A presentation for the Public Relations Society of America Western District Conference in Palm Springs, California, April 28-30, 2010.

Everything about Online Newsrooms — Lead and reach major news outlets

Date: April 29, 2010

Time: 3:30 to 4:30 p.m.

Place: Riviera Resort & Spa in Palm Springs, California

Cost: $225 | view PDF conference brochure

RSVP: PRSAIE.org

Description

A media room is ground zero for publishing news and information about your organization on the Web. Of all the information shared about you online, your own press room should lead the way in delivering timely, factual updates with supporting multimedia items.

Yet many corporate communicators remain dependent upon IT and Web design personnel to publish newsroom information online.

In this session the creator of the NewsCactus online newsroom software, Pete Codella, will walk you through the features of a newsroom most requested by journalists. He’ll share newsroom case studies and best practices. And he’ll discuss the pros and cons of hosted and non-hosted newsroom solutions.

In this session you’ll learn how to:

• Publish press releases online utilizing Really Simple Syndication (RSS) to deliver content in multiple ways
• Design a newsroom that incorporates the most important elements including media contacts, a searchable archive of announcements, and press kits
• Determine the best approach for your organization: build a newsroom yourself or use a hosted service
• Produce content that supports the search optimization strategy of your organization
• Utilize multimedia — documents, images, logos, video and audio files — to tell more of your story
• Establish a newsroom and following that serves as a benchmark for your industry
• Optimize your press releases for social media sharing

It was held at the Rice-Eccles Stadium on the University of Utah campus.

It just so happens that Saturday is the University of Utah versus Brigham Young University football game — it’s one of the biggest rivalries in these here parts.

During the presentation of the awards, the University of Utah marching band took to the field and began practicing. It was a clear, comic reminder of where we were dining.

Here are a couple photos I snapped from up above the stands where we were meeting. It’s too bad I didn’t get a shot of the view to the west because it was amazing – you could see the whole valley! And it’s too bad I don’t have access to this area on Saturday, but maybe my BYU blue wouldn’t be welcome up there.

I enjoyed the luncheon and meeting business communicators living and working in this area. There were more than 150 people in attendance and the event was done much like this year’s Bronze Quill Awards luncheon in Las Vegas, presented by IABC/Las Vegas (missing you guys!).

I like that the two organizations partner on the annual awards. It takes a large event and cuts costs in half for each presenting organization. Makes sense to me (cents too).

It’s good to have these affiliations and rub shoulders with fellow PR and marketing professionals.