How PRs Can Package Press Releases That Work for Newsroom Social Media Teams
What newsroom social teams really need, and how PRs can adapt press releases for the digital era
It gives me great joy to introduce my former colleague and social media guru Pandora Forsyth. She has been at the helm of shaping social media strategies across major news publishing brands. Formerly Head of Social at Reach PLC and currently consulting, Pandora offers a behind-the-scenes look at what it really takes to run social media for newsrooms... and gives top tips on how comms pros can adapt press releases to work for the digital era.
Pandora, what does managing a newspaper’s social media presence involve day to day? Depending on the business targets, every publication will have different priorities for social platforms and this is decided by the way the business is structured (i.e. it may not even be the newspaper editor’s decision but perhaps it would be the audience director’s or editorial director’s decision). The priorities for social platforms can vary massively. The focus could be generating revenue, page views, engagements or just for brand reflection purposes - the list goes on. That particular KPI will be the basis for the strategy. In my last full-time head of social role, we were across 14 different social platforms; each one had various KPIs attached to them, with different audiences, varying algorithm changes and alternate strategies for all. As you can imagine, overseeing and managing this is a huge feat, and if one message can be put across in today’s interview it would be social media is not a work-light job. It is a 365 day a year 24/7 operation.
Audiences are consuming news more than ever through social media platforms as their first port of call, versus more traditional ways of consuming the news cycle. It is more imperative than ever for publishers to invest in these teams and listen to the social media experts within these publishing organisations - including younger talent who are using these platforms, who may not have senior leadership experience but have greater understanding of these platforms than sometimes those who are in leadership positions.
As any journalist will tell you, pardon the cliche, no day is the same in a newsroom. That’s not just because of the ever evolving news landscape but also because of the latest algorithm changes on platforms. A lot of the time this is totally out of publishers’ hands. We’re at the mercy of international media companies, who more times than not make clear publishers aren’t a priority for them. You only have to see the X takeover by Elon Musk to see this in action, as well as huge redundancies across the likes of Meta and X.
In addition to this, there is always an up and coming platform like BlueSky for instance, or an additional feature to start using like the meta monetisation programme or TikTok lives for example. You have to be consistently across the next “shiny toy” and industry fluctuations, and convey that message to senior leadership in a way which is consumable and actionable. In my personal experience, I have worked with tens of different publishing brands, with a variety of different team sizes and entirely different business needs.
Each day will bring a new challenge but I can categorically say no day is boring and can be extremely rewarding when your strategy does pay off. In a previous role, I made an unprecedented amount of revenue off a new social scheme on one of these social platforms, and also launched a live series for the brand which now enables me to broadcast across the world as a commentator on the subject. Above all, my day is making sure that all content is reflecting brand voice, growing legacy audiences, building new ones and ensuring that all the team are aware of pivoting strategy on a regular basis and being proactive in a breaking news environment.
How do you decide what stories get pushed hard on social media versus quietly published? It will very much depend on the brand. If it is a news brand you need to ensure you are the first, if not close to “breaking” that story. This is to ensure you are visibly seen as the reputable news organisation and being reactive to the news cycle but also ensuring that the majority of traffic is coming to your site. Social platforms will prioritise you as being one of the first to break that particular story, and therefore you will dominate not only your followers but non-followers on that particular post.
You always have to be one step ahead with forward planning and ensuring social is involved in these conversations with the wider newsroom for key brand projects. This will ensure we are set up for publishing purposes with the team but also ensure that we have conveyed to the newsroom what we need from them in order to make the biggest impact on social media as possible.
How can PRs package traditional press releases so they work for social media teams in the newsroom too? The first point I want to make very clear is that the social media team is respected enough to not just be a contact book and a stepping stone to get a writer to publish a story on that subject/piece. Social media pages have tens, if not hundreds of thousands of followers. If the story works there it will more than likely be shown to the wider news team who will pick it up for a longer written piece. In order for us to pick it up, as we are stretched on time, we need all the elements to make it work for social platforms. Vertical videos, which aren’t plastered with lots of brand logos, i.e. it’s not an advertisement. High res images and make it as attention grabbing as possible. Social media teams spend hours ensuring the content on their pages is hitting engagement targets. If it doesn’t engage you or us, it will not engage the audience. To be frank, we don’t have the time to go back and forth re permissions, so if the press release isn’t simple and doesn’t have permissions to be used, 90% of the time it will not be picked up sadly.
What do PRs misunderstand most about newspaper social media teams? More junior members of the team, and sometimes more senior ones, work very antisocial hours. When I first started at Reach Plc, I was spending Sundays in the head office at Canary Wharf until 11pm and Christmas Days in the office. It’s imperative that PRs understand this. They won’t always get a response straight away and be patient. Social media teams don’t write long-form copy pieces. Therefore, if you pitch a piece for the purpose of getting an article written then we cannot do that. We are some of the most multi-skilled people in the newsroom. Many of us are trained journalists. We can write stories, edit videos, sub-edit and have graphic design experience - the list goes on. Do not underestimate our ability to understand what stories work and what don’t. A no is a no.
Best way for people to contact you? After working 10 years in social, I have left Reach PLC as head of social and am currently looking for my next senior leadership role within social. I am currently consulting at Hearst on their social media strategy across all their publications until the end of February. I have one day a week free at the moment and would love to have more clients. If you would be interested in my consultancy work, please get in touch and likewise if you are looking for a senior leader in social for your organisation full-time please let me know. I can be found on LinkedIn to chat further.
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Great insider perspective here. The point about vertical video and permissions being make-or-break is something most PRs still dunno how to optimize for. I ran content ops for a startup where we tried sending press kits to news outlets, and the friction of back-and-forth rights clearance killed half the placements before they even happened. What's undervalued is that social teams are gatekeepers with their own editorial judgment, treating them like distributoin channels instead of editors is where the disconnect starts.