Here at Intrapromote our focus is on Integrated Search. The best socially focused newsrooms follow an integrated approach and we’ll examine here how some designers are weaving social content into the traditional online newsroom home page.

While socially influenced newsrooms are not new phenomena, lately several travel focused newsrooms have made headlines for their unique design and integrated social content. Vail Resorts is one travel industry newsroom that has been mentioned on two prominent blogs in the last few weeks (PRWEB – Press Release Distribution Options: Spread the Wealth and Social Media Today — Travel, Social Media and the Online Newsroom). The Vail Resorts newsroom is a destination in itself, and goes beyond the usual fact sheets and press contacts you’ll see on a lot of online newsrooms. From a usability standpoint the Vail Resorts newsroom puts everything at the user’s fingertips, so it takes only seconds to discover the relevant content that’s integrated from Twitter, Facebook, images and video.

There is more to creating a socially integrated newsroom than labeling it as such and placing a few social sharing icons on the page. While this is a good start, there are a number of creative designs that can inspire you as you search for the perfect balance of visual content and text, offers and listings of special events, webinars, etc. Your company can use its newsroom home page as a showcase for not only press release headlines, but images and video, too. Some good items to include in your newsroom are your company’s green and sustainability initiatives and community support events and partnerships. Integration is key – Make it easy for users to view your content from multiple sources on your newsroom home page.

Here are a few outstanding examples from a variety of verticals that can spur you on when creating your company’s newsroom:

• Electrolux 
• Cisco 
• Weather.com 
• Let’s Yo 

Socially Integrated Newsroom Resource Tips: For more ideas, read this post on the subject by Steve Momorella at Social Media Today: Four Socially Integrated Online Newsrooms. In it he mentions the Vail Resorts newsroom as he did in his other post, but he also discusses survey report data that defines what he calls the “news consumer.” These insights can be helpful to you in planning your newsroom design.

Lisa Santora is a Search & Press Release Specialist at Intrapromote.

Get to know Lisa Santora and read more Articles By Lisa.

Image above courtesy of freedigitalphotos.net.

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