Weblog might also be a revolution for virtual press rooms....
PR pros, marketing pros and journalist, you all know what a virtual press room is about... Usually today, we are facing two issues: either we host on our website a press room developed by our webmaster in dynamic pages so that we can upload ourselves our clients releases, or we have static pages and we send by email the releases to our webmaster who publish them in our online press rooms.
And what do we traditionnaly offer to journalist in those press rooms ? Company profiles, press releases, company backgrounder (names are changing considering your country), photos of the people, of the products, logos and sometimes a subscription form for journalists who are interested in receiving directly informations from our clients.... Fine. Could we find a way to improve these press rooms ....
I think weblogs could do so much better ! So much that we could pretend to be at the beginning of a new generation of virtual press rooms thanks to weblogs. Now we can have interactive on line press rooms, I'd like to call them "PressBlogs". Where is the added value ?
First of all, the syndication: in just one click, the journalist can subscribe to the RSS or XML feed and be informed immediately when any new updated information has been published. No need to fill any subscription form, just a drag and drop in the feed reader, and that's all. We can also imagine to provide one specific feed for each client to ensure the journalist won't receive updated from companies he is not interested in.
Then, each time we post a new release, journalist can react immediately on it, ask questions, request more informations, or even ask for an interview. He is given the ability to be actor on the information when before with traditionnal on line press rooms he could only check the information. We can start a discussion there, several people from the Corp. can easily post their idea to answer the journalist's initial request, waooh, this is huge !
Organising a press event ? You can suggest online subscription ! You can ask journalist about the kind of press material they would like to get on the event for example, you could ask who they'd prefer to see attending from the client side, you can COLLABORATE with journalist, initiate a discussion, this is a fantastic opportunity to get more closer to them and to be appreciated as a partner. And this is everything but a lost of time for them as it is so more easy to post a note or a comment.
I remember having reading a post on Elizabeth Albricht blog's in which she was saying she was quite disapointed as only few journalist were subscribing to her RSS feeds.... I don't know how Elizabeth had been launching the availibility of this new functionality on her press room (I'd very much appreciate to have her feedback on this point...) and I think, depending of the country we are based in, this will also be a question of culture, weblogs are not at the same awareness level around the world..... and the french awareness level is everything but the highest...
In France, I am going to present the PressBlogs as a new generation of virtual press rooms, as this is what I really believe they are. This is not just a question of technical improvement, this is a new kind of relationship that we are introducing between journalist and PR Pros, and this is what whe must help them realise. Press rooms are now definitely open to their request, thoughts, complains.
Our client have CRM. I think we now have "JRM" thanks to weblogs: "Journalism relationship management". And this should be also part of the "New PR".
Dan Gillmor, from the San Jose Mercury News has a post on his blog in which he says if I remember well, how he likes to receive informations from PR Pros and what kind of method he hates. I think weblogs (and "PressBlogs) should really help us, journalists and PR pro, optimizing the efficiency of our dayly collaboration, journalist have alos here a chance to see their email box less spammed with uninteresting pitches, as they can decide themselve what kind of information they want to receive from us in subscribing the appropriate syndication feed.
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