When it comes to content… Go local!
Why your global newsroom should localize content as much as possible.
How to Optimize your Newsroom for International Audiences Part 3 of 4
Doing business on an international level is no longer solely in the domain of the multinational corporations. In essence, any organization with a website has access to global markets. But the idea of adapting your newsroom to a multilingual destination may still seem both expensive and daunting. It is therefore worth understanding the many potential benefits that await by doing so.
In essence, a localized newsroom will allow you to gain more traction in a new market - and thus provide more exposure for your product and services. Here are 5 simple tips to keep in mind when going local:
1. Serve them well
If your business is serious about a specific geographical market, it should make a statement by taking its potential audiences seriously. By localizing content - not only its language, but also thematically - an organization demonstrates understanding the market they are in, and show genuine intent in building market relations, including the media.
In the past, localizing content would have been a major competitive business advantage. These days however, not having it can be seen more as a ‘disqualifier.’ The basic rule here is simple: If you are not doing it, you can rest assured your competition is.
But how does that work with media relations? Not much different really. The attention span of Internet audiences is short, however, that of journalists on a deadline might even be shorter. Translation and interpretation of news releases is not only a tedious, but also a time-consuming act. Having reporters translate your message for local publication will decrease the chance of earned media conversion tremendously.
2. Improved search ranking
For those of you new to digital PR, SEO (search engine optimization) has been an important factor in making your news easy to find, easy to crawl, and easy to categorize. It is about helping your audiences find your content from among other sources.
When done well, localizing your newsroom will increase your search ranking for a specific language (or geographical market). According to the Similar Web Search Report, organic search equates close to 95% of all traffic.
Good news for Anglo Saxon companies extending their business and media relations efforts to non-English speaking countries: in languages other than English, there is significantly less competition in SEO keywords. This would allow your newsroom’s localized content to contribute to bottom line web traffic a lot quicker.
3. Media and influencer lists
SEO and social are great ways to drive traffic to your website. However, in both cases, these require organic growth and thus a ‘warmup period’ before they become effective.
A good alternative is to also work with media and influencer lists. There are many global and local media and influencer database providers. In most cases they allow the user to select contacts by region, type of outlet and subject expertise. Besides these basic selection criteria, databases often also indicate the best - or preferred - way to get in touch with these contacts.
4. Establish credibility
Credibility is gained when newsroom visitors have a pleasant experience interacting with your brand’s news. Not being able to understand your content will hamper that goal. Therefore, before spending time and resources on ‘bells and whistles,’ ensure you get the fundamentals right:
- Your newsroom should generally only include relevant news releases for the specific market it is targeting. All other news is effectively irrelevant and therefore distracting
- Clearly present your media contacts
- Ensure media kits, fact sheets and biographies are localized
- Use tags with keywords for search engine optimization
- Hire a professional translator to take care of translations. Not only for body copy, but also for photography, infographics and video captions
- Make sure images -whenever possible- are market specific
For more tips: download the whitepaper Essentials of a Stellar Newsroom.
5. Make or buy?
Do you ask IT to build your global newsrooms? Or can you get a superior off-the-shelf product that looks like you built it yourselves and features a seamless experience in each of your regional markets?
The good news is that a global newsroom rollout can be done at a fraction of the in-house costs and with technology and workflow far superior to what your IT team can build.
For more information, read Should you custom-build an online newsroom—or buy one off the shelf?
PressPage provides a SaaS PR platform with additional services for creation of advanced social newsrooms, virtual press centers and online media hubs. It enables brands to publish and distribute rich content, and provides direct insights into the results. PressPage empowers PR professionals by adding efficiency and effectiveness to their daily work routine.