Skills day: Philip Pothen and Sharon Watson: news as a marketing tool
My task is to introduce an ancient concept - news - and discuss why it is still important and why it is important in a JISC context and what it can do for our services and organisations.
I looked at some Services yesterday and found about three and half news items per month per service. If that’s symptomatic we may be missing a trick. We need to think about news carefully and how it relates to other technologies. It gives important indicators of what an organisation is about. It says that there is lots of stuff going on.
What is our news saying about us as an organisation? What kind of a difference does it suggest we’re making? what part are we playing in the wider environment
A vigorous news culture says that it is at the heart of a range of activities and that they have energy and importance. It’s more than a marketing tool, it is symbolic of the organisation. It’s about vigour and self-importance, about honesty and accuracy and attention to detail.
In the past we’ve had issues about wordiness of what we say and we do have things to address as far as that’s concerned. News also goes to the heart of our comms activities in general. News can relate to blogging - we can alert bloggers to what we’re doing and generate interest in that way. News can tie in all our comms activities. It can lead to press and PR coverage.
The web has had an extraordinary impact on news in general. Who would have thought,a few years ago, that the Telegraph’s website would be such an example of good practice? It’s changed the way we access and demand news. Online lends itself to news - immediate, accessible, reproducible, customisable and personalisable. And it doesn’t need to take up much time - the demand is for concise news.
Third plea is not to forget print as it is important to integrate all our communication channels - blogs and wikis might not be the way to engage vice-chancellors, for example. Ned to use appropriate channels for appropriate messages. We need to serve all our users and they are not all early adopters. We must not just use technology for its own sake.
Sharon Watson - print and online - newsletters
Is print dead? Is one better than the other?
What’s the purpose of a newsletter?
Marketing - telling people what you’re doing and how with your own spin on it
Web newsletters: not the easy option that it appears.
Word counts: keep it short and concise, make the text searchable and the navigation simple, don’t have large chunks of text, be an editor and ensure consistency and quality - word limits in print are for a reason - lack of space - but online although you don’t have that constraint you still need to be concerned with word limits so that people know what to expect, how long it will take to read. Cut overlong, rambling copy to ensure that readers can find what they want quickly. Don’t be afraid to wield the axe. Put the important information at the start - use headlines, standfirsts, bullet points, pull-out text, anything to break it up and make it easier to get through.
Pages: use a narrow main column with copy in the middle and then columns either side if need be for extra information such as quotes, fast facts etc
Covers: still need to announce that you have a newsletter appearing on the web page with a masthead - catches attention, shows that it is up to date. Bring in an attention-grabbing cover and use cover lines - short, clickable headlines - to draw people in.
Distribution: same issue for new and old media - how do you alert people of the new issue? An up to date mailing list and use and email newsletter alert: regular mini e-newsletters to support new editions. reminds people you exist and can promote other areas of your site.
Print newsletters
Will always be a market for print newsletters and publications. Easier to carry - think commuters. Doesn’t require technology. Doesn’t crash.
What makes a good print newsletter? Clarity of purpose - readability - clear layout
Sharon’s previous newsletter workshop for JISC can be read here:
Promoting your service through news
Print v online: who wins?
ONLINE: fast, easy to access, easy to archive material
PRINT: long term portable, detailed diagrams and high quality images
INTEGRATION: print newsletters do not work on the web but are useful as a record - attaching them as PDFs can work but do not really work for onscreen viewing - but can adapt by adapting the layout and breaking up the text, adding hyperlinks, video etc - not double the work to repurpose the material - result is complementary
Example of good integrated approach: Edina newsonline
Ultimately, quality of material more important than the medium you use
Questions
Q: PDFs - cascading stylesheets (CSS) could allow you to produce a print-quality PDF to reduce the work. CSS separates style and structure and can have different stylesheets for different purposes so can have one stylesheet for looking at it on screen and another for printing out so could bring in a specific banner headline for a print version that you wouldn’t have for an online version. Producing a good stylesheet is a web designer skill.
Q: agree about importance of getting news from people. A good motivating factor for people is being able to monitor the follow-up by using things like Technorati etc to find out what people are saying and get that personal satisfaction. Also means that you can follow-up if they point out errors etc. To be able to respond to comments straight away is also important.
Philip: Brian, as a blogger yourself, to what extent can we write to you and tell you about something that’s coming up?
Brian: no harm in asking. you have a responsibility to your reader so do not want to act like an advertiser for someone else but if it fits with your interests then it can work. You need to think about ethical blogging.
Philip: a blogger is a kind of editor using the same skills of any editor, distilling, saying no to things etc
Sarah: working for an RSC we would definitely take nws items. we do get some contributions for JISC Services already and if we can get news items camera ready then we would priobably just put them in as is
Philip: new sharing is a sign of a robust news culture
Stuart: we wouldn’t reuse it in the same way but we would comment on developments that fitted with our OSS interest
Question: same rules for email newsletters?
Sharon: I would use an email newsletter just as a taster to draw people into the website to read the longer newsletter. I don’t think people want to read lots of info in an email format. You can get off-the-peg templates you can use.
Brian: risk of it being ‘evil marketeering’ while other think it is expected. The key is to give your users choice. Alays give the opportunity to unsubscribe
Comment: good example is Philip’s JISC Headlines which works really well.
Philip: it brings everything together in one go to avoid having to send out lots of emails
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Well, I cant agree more.