2012newsroom survey reportresources.mynewsdesk.com/image/upload/yeogrcfbxiuf0zzgspye.pdfmoreover,...

Bulldog Reporter / TEKGROUP International

Meeting Expectations; Generating Coverage

2012

Copyright © 2012 TEKGROUP

Journalists expect your organization to have an online newsroom. In today’s digital era, where news breaks around the clock, millions of people are sharing news stories using social media and fewer journalists are responsible for more content -- your organization needs an online newsroom to remain competitive

Online Newsroom Survey Report


Lisa Buyer, The Buyer GroupOnline newsrooms are the lifeline for PR and also a huge boost for SEO. If more than 50% are visiting your online newsroom once a week and 64% on a monthly basis, that number should motivate company news makers to deliver fresh content and package it in a way that is organized and user-friendly as well social media friendly.

The final results of a national survey conducted by TEKGROUP International highlighting the importance of creating and frequently maintaining an online newsroom as a centralized headquarters of communications content for your organization. The online survey - which specifically measured acceptance, use, and expectations of working journalists toward corporate and organizational online newsrooms - garnered more than 1,000 responses in three waves of polling from November 15, 2011 through January 15, 2012.

How often do you visit an organization’s online newsroom?

2012


98% of journalists think it somewhat impor-tant (15%), important (33%), or very important (49%) for a company or organization to have an online news-room available to the press.

98% of journalists say it’s somewhat impor-tant (8%), important (34%), or very important (56%) for a company to provide access to news releases within their online newsroom


2012


How important is it for an organization to have an online newsroom available?

98% of journalists surveyed said it is some-what important (9%), important (24%) or very impor-tant (65%) to find PR contact information within an online newsroom.

98% of journalists agreed the ability to search news archives within an online newsroom is somewhat important (10%), important (36%) or very important (52%) to their work.

Some statistics to think about:


2012


JOURNALISTS EXPECT YOU TO HAVE AN ONLINE NEWSROOMOver the past fourteen years, journalists have increasingly found online newsrooms useful and important. In our research, we tried to measure frequency of usage, overall importance, and expectations.

And, not surprisingly in today’s digital media environment, expectations are understandably high. 98% of journal-ists think it somewhat important (15%), important (33%), or very important (49%) for a company or organization to have an online newsroom available to the press. Moreover, 28% of working journalists visit a corporate online newsroom once a week with 26% indicating they visit every day.

In the past, small-to-medium sized organizations might have thought that having an online newsroom was only for large companies. But with the rise in social media and the increasing need for search engine optimized con-tent, all organizations need to take advantage of an online newsroom. 87% of journalists surveyed said they visit both large and small-to-medium sized organization online newsrooms.

When asked about the usefulness of an online newsroom, as you would expect, journalists sing their praises. 82% agreed that using an online newsroom increases their productivity, 86% said that they’d be using an online news-room in the next six months, and 78% said they actually like working with online newsrooms. Providing easy-to-find, relevant, timely content is certainly one way to help increase your chances of coverage.

Do you visit online newsrooms for small-to-medium sized organizations, as well as large organizations?


2012


JOURNALISTS PREFER EMAIL DISTRIBUTION; BUT WIRELESS CATCHING ONMost successful online newsrooms incorporate distribution into their publishing process. This allows communicators to quickly target journalists with specific, relevant news about their organization. The results of this year’s survey point to a strong reliance on e-mail as the preferred method of news and pitch delivery.

95% of working journalists prefer to receive news, information and story pitches from a company via e-mail alerts with phone call (1%) and text message (1%) being the least preferred method of notification. Related to distribution method, nearly 80% of journalists say they only want to get news and information that applies to their research or writing.

As more and more people use mobile devices, it is no surprise to see that more than 60% of journalists see the ability to receive news via their wireless device as important to their work – with almost 10% saying that wireless is very im-portant. About the same percentage rate getting news via an online newsroom RSS feed as somewhat important (35%), important (20%), or very important (7%).

How important is it to receive news to a wireless/mobile device from an online newsroom?

CONTENT IS KING, STILL One of the biggest values of an online newsroom is that it can store all of your valuable communications content. And, it is great for search engine optimization. And so, as expected, almost 99% of journalists say it’s somewhat important (9%), important (34%), or very important (56%) for a company to provide access to news releases within their online newsroom. And not just access is important, but also targeted and categorized news with 93% saying that it is important to have news releases organized by type of news.

