IT TAKES A LOT MORE THAN PRESS RELEASES (YAWN) TO MAKE YOUR ONLINE PRESS ROOM WORK
by B.L.Ochman

If you think putting your company press releases online (yawn) and calling it a Press Room might help you get media coverage, think again. You've got a long way to go before you can expect journalists to take your Press Room seriously.

The Number One rule for developing an online Press Room is to think like a journalist. Think about the information that could be most helpful to someone writing a story about your company and then make it available. Like many things that can impact on how a company is perceived, doing a good job at an online Press Room is a complicated process. And it's one that can have a substantial positive payoff.

To learn the best and worst practices of Web site Press Rooms, my partner, Karma Martell, and I analyzed the content of approximately 50. We looked at the Fortune 10, and at top Internet-only companies, bricks and clicks companies and companies whose which have had controversial or negative news in the past year.

In the best online Press Rooms journalists are given solid, relatively fluff-free information - sometimes even negative information - that can help them write their stories. And while press releases in a media area of a site may be helpful for financial results, they don't have much use beyond that.

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