What’s the tech story?An evaluation of 70 online newsrooms in the tech sector

Contents1. Introduction – p 4

2. Headline findings – p 5

3. Executive summary – p 6

4. Findings – p 8

4.1 Richest technology companies – p 8

4.2 Best tech companies to work for – p 13

4.3 Fastest growing British tech companies – p 18

4.4 Smart tech companies – p 23

4.5 Wearable tech companies – p 28

4.6 Social media tech companies - p 33

4.7 Start ups to watch in 2014 - p 38

5. Tips from a tech journalist - p 43

6. Tips from a tech professional - p 45

Appendix 1 Methodology and criteria - p 46

Appendix 2 Newsroom best practice checklist – p 48

Appendix 3 Overall rankings - p 50

Appendix 4 Bibliography - p 51

Appendix 5 About Mynewsdesk - p 52

IntroductionTo say the media industry has changed a lot since 1906 when the first ever press release was written and published verbatim in the New York Times would be a huge understatement, but somehow Ivy Lee’s creation has managed to survive.

We’re living in a time of media saturation and information overload meaning brands must be ready to react to breaking news or a social media crisis in minutes or se-conds, not hours or days.

To add to this, our tastes have changed. Audiences are hungry for content in all its forms. We read it, hear it, interact with it, comment on it, and share it.

Multimedia content has proven to be more effective than written content alone, and is becoming easier and cheaper to produce to a high quality. As a result, it has become a vital component when pitching a story to journalists or creating branded content for company blogs and social media posts.

In the digital world, anyone can be an influencer. So a brand’s online newsroom should no longer be solely a place for the media but somewhere all of your stakeholders – bloggers, investors and even customers – can go to find more about your organisa-tion.

For our first industry specific benchmark report we’ve decided to analyse how 70 of the world’s leading technology brands are utilising online brand newsroom technology to tell their stories and engage with all of their target audiences.

Charles Arthur, technology editor at The Guardian, has shared with us his advice for PR professionals on building better relationships with journalists and tips on increa-sing the likelihood of getting your story picked up in the media.

Max Tatton-Brown, founding director of Augur – a communications agency speciali-zing in tech PR, also shares his knowledge on how tech PR professionals can improve their PR and content strategy.

Headline key findings:

• 87% of the organisations in our study had newsrooms

• Only 38% have a newsroom which is mobile friendly

• Roughly 1/3 of brands do not link their newsrooms or content to social media channels

• 43% of organisations have not posted content in their newsroom in the last month

• A large minority are poorly optimised for search with 41% not appearing on Google for their brand name and news

• 29% of brands offered a video library

• 57% of newsrooms failed to offer high resolution images

Executive Summary87% of brands assessed in this study provided an online newsroom but there was a huge disparity in the way their communications teams were using them.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the majority of the world’s richest tech brands have invested in developing a good newsroom infrastructure and providing resource to use it in the best way possible. Although, there was one notable exception – Foxconn, which was one of the lowest performers overall with a score of just 10%.

However, the best newsrooms weren’t necessarily owned by those with the biggest budgets. Indeed, almost every sector excelled in areas that others didn’t or had no-teworthy examples of newsroom excellence.

Interestingly, 40% of newsrooms in the study provided content and separate sections aimed at serving key target audiences other than journalists. For example, the com-panies grouped together in the “best companies to work for” group lead the way with 70% providing customer targeted content in their newsroom and were one of the few sectors to provide thought leadership or educational content in their newsroom. This is indicative of the rise in importance of influencers outside of the media, which has been a key trend in PR in recent years.

What was surprising was how poorly the top fastest growing British technology com-panies performed. They had a disappointing overall score of 19%, the lowest perfor-ming sector in the whole report and a massive 42% behind the top performing cate-gory.

With regards to content, the majority of newsrooms analysed left much to be desired with more than 43% having failed to update their newsrooms with fresh content within the last 30 days.

More than two-thirds of online newsrooms failed to provide leadership bios, fact she-ets and other basic company information.