94% of journalists say it’s somewhat important (14%), important (28%), or very important (52%) to have access to photographs – both web and print ready – within an online newsroom. They also want access to product information within an online newsroom with 90% indicating the availability of such information would be somewhat important (25%), important (34%) or very important (30%) for their work.

Interestingly, traditional journalists seem to be looking for multimedia digital assets in greater numbers when using the online newsroom with 61% saying audio files are important and even more (75%) saying video files are an important component of an online newsroom.

When asked how important Investor Relations is to have in an online newsroom, an alarming 81% of journalists said it was important, with 25% saying it was very important. Using an online newsroom for web disclosure is one way to ensure compliance and to generate additional exposure for your financial information.

Journalists are united in their call for breaking news being available in an online newsroom with more than 94% indicating they believe it is somewhat important (14%), important (34%), or very important (45%) for a company to provide this information online.


2012


Deirdre Breakenridge, Pure Performance CommunicationsThe numbers are increasing in favor of accessing company financial informa-tion within an online newsroom, and we'll see this trend continue to climb in the future. The newsroom has changed drastically over the past 10 years, with journalists, bloggers, investors, partners, customers and employees having quick and easy access to information.


2012


How important is it to access Investor Relations information within an online newsroom?

How important is it to access photographs (high and low resolution) within an online newsroom?


2012


How often do you visit blogs related to a company, product or service that you are researching?

THE SOCIAL ONLINE NEWSROOMNews consumers are sharing stories, photos and videos like never before, and the trend does not appear to be slowing. Facebook is on pace to reach 1,000,000,000 users in May 2012 and new social media news sharing services are appearing almost daily. Your online newsroom increasingly needs to be social-ized.

78% of survey respondents think it is somewhat important (32%), important (31%), or very important (15%) to access links to a company’s social media sites from within the online newsroom.

Use of corporate blogs seems to be trending upward as well among this group with nearly 92% of re-spondents indicating they visit the corporate blog when researching a news story.

More than 26% of journalists visit a company’s Facebook page often (20%) or very often (6%) when researching a story. Twitter is also becoming an increasingly accepted use as a source of news and infor-mation with 43% of journalists indicating they would possibly (34%) or definitely (9%) prefer to receive news and information via a timely tweet.


2012


How important is it to access a page within an online newsroom that links to all of a organization’s social media environments (i.e. YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn)?

Do you want to receive news from a organization’s Twitter feed?


2012


SURVEY DEMOGRAPHICS & METHODOLOGYThere is no doubt of the importance of the online newsroom. The initial benefits of cost and time savings still exist. And with the rise of social media, an online newsroom now can be a centralized headquarters for your communications content.

The 2012 Online Newsroom Survey sample was predominantly focused on traditional media outlets including print, magazine, broadcast, and radio. Additionally, this year we added a core focus of “Online Media Outlet” which includes blogs and Internet newspapers, and magazines. 19% of respondents were from this new category.

The largest industry sectors reported by the survey sample were city/metro reporters (8%), business reporters (5%), government/politics (7%), technology (7%), healthcare (7%), and sports/recreation (5%).

Gender was split in the survey sample between male (49.6%) and female (50.4%).

The largest age group for the survey sample was 46-55 (28.4%), followed closely by the 36-45 age group (24.6%). The survey succeeded in capturing a wide range of age groups with the 26-35 group comprising 20% of the sample, and 56-65 year olds capturing 18% of the pie.

63% of the survey sample indicated their general Internet experience and proficiency as advanced with 11% of the sur-vey sample rating themselves as technology “know-it-alls.”

ABOUT TEKGROUP INTERNATIONALTEKGROUP International, Inc. is an award winning Internet software and services company that develops social media online newsrooms and e-business software solutions. Our website can be found at http://www.tekgroup.com and you can also follow our Online Newsroom Twitter account at http://www.twitter.com/onlinenewsroom

TEKGROUP clients include AAA, Accenture, Carlson Hotels Worldwide, CIGNA, Detroit Lions, Ford Motor Com-pany, PRSA, Prudential Financial, Starbucks, VMS, and Walgreens.

2012newsroom survey reportresources.mynewsdesk.com/image/upload/yeogrcfbxiuf0zzgspye.pdfmoreover,...

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