Reaching New Audiences, Releasing New Features & Relishing In Newfound Knowledge: Mynewsdesk in 2016 (so far…)

Before you put your “out of office” on and bid a smug farewell to your colleagues for a week or two, now is a great time to reflect on the trends, highlights and events of 2016 so far...

Reach Became the New Buzzword

Okay, okay, so reach is one of those “vanity metrics” that’s been around for a while, but this year we reached a whole new level and realised the power that one voice can have.

Launching our #100Million campaign for Hovding, we reached over 100 million people with their story which aimed to raise awareness about cycling hazards in London. The campaign was covered by Mashable, Creativity, Evening Standard and Yahoo News. But the highlight, of course, has to be our coverage on The Washington Post.

Didn’t reach you? Read more about the initiative and how we reached 100 million here:

• Mynewsdesk’s #100Million Challenge Puts Hövding On The Global Map
• Mynewsdesk & Hövding Use Digital Button To Send Cycling Hazards To The Mayor Of London

We Got Some Cool Newsroom Features

During the spring, we introduced a number of changes, improvements and updates to our platform. With our customers’ feedback and requests in mind, we revamped the newsroom, spruced up analytics, updated contact lists and most recently, added some new features to the image handler, allowing you to upload and un-publish multiple images at one time, name photos for east and publish across all of your other newsrooms. Pretty nifty, huh?

We Went To The Future Of Comms

FutureComms16 - a gathering of over 200 PR, comms and marketing professionals - really did rock the BAFTA. With speakers including Reggae Reggae sauce man, Levi Roots, Travelzoo’s Louise Hodges and Visa’s Rica Squires, the topics ranged from PR metrics to storytelling and audience engagements to paying your influencers. We covered all bases!

Read some of the speaker’s blogs and a review of the day here:

• PR Is About Telling A Good Story Well
• Paul Sutton On Lost Wedding Rings & The Unpredictable Future Of Comms
• Sharon Flaherty On The Misunderstandings Of Influencers In Comms
• Marina Ferrer On Shaping Identities, Storytelling & The Future Of Comms

We learned what journalists want…

And finally, we figured that it was high time that someone actually asked journalists what it is they want from communicators and how they like to receive news stories. So we did. We ran a survey asking over 2,000 journalists based in 9 different countries. And the responses were pretty interesting. 

You can download the full report here or listen to the webinar with Microsoft’s Head of Comms, Johanna Snickars, and freelance journalist for the New York Times, Christina Anderson.

Here are some of the key takeouts

• Journalist's Views on Native Advertising and What This Means for Your PR Business
• 7 Things You Need To Know About Journalists
• Three Factors Changing the Journalism & Media Landscape

Keep your eyes on our newsroom and newletters for information about events, seminars and campaigns in the latter part of the year. And for now, have a splendid summer!

Mynewsdesk