#onlinemediaroom

Well, here I am, I made it through month 11 of The Online Media Room.  My original goals consisted of:

·      Learning how to manage online media assets within an organization’s webpage,

·      Supporting both internal and external PR messages, and

·      Learning methods on how to strengthen a corporate web presence.

This month we learned several viewpoints from different online media rooms, some of these viewpoints make sense (while I would consider the others to best practices), that is if you want reporters to keep coming back to your OMR (online media room).  Some takeaways or smart additions that I want to add to my OMR would be:

·      A section of high-resolution photographs with my staff, logos, events held or attended, and relevant pictures or images.

·      A section of audio and video files, such as advertisements, B-roll, past conferences, news stories, speeches, and public service announcements.  These files would provide a download time, organized by file format, and size (that way the person downloading the file or files knows what to expect).

·      A calendar of events that you are attending, this may encourage the media to attend and get your possible exposure.  After the event, post a summary of what all happened, and include photographs.  It is said that a picture is worth a thousand words.

·      Lastly, I want to include awards, honors, or milestone achievements for myself or my business.  This type of positivity would boost morale for myself or my team, but it would also show others how we roll at The Rox Star Report.

This course has taught me the importance of keeping my website up to date with relevant topics and how to speak with one organizational voice, this will create a consistent site personality.  Another important factor to remember is to create a browser friendly online media room.  Things to consider are the specific target market, needs of the demographic, and what is your organization trying to accomplish or achieve.  These important things will keep the consumer coming back.  Do not use acronyms, jargon, or high-tech programs because your consumer may not understand or have connection issues.  Always think about how you can improve and update, there is always something new up and coming.

Reference: 

Patel, N.  (2020).  A Picture Says a Thousand Words: 10 Ways to Make Your Blog Visually Appealing.  [Online Image].  Retrieved on February 28, 2021, from: https://neilpatel.com/blog/a-picture-says-a-thousand-words-10-ways-to-make-your-blog-visually-appealing/

The course The Online Media Room has impacted my take on media relations and the PR world. Over the course of four weeks and the goals and objectives were made and provided in this course. Initially when I thought Online Media Room my thought was creating a space for others to view your work. Though it does offer examples of work for the public to view, it gives a more interactive feel.

The readings were very informative and useful resources to use. The discussions were based off of case studies that shared relatable topics to that week’s assignment. Not only were the discussions case study based but they provided opportunity for peer reviews and shared thoughts. This course showed me how to prepare for good and bad media and how to handle both.

The assignments showed me as a public relations specialist how to plan, promote, produce, and distribute content. Over these four weeks I have gained strength in evaluating and learning how to effectively reach my target audience. My peers were more interactive this course which is where the critique was provided to help us edit and make revisions to our media page. Tools and many resources were provided during this course to help structure the media room that we created this month.

Just like that another month has come and gone. This week   I’ve wrapped up the online media room course of the public relations masters program. Before I exit this course and enter my last month of classes in this program. I’d like to take a moment to reflect on important goals that I met during the month. One of my goals that were achieved during the month was to learn why it is essential to have a press room section of a company/organization’s website. The importance of having an online press room is for journalists to have access to news coverage but it also benefits your online branding as well. An online media room must have press releases (boilerplate included), high-resolution photos, media mentions, contact information and a media kit. My second goal achieved during the course was to develop and create a page on my website for an online media room. Creating a variety of elements for this page was focused in weeks one through three of the course, where I learned the importance of including call to actions for journalists, and how anyone including visitors to my website can look for the most up to date information just by visiting the online media room. My last goal for the course that I met was to master the following essentials needed to incorporate into an online media room such as background information, image gallery, video content and PR/News contacts. Most of this content and information was developed over time throughout the public relations program in several of the courses. I was able to put this information and content on a single page on my website, and that's when the online media room was born on my personal website/portfolio. Over time I will be adding more content, and potentially find another layout that fits best for my portfolio. Super excited for everything to come in the final course and after graduation! 

The Online Room – Month 11

Before beginning this class, I was unaware of what an Online Media Room (OMR) was. My general thoughts about it were that it was a page on a website that included photos and videos of companies. I was not sure what to expect in this class, although I knew the central assignment would be along the lines of creating an OMR. But the first week of class, I was introduced to fairly quickly by having to complete an assignment titled, “Create Portfolio/Project Page.”

The months prior to this class were spent creating content about my Capstone Client, Alexus Brown. We were to create Press Releases, SWOT analysis, webinars, and keynote presentations. These content items were then used for the Online Media Room. It was challenging to figure out how to incorporate each media content item onto the website, but once I was finished, everything came together nicely.

One topic I learned about was Inbound Marketing. The PDF provided in Week two helped me better understand how inbound marketing benefits companies through the tactics used to promote brand awareness and how you can communicate your message through an online media room. The reading material helped assist with the week two discussion post where we had to analyze two different companies’ media room. It was important to look for key indicators like the overall message, tone, and aesthetic of the online media room. I was able to distinguish the difference between a well-executed page and a poorly designed page.