Less than half (47%)of organisations provided press contact information on their news releases and just 34% provided direct contact information for members of their com-munications team anywhere on their newsroom. In fact, only 16% displayed a perso-nal email address anywhere on their newsroom. Making it unnecessarily difficult for journalists to get in touch.

In terms of multimedia content, the figures were disappointing. Just 29% of brands provided a video library, only 47% offered an image library and even fewer (43%) pro-vided images of high enough quality to be used in print.

The top ten richest tech companiesPanasonic 90%

Dell 84%

IBM 81%

Microsoft 75%

Sony 68%

Toshiba 63%

Apple 58%

Samsung 49%

HP 46%

Foxconn 10%

We took the list of the top ten tech companies in the world based on annual revenues from the The Richest . These companies’ activities are connected either directly or indi-rectly to the information technology industry and include those that deal with compute-hardware, software, Internet telecommunication, and othercomputer services.

What they did well

• This was the top performing group overall with a score of 61%

• This was the best performing group for Social (71%), Discovery (76%), Multimedia (53%), Staying in touch (40%) and Localisation (87%).

• 60% of organisations embedded images and video in their content pieces and press releases

Where they fell short

• less likely to serve audiences other than the media, with only one company providing a blog within their newsroom

• Only 40% of newsrooms were responsively designed

What we found

The richest tech companies was not only the highest performing group but also one of only three groups where every brand had a newsroom. This is perhaps not surprising as these companies, would one presume, have the biggest budgets to invest in newsroom technology.

In terms of their use of multimedia content, they were one of only two groups to provide downloadable, shareable or embeddable videos in their newsrooms, with 40% doing so. They were also the highest performing group for utilising multimedia content with an overall score of 53%.

Alongside wearable tech companies, this group were best at embedding images and vi-deos in their written content. This makes their press releases more engaging and better suited to the needs of digital journalists.

The richest tech companies are clearly investing a lot of resource into the use and infra-structure of their online newsrooms but their efforts are to an extent undermined by just 40% having mobile friendly newsrooms. This was just slightly higher than the average score for all 70 newsrooms in the study (37%).

The cream of the crop

Panasonic was the top performing newsroom in the study. They launched their news-room in 2013 as part of their website re-launch and have seen visitor numbers steadily grow over the past 12 months.

Their newsroom is a multimedia hub from which journalists, bloggers and stakeholders can easily access the latest news, blogs, images, infographics and videos to create stories. Viewing, downloading and sharing content is simple and the newsroom’s re-sponsive design allows for a slick mobile and tablet user experience.

However, IBM’s newsroom also particularly stood out for a number of different rea-sons. Their newsroom not only offers a variety of topic specific RSS feeds but you can also create your own custom feed which combines several different categories.

They also provide in-depth company information including details of their history and values.

However, they particularly let themselves down with their video content. It’s not until you click into press kits that you can find their videos. By only hosting their video con-tent in press kits they are separating their stories completely. If they created a video li-brary it would not only make content easier to find but also bring their stories together into a collective company narrative.

”The online newsroom has been extremely beneficial for our relationships with journalists, we have seen a lot more engagement - whether it be simple enquiries about the events or they want an image to feature as part of their article.”-Claire Eaton-WhitfieldSenior Press Officer at Panasonic UK

Best technology companies to work forQualcomm 66%

Riverbed technology 59%

LinkedIn 57%

Google 54%

Facebook 53%

Guidewire 52%

Twitter 48%

Slalom Consulting 44%

Intuit 43%

Interactive Intelligence 38%

We have taken the list of the best technology companies to work for from online publi-cation Business Insider. They compiled this by indentifying the technology companies who appeared in Glassdoor’s annual list of the 50 Best Places to Work according to employees.

What they did well

• This was the best performing group for offering responsively designed news rooms with a score of 70%

• This was the best group for keeping their newsrooms up to date with fresh content, scoring 70%

Where they fell short

• Not a single company in this group provided an image with press releases

What we found

Overall the best companies to work for were the second best performing category in the whole report with an average score of 51%. This was largely due to the volume of fresh content they produce and the multiple target audiences their newsrooms serve.

