PR on the Web 101 By Karine Joly February 2007

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While they use the web daily to perform their work, journalists are rarely considered as target audiences for an institution's website. They wish they were.

Colleges and universities have invested a lot of energy to make their websites user-friendly and intuitive for prospective and current students, their parents, faculty, and staff members as well as alumni. But reporters often have a hard time finding press releases, contact information, and faculty experts. When there's a dedicated media relations web page, it can't be easily located from the home page in most cases. Higher ed website internal search engines, office directories, and site maps have become reporters and editors' best friends-but also, at the same time, their worst foes.

"The media relations section is especially difficult to find in alphabetized lists. I've seen it called newsroom, communications office, public affairs, public relations, media relations, external affairs, external relations, and probably others that I'm forgetting," complains one education editor. The solution to this lack of journalist-friendliness wouldn't require more than a line of HTML code and could take the form of a direct link placed in the footer of the home page or on the news page, often mentioned on the home page. If that isn't an option, the link should be displayed on the school's contact page and site map.

Another tip: Check that your media relations web page does pop up when searching for the following keywords: media, news, public relations, PR, media relations, press, and journalist.

Even if that web page is easy to find, don't stop there. According to reporters and editors, any college media relations web page should at least include contact information, current and archived press releases, and background information.

Most reporters won't try to contact you after 5 p.m. or on the weekend, but some have uncommon work schedules or a breaking news story assignment. Providing 24/7 phone and e-mail contact information can make reporters' jobs a bit easier and the PR teams' jobs more manageable.

After all, no higher ed executive wants to learn from the media about a crisis happening on campus. If they can reach the PR department, reporters will usually try to get story feedback before they run it. Beyond this good crisis communication principle, direct contact information for faculty experts will always be welcome by the media. When a story breaks, academic experts are often sought after to give some perspective to media coverage. In this case, an online expert directory could help get faculty members interviewed or featured.

"The most important features of [our] web section are the faculty experts' list and the current press releases and archives," confirms Jo Procter, associate director of Public Affairs at Williams College (Mass.). Searchable current and archived press releases will help reporters and editors get some necessary context, as will background information in the form of fact sheets and statistics about your institution.

If your school's media relations web page already offers all of these features, consider going a step further by using a blogging platform for press releases or by assuring your content management system creates RSS feeds on the fly and web addresses optimized for search engines. By helping journalists and bloggers find and subscribe to your news feeds, you will increase your chances to generate more traditional or new media coverage.

Last, don't forget to track how the school's media contacts do research. Adapt the web page to their needs-just as you would with any other target audience of the institution's website.

Karine Joly is the web editor behind www.collegewebeditor.com, a blog about higher ed web marketing, public relations, and technologies. She is also a web editor for an East Coast liberal arts college as well as a consultant on web projects for other institutions.

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