Why PR newsrooms are the future of brand storytelling
The newsroom model is what lets daily news titles work fast to fill their pages with great stories that sell papers.
Your business most likely has different strategic objectives to publications like The Sun or The Daily Mail. But you can still apply the same editorial principles to turn your comms department into a well-oiled content machine.
Right now, some of the world’s most recognisable brands are applying these techniques to ensure their comms initiatives deliver results.
Adobe, Oracle and Microsoft all operate newsrooms. What’s more, the big three venture capital firms in Silicon Valley – Sequoia Capital, Andreessen Horowitz and Battery Ventures – have hired journalists from the Wall Street Journal, Wired and Forbes, respectively.
At the same time, media titles throughout the UK are cutting staff, or else closing altogether. Some 300 newspapers have shut down since 2005, and specialist reporters are becoming something of an endangered species.
Against this backdrop, perhaps it’s not surprising that so many brands are taking matters into their own hands. Companies like Microsoft can afford to invest more resources into telling their stories than their media counterparts, and are producing better content as a result.
Cision’s latest white paper – How to create a PR newsroom and own your story – shows you how to do the same. And the first step is to start thinking like a publisher.
Think like a publisher to take control of your brand’s story
Establishing a successful newsroom is about empowering your team to communicate your organisation’s strategic content using robust editorial standards and a journalistic mindset.
For Microsoft, that means giving staff the freedom to write about whatever interests them most. For companies like HubSpot, it’s about driving lead generation. Meanwhile, IBM uses its primary blogs to establish itself as a thought leader in its industry.
This doesn’t necessarily mean you have to implement a brand new structure or team. Often, it’s just a matter of adopting a new way of thinking:
Who are the key stakeholders you’re trying to communicate with? How can your company improve their life? And what’s the most captivating way of sharing that story with them?
“This can be a pretty big mindset shift for people in the corporate world,” says Stampa co-founder Abigail Levene. “Your readers are your clients. Your client is not the business department that comes to you and says ‘I want you to profile my work’.”
Thinking about your comms initiatives in this way will help you bring them in line with how people naturally consume their content. Always keep your audience in mind and tell the stories you think they want to hear.
To discover how to create your own PR newsroom in three simple steps, enter your details into the form below and download How to create a PR newsroom and own your story today.