In the article we extracted the list of the best companies to work for a Twitter employ-ee was quoted as describing the company as “an exceptionally transparent place” and a LinkedIn employee stated “our work is educating professionals and I hear sto-ries each day about how we have transformed their lives!”

Both statements suggest these organisations openly and frequently communicate with their staff. From looking at the content in their newsroom it also appeared that they took this approach with external stakeholders and the media too.

They were the best group for their newsroom usage ensuring that their newsrooms were constantly updated with quality content. 60% of companies in this group had updated their newsroom within the last days, which was significantly higher than the overall average of 21%.

The best companies to work for were also the leading group for communicating with customers and other stakeholders via their newsrooms, whether that be via blogs or thought leadership and educational content, in both written and video formats.

The cream

Qualcomm had the highest performing newsroom in this group and came out on top in three categories: social links, newsroom usage and discovery.

Their newsroom was perhaps one of the most eye-catching in the whole report. They used bright colours to emphasise the different themes or types of content and dis-played their latest story at the top of their newsroom with a large, vivid high-resolution image.

Rather surprisingly though, they did not provide a single image along with their press releases and did not provide an image or video library which journalists could use to find complementary assets. Unfortunately, this means that although their newsroom may look visually engaging, they are somewhat reducing their chances of gaining en-gaging coverage in external publications.

Qualcomm was one of the only companies to give the reader the option to directly share a link to their online newsroom on multiple channels at the click of a button.

”Fundamentally, have the things in your newsroom which make it easy for anyone who wants to

write about you, talk about you or understand you. Have the simple forms of your story -

obviously some high resolution images and ideally some kind of video they can embed if they want to.”

-Max Tatton-BrownTech writer and founder of Augur.

The fastest growing British technology companiesInfectious Media 53%

Monitise 44%

Avecto 41%

FreeAgent 35%

AlertMe 24%

Mobile Account Solutions 0%

Lovestruck.com 0%

Sixteen South 0%

Equal Experts UK 0%

Backbone Connect 0%

This list was taken from Deloitte’s list of Britain’s fastest-growing technology busines-ses .

What they did well

• They were slightly better than most with 40% serving multiple target audiences from their newsroom

Where they fell short

• Overall they were the lowest performing group in the whole report with a score of just 19%

• Not one newsroom had an internal search function

• Only one company had posted content within the last seven days at the time of benchmarking

What we found

Part of the reason this group scored so poorly overall was because five organisations failed to provide any kind of newsroom.

However, those that did have newsrooms left much to be desired. None had a search function within their newsroom, although for most that hardly mattered as they failed to keep them filled with fresh and engaging content. At the time of benchmarking, only one organisation had published content within the last seven days.

Although they did publish stories related to their company, not one organization provi-ded bios of senior executives and just one provided up to date company fact sheets.

The cream of the crop

Infectious Media, a programmatic advertising company, had the top performing news-room in this category. As they are specialists in digital media it is perhaps not surprising to find they are one of the five who have invested in developing an online newsroom.

A nice feature in their newsroom is that they display every story and event on the front page in their “all news” stream. Then by simply clicking on the relevant button you can filter the stories into press releases, articles, events and stories that have appeared in the news.

Although options to subscribe to their mailing lists and RSS feeds were prominent, they provided no contact details anywhere in their newsroom, including on their press rele-ases.

Given that they are digital specialists, it was surprising to find they did not make good use of videos and images in their newsroom. At best an article included a title image but there were no videos in any of their content and they did not provide either a video or image library.

”The bad PR I often see is when people buy a mail-ing list and blanket everyone. I get a dozen emails a day from people who just do that.

I think the use of social media and blog posts by companies to put news out there is great - they’re not in my inbox, I can go and find it, I can set up an RSS reader to read it.

What I need out of a company website is a clear link to the press office and to press releases they may have. Simply put, I need clear information about what a company does, who the team is, and ways to contact them.”-Charles ArthurFormer Technology editor at The Guardian.

