Are tech brands neglecting digital journalists?

The fastest growing British technology companies are failing to keep up with the world’s leading tech brands and their use of online newsrooms for communicating with journalists and key stakeholders, suggests a new study.

With a score of just 19%, the fastest growing British tech brands were the lowest performing group in the latest study, What’s the tech story?, by Mynewsdesk.

They were a massive 42 percentage points behind the world’s richest technology companies, the highest performing group, and 71% behind Panasonic who had the highest performing newsroom in the study with a score of 90%.

The report analyses the use, content and structure of 70 of the world’s biggest technology brands of which 87% provided an online newsroom. It provides insight into how tech brands are adapting to trends in digital journalism and online content consumption.

The study found that big tech brands were failing to display personal email addresses for relevant contacts and many fail to provide adequate contact details on press releases.

The former technology editor at The Guardian, Charles Arthur, said “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.”

Laura McLean, Communications Executive at Mynewsdesk, said “The increasing ease and affordability of producing video content means it is a more viable form of storytelling for organisations of all sizes, and it’s rare to find an online article which doesn’t feature an image.

“Video is becoming an ever more valuable asset when pitching stories to journalists, not just as an effective storytelling format for owned content. Brands must make it as easy as possible for journalists, bloggers and key stakeholders to find, share and download it – therefore, there is no better place for presenting images and video than in your online newsroom.”