Corporate Use of Social Media Newsrooms

Av David Thulin 11 januari, 2009

A social media newsroom is to me not a blog platform. It is not a series of plugins, it is not rich media, it is not transparency or conversation. It is a communications revolution, it is dramatic organizational change, and perhaps more than anything else, it is guts.

Guts to completely change the way the communications departments function, think and act.

In my discussions with corporations large and small, there seems to be a recurring trend how the conversation goes:

• Awesome! I saw somebody else do it! I want to!
• Oh, it needs attention? I need to dedicate resources?
• People can comment on my press releases? No way!
• But this changes everything!

Somewhere along the line, most companies who have approached give the idea up. They simply stick to sending press releases. Via fax.

But the few who actually dare to throw themselves out there, into the community of online conversations and conversationalists, almost always seem to be happy in the end. I think it is because they were forced into the online world, and that they for the first time really saw the effects of their communicative efforts.

One particularly brave client of mine took the idea of a newsroom way further than I had originally anticipated. He started following the bloggers who linked and commented his blog, and then started speaking to them. First via mutual blog commenting, and then via email and phone. He had found, and created relationships with, influencers significantly more influential than any media list could ever provide.

And to me, that really sums it up. A Social Media Newsroom today is much more than the technology or the content filling the technology. It is more than the trends and the widgets: it is the fundamental shift in thinking and communications department work. It is an antennae into an online world often perceived as scary, and a communications vehicle quick and effective enough to really make a difference.

My fearless prediction: corporations will continue to embrace online corporate communications. The brave ones will likely do it with a Social Media Newsroom, of this generation or next.