The smartest tech companiesBMW 75% Amazon 62% BrightSource 58% Tesla Motors 57% Dropbox 37% Cree 37% Third Rock Ventures 35% Illumina 30% Salesforce 30% Tencent 24%

We decided to assess the top “smart” companies as they encompass a wide range of different types of technology brands. We took this list from the MIT Technology Re-view.

Below is their explanation of what makes a “smart” company:

“It might sound difficult to define what makes a smart company, but you know one when you see it. When such a company commercializes a truly innovative technology, things happen: leadership in a market is bolstered or thrown up for grabs. Competitors have to refine or rethink their strategies….We didn’t count patents or PHDs; instead, we asked whether a company had made strides in the past year that will define its field.”

Where they did well

• localisation

• second best overall score for newsroom usage

Where they fell short

• 80% segregated their blog content from their newsroom

• newsroom design

What we found:

Along with “the richest technology companies” and “the best tech brands to work for,” every organisation in this section had their own online newsroom.

However, they were more similar to the “richest technology companies” in their prefe-rence for primarily serving the media through their online newsrooms with 80% prefer-ring to separate their blog content from their other external communications.

There are some functional areas they could improve on which would boost the effecti-veness of their newsrooms as a whole.

For example, only one brand (Tesla Motors) used tags to curate their content into rele-vant categories, making it easier to find relevant and related content.

Also, just one brand (Cree) embedded their social media feeds in the newsroom. This gives a fuller picture of a brand’s communication and messaging, as well as making it easier for visitors find the channels the brand is active on.

Although we didn’t grade the newsrooms on the relevance of their URLs we came across an example we thought was worth mentioning. Amazon had perhaps the most confusing url possible: phx.corporateir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=251199&p=irol-mediaHo-me.

When we searched for “Amazon News” on Google it did appear somewhere in the middle of the first page but the URL was so unusual that at first we didn’t think it was the correct link.

They did link to their newsroom via “Press Releases” at the bottom of their homepage. However, this label could deter non-journalists from entering their newsroom.

With a score of 50% smart tech companies were the second best performing group for localising their communications; the richest tech companies were number one with a score of 87%. By having both global and regional newsrooms, it is easier for brands to ensure their messages are culturally relevant.

Cream of the crop

BMW was the highest performing newsroom in this group, mainly due to both the qua-lity and quantity of their content.

Their newsroom is filled with content that is organised into relevant categories, making it easier for the reader to find what they’re looking for. They have sections for things such as management reports, product plant information and detailed technical speci-fications, as well as more post on technology, research and development which are a little easier to digest.

Not only do they provide images and multimedia content with their news stories, they also provide separate image, audio and video libraries.

BMW also offered a “My. Press Club” service whereby journalists can sign up to recei-ve extended news and download services. While this is great for capturing journalists’ contact information, it suggests that they are somewhat segregating their target audi-ences and some of their best content may be hidden from key stakeholders.

”More companies are realising the value of brand newsrooms and this is only going to increase.

Typically newsrooms were all about journalists but not today.

We have an opportunity to publish all different types of content through the newsroom and to

bring all stakeholders in so they can get to know us, learn more and share our information. It allows us to be much more connected and meaningful to

people.

That’s why I say that the newsroom is a key component to what you’re doing and the way

you’re going to tell your story.”-Deirdre Breakenridge

Adjunct Professor of Marketing and Public Relations at New York University.

Wearable technology companiesAdidas 89%

Motorola Solutions 73%

Plantronics 62%

Nike 42%

Fitbit 39%

Garmin 39%

Medtronic 38%

Eurotech 33%

Meta Watch 3%

Pebble 0%

We took these brands from Visiongain’s Top 20 Wearable Technology Companies 2014 report but we excluded Sony, Samsung and Google as they appeared in other groups in this report.

What they did well

• best use of video content with 60% providing shareable, embeddable and downloadable video content

Where they fell down• newsroom usage, with an overall score of just 45%

• just one brand, Adidas, provided a mobile friendly newsroom

What we found

Wearable tech is an incredibly exciting sector to be working in as it is both highly inno-vative and competitive. So it was surprising to find that this group of newsrooms only achieved an overall score of 33% for newsroom usage, as one would expect they’d have plenty of stories to tell. The main exceptions were Motorola (85%) and Adidas (75%) who constantly updated their newsrooms with fresh, interesting stories.

