A newsroom at events is worthwhile

A newsroom was set up at the Swiss Marketing Day.Today, it is a challenge for event organizers to maintain the concentration and attention of the audience at events. Distractions from their own smartphones or other people are high. The sharing economy has also increased the desire to be involved at the event. Live interaction tools can be a solution to this trend. The best known is the Twitter Wall, where participants can see their own posts and those of others. Native apps and networking tools tailored to the event also create help. These allow attendees to share content, network with other attendees and access program information. These methods primarily serve smaller events. Larger events have more to tell, more interests to cover, and therefore need more channels. That's when newsrooms come into play.The control center of digital communication"A newsroom at an event offers the advantages that all communications activities come together in one central location, in one team, and that decisions can be made quickly as to which story should be published on which digital and, if necessary, offline channels," explains Benjamin Blaser, Chairman of the Board & CTO at Newsroom Communication AG. A newsroom is therefore the control center of digital communication. Such a control center set the Newsroom Communication AG at Swiss Marketing Day of March 7, 2017 at.Cross-media coverage of the eventThe newsroom at the Swiss Marketing Day was to provide visitors with cross-media stories that also gave the event a common thread. An editorial team consisting of video journalists, editors, copywriters and social media specialists was put together for this purpose. They were located in the so-called news cube in the middle of the action. The cube was also supported by large screens, and the editorial team provided visitors with news updates about the event. Live broadcasts also provided insights into the parallel presentations. With the integration of social media posts, the official hashtag #marketingtag17 was prominently communicated and encouraged digital discussion.Throughout the day, seven video posts were produced in real time, key takeaways from the keynote speeches were posted and the best quotes from the various vessels were published. In total, the realtime coverage comprised 23 stories, including a highlight clip of the closing. Visitors who were unable to attend the event had the opportunity to follow the event in the live feed.

No easy task"The implementation on Marketing Day was quite a challenge," explains Blaser. Because in a newsroom, you don't need conventional communications professionals, but people who can generate and distribute high-quality content within a very short time. Another challenge was choosing the right technology. "In our opinion, operating a newsroom without the right technical foundation is not productive. For real-time communication in a newsroom, a special presentation of the content on the company's own website is required. A classic news area is not sufficient here," explains Blaser.For example: if up to six stories are produced in one day, the oldest story disappears in a classic news view. Newsroom Communication AG therefore applied its own storytelling tool, the "Storyshaker"which was specially designed for real-time communication. Blaser cites the target group as a further challenge: "Only by understanding the community and its needs can you provide it with the right content."A Newroom with SuccessThis concept has proven its worth. The results are more than satisfactory: in just one day, over 380,000 individual users were reached. The impressions on social media amount to more than 2.2 million - only on Twitter and Instagram 1038 posts were recorded.The effort is worth itOne thing is clear: A newsroom needs planning, competent people and good technology. But the effort is always worth it. Anyone who wants to convey their event digitally and stand out from the competition in this age of information overload can only benefit from a newsroom. "This type of communication at events is much more sustainable than publishing a single event video two weeks after the event. Because then no one remembers it. It has to be done in real time," emphasizes Blaser.