An online press room is more comprehensive than an about us page or a press kit. Your pressroom is a set of documents and resources used by journalists learn more information about your company. Before building your press room it is essential to think like a journalist and offer information that is completely timely, relevant, and fluff-free.

Think like a journalist

Journalists constantly seek fresh story ideas need information rich content and credible sources to back their articles. They are often on a deadline and juggling numerous projects so offering quick access to the information they seek already gives you’re company and edge over the competition

Usability

Make your pressroom easy to find with a top level tab and organize the information within the press pages logically. The pages need to load quickly and contain with valuable and timely information. Journalists spend a lot of time online and will be more irritated by slow loading page than impressed by flashy graphics or PDF documents.

Organizing your pressroom

Create a page with html links with the topic title and a short description of the contents within the topic. For example:

News Clippings
Articles mentioning XYZ Company

• Fact Sheet
• Frequently asked questions
• News Clippings
• Press releases
• Story ideas
• Company background
• Executive bios
• Quotes
• Photos, graphics, and charts
• Impartial source list
• Contact information

Stocking your online press room

The items in the list below are suggestions for inclusion. Choose only the most relevant of these items for your press room if you have enough valuable content to create a section or combine similar items to limit lots of shallow categories and unnecessary clicking.

Fact sheet

Offer journalists brief snippets of highly relevant content about your products and services, reasons why your company stands apart from the competition, original research and study results, etc.

Frequently Asked Questions

Save journalists and yourself time by offering a list of questions frequently asked by the media. Update your FAQ on a regular basis when you come across new questions that aren’t included on the list. The more time you can save a journalist by providing information up front, the more likely your company will receive press over a competitor that forces a journalist to dig for information.

Press Releases

News outlets will often print your press releases verbatim or make a few edits to make them more relevant to their particular publication. This gives journalists a starting point for story ideas and offers some insight into angles that have already been covered. Be sure to date all of your press releases and don’t strip out contact information. Add the option for journalists to subscribe to your press releases for access to upcoming news topics.

News Clippings

Make it easy for journalists to find relative information about your company within the article. Organize the news clippings by date and include the publishing company’s name, the article title, a link to the full article, and a short paragraph from the article in which your company is mentioned. Television and radio coverage and interviews can also be sectioned off under news clippings. Include the media files as well as transcripts in addition to reference information.

Story Ideas

A common yet widely underused practice is to offer story ideas for journalists. No one knows your product and how it relates to the market better than you and you don’t need to wait for people to figure it out. Offering journalists powerful story ideas is beneficial for you, the journalist, and interested readers.

Company Information

If you already have an About Us page with company information, it’s fine to repeat some of the information in a context that is relevant to the press. Journalists will often comment on company history to give an article additional depth.

Executive Bios

Short, relevant, biographies about the founders or management team can be useful for journalists to insert throughout articles and back up claims or actions with facts from past successes and accomplishments.

Quotes

Quotes help bring articles to life and most journalists will include them to write a richer article. Offer a few quotes for journalists to include that help to simply explain the personal opinions and observations.

Photos, graphics, and charts

Make it simple for journalists to build a complete article with images and supporting graphical material. Offer relevant images of event photos, charts and graphs, website screenshots, and logos in a variety of file types and sizes.

Impartial Source List

List some names of authoritative individuals that journalists can contact for unbiased information. You may also wish to include a list of clients and contact information along with testimonials from satisfied customers.

Media Contact Information

Make it simple for journalists to get in touch with the correct people at your company. List contact information and short biographies of area experts within the company along with one main contact name and a personal email address (as opposed to press @). State the expected amount of time it will take you to respond as journalists are usually working with short deadlines and need to know if a contact is worth attempting.

nGenuity Solutions is committed to helping small businesses become successful in the ever changing online world. Drop us a line if you've got an internet business success story, a horror story, or are just plain frustrated and have a question. With your permission, we will post your story below the article so that others can learn from your experiences!

Christine Harrell is a small business internet marketing consultant and the cofounder of nGenuity Solutions. nG's flagship product Easy Website Builder gives small businesses the necessary tools to build profitable websites through real time visitor analysis and push-button web publishing.