How to publish a corporate newspaper or magazine. Practical advice for managers. Corporate newspaper - why is it?

Dmitry Shevchenko press secretary of the audit and consulting group "Business Systems Development"
Magazine "Consultant" No. 11, 2005 http://www.berator.ru/magazine/

Companies are growing, their management systems are becoming more complex, and orders, instructions and reports move in a stream of managers who are not familiar with each other. "Who are these people?" - the directors exclaim as they walk through the office in the morning. You can establish communication between employees and management using a corporate newspaper.

In world practice, corporate publications perform social function. Such a press is a company management tool. Its role in the process of business communications cannot be underestimated.

The release of a corporate publication must be considered as a project with all its attributes: concept, goals and objectives, material and human resources. We will look at a type of internal corporate newspaper intended only for company employees.

Tasks and goals

There is no universal concept for corporate publications. To correctly determine it, you need, first of all, to know the company itself, its mission and strategy, goals and objectives, and have an idea of ​​the information needs of employees. In addition, you need to have information about the company’s industry, its products or services, the ratio of intellectual, physical labor and sales in the business, strengths and weaknesses.

This knowledge, as a rule, belongs to the company’s shareholders and top managers, who can be united in the editorial board. He's in " brainstorming» must determine the main directions of the editorial policy of the publication, approve the composition of the editorial board ( project team), which will have to propose the structure, format and periodicity of the newspaper.

A number of companies choose a different path. The management approves of the general idea, leaving all other processes to the editors. This option is preferable for companies with a democratic management culture, where the share of intellectual labor is high. The editorial board will be useful for large companies with a strict hierarchy and holding companies.

It should be borne in mind that even the slightest differences in the opinions of shareholders and company management should not be reflected on the pages of the corporate newspaper. The publication does not need to publish devastating feuilletons and insider information useful to competitors. The goals of the newspaper should not diverge from the goals and objectives of the publishing company.

Typical goals of a corporate newspaper are the formation of a unified information field and management of relations with the personnel of the company's management (shareholders).

Such a publication will help unite the team, convey to them the company’s values, form an adequate corporate culture, and manage the attitude of employees to the processes and changes taking place in the company. The newspaper should create a platform for the exchange of ideas and innovations, and motivate professional achievements. This is far from full list tasks that a corporate newspaper can help solve.

It is important to remember that a newspaper is just a tool. With its help, it is impossible to ensure that all readers (employees) think the same way. You can only try to make them think about the same thing.

Web page vs printed version

Before deciding what form a corporate publication should take, it is necessary to examine the information needs of employees, the tasks set for the corporate newspaper, and evaluate financial and technological capabilities.

First you need to decide on the technical design.

If readers of your newspaper work on computers connected to a single local network or have access to the Internet, you can limit yourself to the electronic version of the newspaper. It can combine a news feed, information and analytical articles, official information and the opportunity for employees to communicate with each other and with company management in moderated forums.

If not all readers are covered by computerization, there are two more traditional options. This is a printing method or office tools (color or black and white printer or copier). Printing in a printing house is more expensive, however, if the newspaper ends up in the hands of not only employees, but also visitors within the office, it is not worth saving on the printing house. It makes sense to use office tools if the newspaper’s circulation is small—up to 100 copies—or if it is posted on office information stands.

How to publish?

Every day there are many events happening in every company. The task of the editorial office of a corporate newspaper is to identify them, collect and sort them in accordance with the goals and objectives of the publication and its rubricator. The latter should be tough from room to room. However, at least once every six months it is necessary to add new sections, new ideas that can be gleaned not only from within the company, but also from business media.

Many companies started their corporate publications with the standard four-page page, then moving on to more complex concepts. From corporate newspapers for employees grew specialized magazines that have an audience far beyond the organization, image projects aimed at increasing consumer loyalty. However, reverse processes also occurred, as well as differentiation of publications. For example, the Aeroflot company began with the publication of one corporate newspaper, and now it has 13 corporate newspapers and magazines for employees and clients and more than 50 Internet portals.

When publishing a corporate newspaper, you should rely on best samples high-quality business printing. For example, deadlines for the publication of a newspaper must be strict, since failure to do so can lead to loss of interest, trust and respect for the publication.

Most companies prefer to publish a corporate publication monthly, less often - weekly and quarterly. The limitation here is the number of news generated by the company, the ability to prepare analytical materials, as well as the volume of pages and format of the newspaper.

It is advisable to divide articles in a newspaper into two types: operational, which are prepared immediately before the publication of the newspaper, and non-operative, from which the editorial portfolio is formed - long-term plan publications. The first type includes news, announcements and other information that should be communicated to employees as quickly as possible. The second includes interviews, analytical and problem articles, materials telling about the history of the company, features corporate culture, employees, innovations and improvement proposals.

Having an editorial portfolio will help to a large extent to avoid traditional newspaper rush jobs on the eve of the next issue. It is also important, before releasing the very first issue of the newspaper, to create the most complete portfolio of illustrations - photographs of top management, production, typical work situations, etc. The publication of high-quality illustrations distinguishes all business media. You will have to follow this rule to attract and retain readers.