Adidas also led the field in multimedia content with a score of 94%. Videos, images and infographics really help to make their stories more engaging and showcase their products in a more vibrant way than a written press release ever could.

Wearable tech companies were the best performing group for their use of video, with 60% making it available in a downloadable, shareable or embeddable format.

The increasing ease and affordability of producing video content means it is a more vi-able form of storytelling for organisations of all sizes. Video is becoming an ever more valuable asset when pitching stories to journalists, not just as an effective storytelling format for owned content.

Just over half of the wearable technology companies provided both global and regi-onal newsrooms. Although the average score of 51% means there is room for impro-vement, they were the second best performing group for localising their communica-tions.

However, like many other tech brands in this report, they let themselves down by not optimising their newsrooms for mobile devices. Adidas was the only brand that did have a responsively designed newsroom.

The cream of the crop

Adidas was just 1% behind the highest performing newsroom in this report - Panasonic. Their newsroom is well organised and packed full of vivid images and vi-deos – all of which are shareable, embeddable, downloadable, and would be of inte-rest to a whole host of different target audiences, not just journalists.

Their global newsroom is designed to be social media friendly and appeal to their fans, customers and influencers as well as the media.

In preparation for the FIFA World Cup, of which it was one of the main sponsors, Adi-das announced that they were launching their own physical brand newsroom, similar to a traditional journalistic newsroom, to take advantage of the breaking news around the tournament.

Their agency, We Are Social, spent a year travelling across the globe compiling 1,000 images, 160 videos and content on over 100 of their sponsored players into their ’Content Bible’ to be used when responding to events as they unfolded.

”Being ready to publish and distribute content on the fly - whether in reaction to an opportunity or a crisis - requires skill, confidence, authority and effective technology. Having a digital newsroom makes it easier to deliver real-time, multichannel and multimedia communications to the audiences you want to reach and influence.”-Adam CranfieldHead of Marketing at Mynewsdesk.

Social media technologySprout Social 66%

Pinterest 44%

Hootsuite 41%

Instagram 38%

Snapchat 20%

VK 6%

Tumblr 3%

Vine 0%

Path 0%

Flickr 0%

This list was taken from eBusiness’s list of the most popular social networking sites which is updated continuously. It is worth noting that Twitter 48%, LinkedIn 57% and Facebook 53% have been ranked in the “best companies to work for” group and have not been included here as a result.

What they did well

• Not much! There was not one area where they were leading the way in terms newsroom usage or design, overall they achieved the second lowest score.

Where they fell down

• Ironically, this was the worst category for providing social links and share butt- ons on articles.

• Just one newsroom appeared on page 1 of Google for a search for the brand’s name and “news” – meaning they were poorly optimised for search

• To an extent, there was an over reliance on blog content with just one organisation hosting press releases in their newsroom.

What we found

The majority of companies in this section tried to stick to their own platforms when communicating with their key target audiences. Although seven did in fact have a newsroom, just one brand used it to host press releases.

This was really apparent when it came to their social links and share buttons. The glo-bal average score for this was 51%, but social media tech companies scored a mere 24%.

SproutSocial, the social media management tool, was a notable exception with a fairly acceptable score of 66%.

SproutSocial excelled at linking their newsroom and press releases to a broad range of social media channels, and achieved a perfect score of 100%. The same could not be said for their main competitor, Hootsuite, who scored just 57% in this area.

By providing social links in the newsroom and on content pieces not only does it increase the likelihood of a story being shared across multiple social media platforms but it creates a better user experience for the reader – it means they don’t have to le-ave your website in order to share your story and cumbersomely copy and paste links to do so. Although they didn’t appear in this group, it is worth mentioning that LinkedIn achieved a score of 57%, Facebook scored 53% and Twitter scored 48% in the “best companies to work for” group. Alongside Pinterest (44%), they are leaps and bounds ahead of other social media companies in terms of the use and design of their news-room. However, there are some similarities in their shortcomings.

