategy and monitoring practices.
