Time 9:14

Here’s a new way to look at your marketing department, as a newsroom. Why? Because it is a powerful way to tell a story, a way to insert your company into news cycles, a way to be a part of the action, a way to be a thought leader, and a way to create dynamic valued information that works with a sales cycle.

Companies are not limited to brochures, more importantly; their audiences are accustomed to getting all kinds of formats, when and where they want it.

Here is a list to help determine if your company can tap into a newsroom.

1. Do you have internal or access to expertise in your field
2. Are you impacted by external events such as regulations, markets, safety
3. Does your company improve the human condition such as healthcare, adoption, and poverty

Author of The New Rules of Marketing and PR David Meerman Scott gives his take on the newsroom angle in a wonderful post about how the real estate industry can benefit from it.

Scott and I get into the topic in this interview on the Marketing Edge podcast. It was recorded on October 13, the day his popular book came out in paperback. Scott will be appearing at the Minneapols/St. Paul Social Media Breakfast on October, 31

(Disclosure:A client of Provident Partners) Softbrands manufacturing is a good example of treating their company as a newsroom. Under their brand Fourth Shift Edition http://www.fourthshiftedition.com/ website, they use video, podcasts, a blog, and twitter, they tap the right format and network to engage in a conversation, get ideas, insert their ideas into news cycles and other objectives.

Do you have what it takes to be a news organization inside your company? Leave a comment here or call the comment line 206-600-6887

In surveys with readers of the San Jose Mercury News, Chris O’Brien, reporter and innovator on the issue of news in the US, presented four major findings about how people get information:

Google
Other people are a major resource of information
Choice
Conversations

There are 5 main theme of the Next generation of the newsroom a project to build the next generation newsroom being conducted at Duke University

1. Integrated – Newsrooms must be fully integrated across blogs and multimedia. It should embrace all platforms. Adapt a consumption model where readers can become so intrigued by the site that they lose track of time as they are immersed in the information.

2. Innovation – The newsroom must be a center for innovation; the 150 year old model was mostly static. We are now in an era of constant change.

3. Collaborative – there must be interactions with other groups outside of your own comfort zone. Cross pollination is a good thing in a new newsroom to expand knowledge and create areas where they will meet each other.

4. Adaptable – Allow for flexibility in assignments, even movable furniture that can be quickly reconfigured to meet a project need.

5. Transparency – Newsrooms need to be open to the community, creating the ability for a dialogue. Changing from a one way medium to a two way organ of information.

New jobs in journalism according to O’Brien

1. Programmer journalists
2. Media Conductors
3. Backpack Journalists
4. Cybrarian
5. Community Managers

This is a summary of a presentation given at the NewComm Forum produced by the Society for New Communications Research. I agree and submit that all media is now multimedia. That means companies and PR firms need to determine what other resources are appropriate for specific releases. For example, consider audio soundbites or videos of relevant visual elements that enhance the story. These can be set up on a news page at the company’s website or posted on a unique landing page, all trackable. This is a start toward what will be a new type of news release called the social media release. A topic for another post.