Twitter and Facebook did not offer sharing functions to other social media sites and Twitter only embedded their Twitter feed on the front page of their newsroom. Linke-dIn, however, did provide sharing options for Twitter, Google+ and Facebook as well as LinkedIn, on all of their press releases. Facebook was also the only newsroom to relate relevant content to one another.

The cream of the crop

Although their newsroom was not one of the highest performing in the report or even in this group, Instagram’s way of telling their stories really stood out.

Every week they produce a blog post called “This week on Instagram” where they link to all of the coverage they’ve received in third party publications, updates on cam-paigns they’re running and a list of things happening in different user communities.

This brings all the stories being told on different online publications together into one central place that their users and stakeholders can easily access. In doing so, they’re also helping to get more value out of the coverage they receive.

They also use their blog to showcase their users’ stories. These are beautiful examp-les of how Instagram can be used to capture images and videos to communicate the stories the user wants to tell. These posts are similar to traditional customer case studies and could happily live in the newsroom too.

”Newsrooms should be at the heart of a company’s online presence. There’s no need to

have separate social media and ”traditional” newsrooms - they have or should have merged

together. Companies need to think how their news is consumed. This needs a strategy. A content strategy that includes both external and internal

audiences.”-Keith Childs

Manager of Digital and New Media at Opel Europe.

Start ups to watch in 2014Uber 56%

Flipboard 44%

Circle 42%

Level Money 41%

Datasift 41%

Clinkle 32%

Routehappy 27%

Circa 24%

SmartThings 19%

Oyster 0%

We chose Mashable’s list of Startups to watch in 2014 which was a round up of the of the most promising startup companies with the “capital, talent or ideas – often all three – to succeed”.

Where they did well

• They were the best organisations for blogging in their newsrooms.

• With a score of 60% this was the second best performing category for offering mobile optimised newsrooms

Where they fell short

• Although the majority of these newsrooms had an image library, just one newsroom provided a video library

• Their main weakness was not providing a way for journalists or other visitors with a way to get in touch with the communications team

What we found

The “start ups to watch in 2014” scored an overall average of just 32%, which put them in fifth place. However, just one organisation in this group failed to provide a newsroom at all.

Those that did provide a newsroom still had a lot of ways they could improve their news-rooms in terms of use and functionality.

The main weakness was providing a way for journalists or other stakeholders to get in touch with the relevant person in the company. Five out of the nine organisation who had a newsroom failed to list any press contact information even on news releases.

For startup companies who need to raise the profile of their organisations to both attract new customers and potential investors, it is essential to make it as easy as possible for journalists or bloggers to get the information and assets they need. This is of course one of the main purposes of having an online newsroom.

However, should journalists or bloggers require additional assets or further information when researching a story it is imperative that the relevant contact details are displayed as clearly as possible.

The cream of the crop

Uber, the San Francisco based taxi app which connects passengers with drivers and tracks their requested vehicle’s location, had the top performing newsroom in this ca-tegory with a score of 56%.

Although every organisation in this category scored a 0 for localisation, this was per-haps very misleading in Uber’s case as their communications structure is a little more complex.

Uber’s communications team have made a great effort to localise their content. Their main communications area is called “The Blog” which is then broken down into #uber-date, Events, Expansion, People, Press and Product updates and a subsection has been created for individual blogs for each city where they operate.

The press section is where global press releases and announcements are kept but the city blogs host news for each area, which is very impressive given that they operate in 45 countries.

Uber has been faced with a series of potential crises in recent times. Taxi drivers block-aded streets in cities around the globe, including Paris, Milan and Berlin, in protest aga-inst the app company undercutting prices. In London, 10,000 taxi drivers created a gridlock around the main areas in the city centre as part of the protest.

A spokesman from the Licensed Taxi Drivers Association (LTDA) told the BBC, ”It is nothing to do with technology, some of the taxis have been using apps for years. The difference is all taxis have to operate legally, [Uber] should have to apply for the same rules as everyone else.”

