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Virtual Press Office

By Sally Powell, CSR Consultant

You’re doing great work, engaging people in new and innovative projects but how do you communicate with journalists when you’re a small team with limited resources? That’s where the Virtual Press Office comes in.

What is a Virtual Press Office?

It’s a dedicated area on your website, for journalists who are developing news stories and feature articles, and might want to use information from your organisation. Also commonly referred to as an online media or press centre.

Here you will find current and archived press releases, fact sheets, news of forthcoming events, case studies and perhaps a library with images.

You’re reading this and thinking, well our website has much of that information on it already. But is it in one, dedicated place where someone with limited time would find it?

For example, I work for a newspaper and I heard that our local MP attended one of your events recently. The virtual press office is where I would expect to find a press release or possibly a photo from that event.

OR

I’m doing some research for a student newspaper on families with disabled children. I want to know some facts and figures which show how many disabled children there are in the UK, and what day to day life is like for them and their families. I would expect to find this in the Virtual Press Office, perhaps with a link to some case studies.

Encouraging further communication

A Virtual Press Office can also be a great way to encourage further communication, through email alerts or RSS feeds

By encouraging website visitors to sign up for email alerts, you can email them about forthcoming events or latest news for example.

If you have a bit more time, you can always set up an RSS feed, so that interested parties can register to receive updates to their email account.

Sorry, what is RSS?

RSS stands for 'Really Simple Syndication'. It is new technique for having pages from websites appear automatically on your desktop. Unlike a web page, which you have to visit, the news comes to you. It is similar to email but the big difference is that you decide which websites you want to receive information from. Websites that support RSS usually show the RSS icon 

In order to get an RSS feed from a website that displays this icon, you will need what's called an 'RSS Reader'. There are lots of free ones out there (see links below). In addition, the big names are starting to provide them. For more information on RSS see the Knowledgebase article What is RSS?

Windows

Awasu www.awasu.com
Newz Crawler www.newzcrawler.com
FeedDemon www.feeddemon.com

MAC OSX

NetNewsWire ranchero.com/netnewswire
Newsfire www.newsfirerss.com

Web

Bloglines www.bloglines.com
NewsGator www.newsgator.com

How do I get started with an RSS?

Pick an RSS reader. Then go to a site you want to follow (which supports RSS) and click on the orange RSS icon. You'll then see a load of code (called XML). Don't worry - this is normal!

Depending on the RSS reader you have, there are various ways to add the feed, such as by dragging the URL of the RSS feed into your reader, or copying and pasting it. For more details, follow the instructions on the reader's website.

Creating an effective Virtual Press Office

The most effective Virtual Press Office is updated regularly with focused and simple information. Simplicity really is the key, do not feel you have to overload this area with all the content you have.

Consider what the most frequently asked questions you receive from journalists are, could you create fact sheets for these and add them to your website. Do you have case studies or photos about some of your service users that you could include here.

If you have limited time to update the site then try to include information that will not date as quickly. But remember, your website is often the face of your organization, and it is worth investing time in maintenance and keeping it fresh.

Include a contact

Always include a contact number and/or email on the website so that if journalists want more information or clarity they can get in touch.

For inspiration, take a look at the following websites, who all do the Virtual Press Office thing well!

http://www.rspb.org.uk/media/

http://www.tht.org.uk/mediacentre/

http://www.cafamily.org.uk/press.html