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

news.missouristate.edu

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andreamostyn@missouristate.edu bradmitchell@missouristate.edu