Rather than communicate about this crisis in their global press section they used their London city blog in much the same way as an online newsroom. It was here that they re-sponded to the allegations of safety and insurance issues, announced their partnership with London taxi services and provided customer focused content such as “The mind behind the mirrors: meet the drivers” to demonstrate their transparency and ease custo-mer concerns.

However, using their blog in this way does come with some severe limitations. There is no way to search through the content other than by scrolling through it. There is also no centrally located video and image library for extra assets that journalists or bloggers can choose from should they require more.

Furthermore, it is not explicitly clear that the “city blog” is aimed at journalists and blog-gers too, given that a press section this means journalists could miss out on a lot of important content.

”Don’t just pitch a company or a product. Figure out a way to differentiate yourself. Find a story, make it a movement, single yourselves out. Nobody wants to read about the new ”Uber for _____” or the next ”disruptor”. And if you can’t figure out how to make your story special, rethink what your company is doing.”-Morgan OliveiraDirector of Communications at Hampton Creek.

Tips from a tech journalistCharles Arthur is the former technology editor at The Guardian.

Previously, he covered science, technology and health at the Independent for nine years and is the co-founder of the Free Our Data campaign.

Click image to play video

Tips from a tech PR professionalMax Tatton-Brown is a specialist in tech PR and founder of Augur Communications. Max left a comms role at a global tech startup to found his own agency, after years ofworking with companies of all sizes at leading UK agencies.

He also writes for the Daily Telegraph, Wired, Econsultancy (among others) about what’s next for tech and marketing.

Click image to play video

MethodologyBased on a over a decade of experience developing newsrooms for companies across the world, the Mynewsdesk team devised a set of best practice criteria, in conjunction with professionals from across the communications industry.

We evaluated 70 leading tech brands from the technology sector against our criteria and assigned each a score. We picked these brands based on a range of third party rankings:

• Richest technology companies in the world

• Best technology companies to work for

• Top “Smart” technology companies

• Social media technology companies

• Start-ups to watch

• Fastest growing British technology companies

• Top wearable technology companies

To create these lists of brands we took the companies ranked from 1 to 10 from various lists in third party publications. On some occasions certain brands appeared in multiple lists. To avoid duplication of data we only included them in one list and replaced them with the next best performing brands in their respective lists.

The criteria used are listed below.

CriteriaDiscovery

• How easy is it to find the brand’s newsroom? Whether this is directly via the website or using a search engine.

• Does the brand take steps to organise and categorise the information it hosts?

• Does the newsroom provide a search function to help find relevant information?

• How much does it allow users to refine their search query?

Newsroom content

• What information does the brand host in its newsroom?

• Who is the content targeting? Is the newsroom being used solely to host resources for journalists or to engage with other interested parties?

• How fresh is the content in the newsroom?

Multimedia

• What multimedia resources does the newsroom hold? Are these arranged in separate video and image libraries?

• How do they use multimedia content?

Social media

• Does the brand’s newsroom link to and/or integrate their various social media channels?

• Does the brand encourage readers to share their content on social bookmarking services?

Contact

• What personal contact details are supplied to assist visitors with additional enquires?

• Does the newsroom allow users to request company updates via RSS and/or email?

Mobile

• Are brands using responsive design to reach users with mobile devices?

Newsroom best practice checklistDiscovery

o Direct link to newsroom from ho mepage

o Newsroom appears on page one of Google

Content

o New content uploaded a minimum of every few days

o Executive biographies and compa ny fact sheets hosted

o Content targets customers as well as press

o All content kept up to date

Images

o Image library provided

o Not behind registration wall

o Contains brand logos

o Contains infographics

o Contains imagery of staff and officeso Preview images without downloading

o Images are provided at 300dpi resolution

Video

o Video library provided

o Not behind registration wall

o Contains B-roll footage

o Contains product demos and promos

o Contains thought leadership content

Finding information

o Stories categorised by type

o Stories tagged by topics

o Search function provided

o Search offers options to refine results

Social Media

o Newsroom lists social media pre sences

o Share and ‘like’ buttons in news room and on each story

Contact

o Phone number listed

o Picture of contact

o Link to their social media presence

o Regional contacts

o Visitors can register for email up dates

o RSS feed available and advertised

Mobile

o Is the newsroom accessible from a mobile device?

o Does the layout of the newsroom adapt to fit a device’s display?

