2013 Online Newsroom and Media Relations Report

Presented by: Sally Falkow APR, PRESSfeed 8th Annual SNCR Research Symposium November 7, 2013, Thomson Reuters Boston Office www.sncr.org

2013 Online Newsroom & Media Relations Survey

2013 ONLINE NEWSROOM &

MEDIA RELATIONS SURVEY

2012

2013

The Rise of Visual Content

“Create unique, compelling

content that readers want to

share. The days of writing

keyword-laden, sales-pitchy

blog posts are long gone.

Readers want content that

informs, inspires, or

entertains, and when they

love it, they will share it.”

PR Newswire

Businesswire/

SEO-PR

PR in Search

Award

Images in Newsrooms

51% of top 100 brands failed to

provide images of sufficient

quality in their online newsroom

30% of top 100 brands fail to provide

even the most basic of image

libraries

Videos in Newsrooms

To yield positive results, newsrooms must be truly

“media friendly,” containing resources like high res

images, logos, video assets and infographics.

12% of video libraries were closed off to

anyone that hadn’t registered as a member of

the press.

Use a Search Engine for Researching a Story

Always 47%

Most of the time 42%

89%

Text 71%

Images 53%

Videos 45%

A Note on the Survey Respondents

• 71% of respondents said they optimize the text in

releases for search.

• A study of wire services (PR Newswire,

Businesswire, Marketwired, PR Web) shows that

less than 20% of releases submitted are

optimized for search.

Optimizing Multimedia

• 45% say they optimize

images and video

• This is not the average

• Very few images and video

in corporate newsrooms

are correctly optimized for

search

Google: Links in Press Releases

• Press releases are

regarded as “owned”

not “earned” content

• Links are not counted

for SEO

• Too many links and

Google news will not

index the release

• Not in the first 150

words

Link to the Corporate Newsroom

• Make the newsroom

the hub of your news

content

• Use it to house the

assets you want to add

to a release.

• Link to that page of the

newsroom

Journalists’ Use of Social Media

• Use social media to find stories 59%

• Use social media to find sources 56%

How Important is a Company’s Newsroom?

82%

Very important 53%

Important 29%

97%

Very Important 60%

Important 37%

Important Newsroom Features

Newsroom Features for Journalists

Does Your Newsroom Meet the Needs of Journalists?

Definitely 15%

Probably 40%

Probably Not 40%

Definitely Not 5%

INC 500 (Average 14%)

What do PR Pros Want in a Newsroom?

1. Featured story with images

2. Image Gallery

3. Video Gallery

4. Integrated with a wire service

5. Able to make media lists and email reporters

6. Automatic syndication of headlines to social channels

7. Syndication feed to media sites and blogs

8. Search Engine Optimization built in

9. Easy-to-use content management system PR can control

10.Analytics to track results