6 Uses for a Brand Newsroom - Now.

The Internet’s unprecedented emergence as a communications tool has brought with it many opportunities?—?and challenges?—?for large consumer products companies. App based engagement, geolocation, bots and Digital conversations number in the millions, daily. The exponential rise of these interactions between the brand and its consumer, news media, regulators, consumer protection organizations and brand extension partners creates a complex multi-dimensional and often dialog that’s hard to distill with even the most advanced social media monitoring tools.

One solution to this challenge is for a company to “own” a sector specific to its brand category. In other words, it needs to put in place a Digital Media Center (DMC).

Rooted in a journalism-based content strategy, the DMC’s function is to deliver high-quality curated information, data and content rapidly and efficiently to a broad range of stakeholders, thus creating a constant stream of sector-specific information flow. This isn’t a mouthpiece for the brand; instead, it’s a channel of information for which the brand is an expert (e.g., Starbucks and sustainable growing, General Mills and nutrition, Pfizer and pharma). The key to success for a brand-specific DMC channel is that it encompasses all industry news instead of just a silo of company-specific news.

The benefits of launching a DMC apply to two spheres?—?the external one and the internal one. Here are six different uses, or channels, for a sector-based content strategy:

1. “Must Know” Internal News Feed. A behind-the-firewall DMC channel accessible only to brand executives provides company leadership with a one-stop destination for mission critical information. To develop content for the channel, the DMC distills select keywords, sentiment and mentions about the brand from online monitoring tools and makes them available in an easy-to-use format. The data stream has to be translated into real world, usable content. Updated daily, the DMC leads with compelling content and news that all managers at a pre-determined level must know about the company and its sector as they make decisions that influence the direction of efforts.

2. Corporate Knowledge Center. A DMC can serve as an internal digital “broadcast” center for peer-to-peer use within the global brand community. In addition to sharing information gleaned from online monitoring tools, the DMC platform is perfect for distributing other internal digital assets (e.g., conference presentations, CEO employee messages) to an internal audience that may be far-flung across multiple time zones.

3. Journalism Workplace. A DMC can give the journalism community a simple pathway to high-quality, useful material. With a secure repository of controlled video and news worthy content, the brand can offer journalists wishing to acquire this content the opportunity to download high-quality sector-based offerings that range from executive sound bites regarding current events to packaged stock footage of relevant products and production processes to news clips, press releases, graphics and story collateral. If desired, the brand can require journalists to register for access, which gives a brand the opportunity pre-publication to learn about opportunities to engage with interested parties.

4. Crisis Communications. Another DMC element should be a specific channel to be used in tandem with a brand’s existing crisis management plans. This would be a one-stop location for interested parties and stakeholders to find and access high-quality video and related assets that supports the strategy deployed by executives when a crisis or special situation arises.

5. Internet Community Management. A DMC is perfectly positioned to share and create content designed to mature and enhance conversations beneficial to the brand. Providing key bloggers and Internet influentials a rich media digital asset repository created by a brand can fill their need for content and build powerful relationships.

6. Video Archive. The DMC creates a digital asset repository for use with other brand content management and digital asset management initiatives. All content created in the DMC can be fully indexed, conform to existing overarching brand taxonomies and deepen the rich media available for re-purposing within the company, making it an authenticated video source and workspace for internal Web producers using whatever access controls a brand decides.

The idea of a DMC is starting to catch on, with more organizations creating their own brand media destination to serve up easy-to-access, “snackable” content, corporate positioning and high-quality video for its stakeholders.

For example, Coca Cola keeps a close eye on industry, opportunity and culture via it’s newsroom site, while Autoline has made its “any format, any time” daily news broadcasts an indispensible part of the automobile value chain’s executive brief. And as one of the world’s top management consulting firms like Accenture, Merkle and KPMG have teams that create daily abstracts with information pulled from global news organizations for each of its business sectors. The firm’s senior consultants review this information before beginning their workday.

Developing a DMC for your brand is now critical in a world where digital content, certainly video, have become an increasingly popular part of users’ online experiences. We now live in a world where almost two-thirds of U.S. adults now watch videos online, according to a study released by the Pew Internet & American Life Project. Now is the time for more brands to take on a brand media mindset and put digital video and storytelling to work to keep executives, journalists, consumers and the company proactively engaged in a connected, challenging digital world.

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