BibliographyAnon. (2014). 50 Smartest Companies . Available: http://www2.technologyre-view.com/tr50/2014/. Last accessed 5th Nov 2014.

Anon. (2014). Top 20 Wearable Technology Companies. Available: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/top-20-wearable-technology-compa-nies-2014-2014-06-18. Last accessed 5th Nov 2014.

Anon. (2014). Top 15 Most Popular Social Networking Sites. Available: http://www.ebizmba.com/articles/social-networking-websites. Last accessed 5th Nov 2014

Bort, J. (2013). The 22 Best Tech Companies to Work For, According to Employ-ees. Available: http://www.businessinsider.com/best-22-tech-companies-to-work-for-2013-12?op=1. Last accessed 5th Nov 2014.

Fiegerman, S. (2014). Startups to watch in 2014. Available: http://mashable.com/2013/12/16/startups-to-watch-in-2014/. Last accessed 5th Nov 2014.

Ruvolo, J. (2014). Embedded with Adidas’ Social Media Team at the World Cup in Rio. Available: http://adage.com/article/global-news/embedded-adidas-so-cial-media-team-world-cup/294016/. Last accessed 5th Nov 2014.

Prosser, D. (2014). The Top 10 British Technology Companies.Available: http://www.forbes.com/sites/davidprosser/2013/11/20/the-top-ten-british-technolo-gy-companies/. Last accessed 5th Nov 2014.

Said, S. (2013). The Top Ten Tech Companies in the World. Available: http://www.therichest.com/business/the-top-ten-tech-companies-in-the-world/. Last accessed 5th Nov 2014.

List of rankingsRank Brand Score Rank Brand Score

1 Panasonic 90% 36 Square 39%2 Adidas 89% 37 Fitbit 39%3 Dell 84% 38 Garmin 39%4 IBM 81% 39 Interactive Intelligence 38% 5 Microsoft 75% 40 Medtronic 38%6 BMW 75% 41 Hootsuite 38%7 Motorola Solutions 73% 42 Cree 37%8 Sony 68% 43 FreeAgent 35%9 Qualcomm 66% 44 Dropbox 35%10 Sprout social 66% 45 Third Rock Ventures 35%11 Toshiba 63% 46 Instagram 35%12 Amazon 62% 47 Eurotech 33%13 Plantronics 62% 48 Clinkle 32%14 Riverbed Technology 59% 49 Illumina 30%15 Apple 58% 50 Salesforce 30%16 LinkedIn 57% 51 Routehappy 27%17 Tesla Motors 57% 52 AlertMe 24%18 Uber 56% 53 Tencent 24%19 Google 54% 54 Circa 24%20 Facebook 53% 55 Snapchat 20%21 Infectious Media 53% 56 SmartThings 19%22 Guidewire 52% 57 VK 16%23 Samsung 49% 58 Foxconn 10%24 Twitter 48% 59 Meta Watch 3%25 HP 46% 60 Tumblr 3%26 Slalom Consulting 44% 61 Mobile Account Solutions 0%27 Monitise 44% 62 Lovestruck.com 0%28 Pinterest 44% 63 Sixteen South 0%29 Flipboard 44% 64 Equal Experts UK 0% 30 Intuit 43% 65 Backbone Connect 0%31 Nike 42% 66 Pebble 0%32 Circle 42% 67 Vine 0%33 Avecto 41% 68 Path 0%34 Level Money 41% 69 Flickr 0%35 Datasift 41% 70 Oyster 0%

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About MynewsdeskMynewsdesk is the world’s leading all-in-one brand newsroom and multimedia PR platform. Over 60,000 PR and marketing communications professionals use our platform to publish and distribute their content, achieve greater visibility across search and social media, connect with key influencers, and tell their stories.

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