Updating News Releases with Social Media in Mind
• Andrea Mostyn, Assistant Director of University Communications
• Brad Mitchell, New Media Producer, Office of Web and New Media
Traditional Approach to University Communications
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Univ. News & Public Relations
News Media Audience
The New Approach
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Univ. News & Public Relations
Audience News Media
Social Media
• Easier access to news releases – more findable
• Allow for content to dessiminate to other sites automatically
• Make your news releases FUN!
• Use context to encourage further investigation
• Embrace community & make contact easy
How do we make this happen?
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Model for Social Media Releases
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Easier access to news releases
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Automatic dissemination of content
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Make your news releases FUN!
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Encourage further investigation
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Build community + easy contact
Transitioning to a New System
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Taking the plunge.
• Problems: • No clear deliniation b/w News
and University Communications
• No tagging/keywords
• Posting releases was time-consuming & difficult
• No Search function
• No native integration of RSS or Web 2.0 features
• Very high learning curve
• Difficult to embed media (audio, video, photos)
Missouri State’s old system
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• Problems: • Monthly archives had to be
set up manually
• Old CMS system is more efficient at updating pages vs. creating new ones
• CMS built for publishing complete websites, not frequent short posts
• Addition of RSS and Web 2.0 features was done in a piecemeal fashion & wasn't effecient
Missouri State’s old system
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Old News Homepage
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Old News Release
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Old Archive Page
New System
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WordPress • Blogging and publishing platform
• Open Source
• Huge community of developers and users
• Creating new posts is quick and intuitive, with little to no learning curve
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New Homepage
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Features Featured Story
• allows for main story with image to be featured on home page for extended period of time
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Features Tags
• allows for keywords to be tagged in all releases; helps users find related stories
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Features Search function
• allows users to search for content only within the News site
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Features RSS and Social Media Integration
• creates multiple RSS feeds of all content and allows for integration of different social media tools
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Features Archiving
• all content is archived as both a monthly archive as well as within categories
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Example News Release
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Features Multimedia
• easily embed photos, videos, and audio files inline in news releases
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Features Multimedia
• easily embed photos, videos, and audio files inline in news releases
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Features Multimedia
• easily embed photos, videos, and audio files inline in news releases
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Features Sidebar
• a sidebar on every page includes link to RSS feed, contact info, social bookmarking widget, and links to additional resources and social media tools
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New Archive Page
• Restricting headlines to 60 characters including spaces
• Elimination of a dateline
• Reformatting of contact header (except for formal releases)
• Discontuing printing on letterhead for files
Other Features and Changes
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• Incorporating ads to assist with recruitment, advancement goals and expert sources
• Increasing the number of RSS feeds
• Linking to podcasts and other new media
• Linking from release to bios, expert source listings, personal web pages and additional information
Other Features and Changes
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• Easier access to news releases – more findable
• Allow for content to dessiminate to other sites automatically
• Make your news releases FUN!
• Use context to encourage further investigation
• Embrace community & make contact easy
Back to our original goals…
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Easier access to news releases
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• Users can find news releases more easily on the News site
• Search function
• Tagging of keywords
• Categories
• Monthly archive
Easier access to news releases
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• Users can find news releases more easily on external sites
• Trackbacks and links from other blogs
• Social media websites from social bookmarking
• Social media websites from automatic RSS dissemination
Allow for content to disseminate to other sites automatically
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• Use RSS to feed content to social media sites
Allow for content to disseminate to other sites automatically
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• Use RSS to feed content to social media sites
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Enhance your RSS feeds with Feedburner
• Stats
• Publicize your feeds
• Optimize your feed for different browsers and make it more accessible
Make your news releases FUN!
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vs.
Use context to encourage further investigation
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• Keyword tags point users to similar stories and content
• Multimedia can link to external social media sites, drawing the user to those sites to find more of your content
• Video – YouTube & iTunes U • Audio – iTunes U • Photos - Flickr
Embrace community & make contact easy
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• Allowing for comments on your stories allows your users to become involved and can lead to further discussion
• Include many contacts on news releases and make it simple for your readers to make that contact – include links to email, websites, Twitter accounts, etc.
Results
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• 23% rise in site traffic compared to previous year
• Over 10% of traffic coming via Feedburner (RSS feeds) and social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter
• Significant amount of new traffic coming from other Missouri State sites that are re-purposing news releases
Additional Resources
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• Social Media News Release Template
• http://www.pr-squared.com/
• Free SEO Tools
• http://www.digitalpoint.com/tools/
• Keyword Suggestion Tools
• http://www.keyworddiscovery.com/search.html
• http://freekeywords.wordtracker.com/
• https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal
