The 18 Immutable Laws of Corporate Reputation
Tips for an Effective Online Newsroom
Media Monitoring Service Clips Only Important News Articles
Top 10 News Sites on the Internet
Insight of the Month: Marc Andreessen (A founder of Netscape Communications)

by Ronald J. Alsop

    18 Laws, a new corporate communications text published by Wall Street Journal Books, draws an up-to-date roadmap for (1) establishing a good corporate reputation, (2) maintaining that reputation and (3) repairing a damaged corporate reputation. Starting with the premise that a good reputation is a corporation's most priceless asset, author Ronald J. Alsop explores mini case-studies of "lessons learned" from the crises faced by companies and organizations such as Johnson & Johnson, Merrill Lynch, Philip Morris (Altria), and the Roman Catholic Church to illustrate his 18 Laws on how to protect good reputations and fix bad ones.

William J. Comcowich, president and CEO of CyberAlert has written an in-depth review that distills the 18 immutable laws and provides insight into some of the case studies. Click Here for Full Article

    Though it lacks turn-by-turn directions and employs clichés with surprising frequency, this well-researched, well-organized and clearly-written business book of strategic insights is a worthwhile addition to the personal, corporate or PR agency library. C-level executives and corporate communications professionals can benefit in perusing the 18 Laws in preparation for the next inevitable corporate crisis or as a strategic reference manual for use as a crisis unfolds.

    Three recent reports provide valuable assistance in designing and implementing an online news room (virtual press room) to facilitate delivery of corporate information to the media.
    A Survey of PR Managers and Press conducted by Benchmark Research (www.internetpresscentre.com) highlights a wide gap between journalists and PR managers regarding the importance of online methodologies. Journalists now consider the Internet the most important way to research a company or organization — yet PR managers put the Internet at the bottom of their list!
    A report from Vocus (http://www.vocus.com/) entitled Creating a Good Impression Online: Best Practices for Online Newsrooms focuses on the key elements of on online press room, based on a survey of journalists and PR practitioners.
    Finally, TEKGroup International has compiled a list of 50 Tips for an Effective Online News Room to help public relations professionals implement and manage an effective and successful online press room.
    Key insights from the articles: Know what the press wants, and deliver it; include a search function to make all content easily accessible; provide downloads of graphics, images and multimedia materials; feature the most recent news releases; include round-the-clock PR contacts with detailed contact information; include archival and technical data, including clips of past news stories.

Ford Motor Co.
Alcon
Points of Light
Blue Cross-Blue Shield
Delta Air Lines
Sony Computer Entertainment
Miami-Dade Schools
The Coca-Cola Company
3M
European Commission
The White House
Best Software

    CyberAlert, Inc. (www.cyberalert.com) this month launched IntelliClips™ XL, a news monitoring service that delivers clips only of news stories in which the client's key words are prominently featured. The service automatically deletes news clips that contain only passing reference to the company. The IntelliClips XL service also enables clients to limit and select the online news sources to be monitored by country, language, industry category, and even specific publication title to further target the most important articles.
    The new service is designed to help PR and marketing professionals avoid the wasted time, high costs and tedium associated with reviewing unimportant news clips that contain "mere mentions" of corporate name or other key words.
    The IntelliClips XL service monitors over 13,000 online news purveyors each day in 17 languages and includes complex Boolean searches with unlimited key terms, customized to the specific needs of each client. Clients can also choose the frequency of delivery for their IntelliClips - either once per day overnight delivery (7/365) before start of business or frequently throughout the business day, often within minutes of online publication.
    IntelliClips XL is a subscription service with no per clip fees. IntelliClips monthly costs are up to 71% lower than traditional press clipping services. More information about IntelliClips can be seen at http://www.cyberalert.com/intelliclips.html

    Nielsen/Net Ratings published the following list of the 10 most frequently visited news sites on the Internet. It is interesting to note that only two are traditional print publishers and three are cable broadcasters. Half of the most frequently visited news sites are "internet only" news sources.

    A separate survey conducted for the Wall Street Journal Online by Harris Interactive found that Internet news sites are now the second most important news source among senior business executives in the US. 84% of executives read online news and Internet news rated just behind national newspapers as their "most important" source for news. Local daily newspapers, cable news programs, radio news, network television, local television news all trailed the Internet as their most important news source. The study results indicate that the Internet media placements are key in B2B public relations.
    Source: eMarketer (http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?1002816)

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Marc Andreessen

    "In the middle of what was a pretty horrific recession we now have 10 times more people on the Internet than we did five years ago. We've got 10 times or a hundred times more broadband....We have a whole generation of citizens now used to doing business online, used to buying things online, and used to communicating online...
The economics of the Internet have undergone something like a thousand-times swing. If you're going to launch an Internet site or an Internet business today, it's probably going to cost about a tenth of what it would have cost five years ago, but you're going to have 10 times more consumers you can address and probably 10 times the advertising revenue."
Source: USA Today: June 2, 2004
http://www.usatoday.com/