Problems and solutions

It should be remembered that a corporate newspaper lives by the laws of the media market. This means that it is also affected by the problems of traditional publications: lack of funding, lack of specialists, shortage interesting articles, topics and talented authors. However the main problem– loss of trust on the part of readers and company employees due to incorrect editorial policies.

Problems with financing can only be solved by transferring the newspaper from an internal corporate format to a mixed one, designed for an external audience. This will help attract advertisers to the newspaper. They are found mainly among the company's suppliers.

With trust it is more difficult. The editors of a corporate newspaper need to find a special tone of information that is adequate to the style of communication adopted in the company - not directive and moralizing, but also not familiar, typical of the “yellow press”.

Let's join forces

The human factor is one of the main obstacles that a corporate newspaper must overcome. Responsibility for its release, as a rule, falls on the PR, marketing, and personnel management departments. Their employees make up the backbone of the editorial office. However, publishing a newspaper is not their main activity. This leaves its own, and not always positive, imprint on both the content and the quality of the publication.

The best option is to invite an outside specialist to the editorial office of a corporate newspaper. That is, a professional journalist or editor. After all, a corporate publication must be of high quality, which requires special knowledge of the editorial process, which cannot be obtained from textbooks.

But there is another opportunity that is being actively used large companies. They outsource the functions of publishing a corporate publication to PR agencies, or some of the functions related to the printing process to their printing houses and design centers.

Outsourcing cannot be avoided even in those moments when the editor of a corporate newspaper faces routine production issues. For example, “who will write articles and take photographs?”, “who will make the design layout?”, “who will layout the newspaper and process illustrations, perform pre-press preparation?”, “how will the newspaper be printed and distributed?”

Dear editors...

In a corporate newspaper, the tasks of PR, HR, marketing and sales intersect. However, the universal role of all media is to inform. This task must remain a priority.

You shouldn't expect a corporate newspaper to replace live communication between people, or will replace material incentives. If the materials of a corporate newspaper find a positive response from employees and are discussed at meetings, if the editor manages to involve members of the work team in the preparation of materials or even form the institution of “work reporters,” then internal tasks are being solved effectively.

In order for the corporate newspaper to become not only part of the corporate culture, but also the company’s business, attention should be paid to increased attention publications on professional topics. An innovative idea reflected in a newspaper, accepted and successfully implemented in a company, is the best (and, importantly, measured in financial indicators) evidence that the publication plays not only a propaganda role, but also an organizational one.

• editorial:“top echelon” corporate news, descriptions major events, industry news directly related to the company. There must be a “highlight of the issue”, a central material with a large high-quality illustration, information about the company’s production indicators - numerical information(here you can play with percentages of sales volumes, stock quotes, growth in the number of branches, number of employees, etc.);
• second stripe: continuation of the central material from the editorial; corporate news of the “second echelon” (mainly production achievements). You can do an interview with one of the managers on a current topic covered in the news section of the editorial;
• third band (practical): description of innovations being introduced in the company; master classes by experienced employees and managers. Employee success stories, introductions to new team members, information about employee career growth, and changes in company management will also be useful;
• fourth stripe: useful tips(within the framework of corporate culture), reports with mandatory illustrations on sports, cultural, leisure, and team-building events in the company. Employees will be happy to read congratulations on birthdays (weddings), interesting hobbies colleagues, industry crosswords, charades and competitions with significant prizes, etc.

“Do it like for adults, only better”...

Natalya Donskaya, Head of the Internal Corporate Communications Department of Moscow City Telephone Network OJSC.

Publishing a corporate newspaper is not an easy task. After all, beginning publishers, in addition to the problems inherent in all large-scale media, also face certain specific issues. She spoke about the difficulties that await them on this path. Natalya Donskaya, Head of the Internal Corporate Communications Department of Moscow City Telephone Network OJSC. MGTS has been publishing the corporate newspaper “Moscow Telephone Operator” for more than four years.

Natalya Aleksandrovna, please explain how good the option is when the editorial board is formed from top managers of the publishing company.

- The editorial board of top managers can truly become a working body. At the same time, he will determine the development strategy of the publication in accordance with the plans and prospects of the company itself. But at some enterprises the corporate culture is not democratic, and the management is “terribly far from the people.” In this case, there is a serious danger that the newspaper will turn into a “pocket” brochure general director. Another option for the development of events is that the newspaper will be of interest only to managers, and employees, in best case scenario, they will only “wrap fish” in it. Therefore, it is necessary that both parties not only know where and how to move, but also want to do it together, with interest and pleasure.

When publishing a newspaper for the first time, isn’t it better to entrust the matter to PR agencies? Most of them offer similar services...

- This is not always effective. Outsourcing a newspaper is really good and useful for the technical part of the publication. An external contractor will spend too much time getting to know the true situation in the company. And, frankly speaking, not all the details need to be known to an outsider.

Many people note that collecting a good photo archive is not easy. Have you ever encountered such a problem?

In fact, there are several problems. Thoughtlessly filling pages with bright, but foreign to employees, faces from electronic photo libraries can seriously irritate readers. Therefore, we need a professional photographer who could not only take reportage photographs, but also remove the “clamp” from both the employee and the manager. The manager needs to understand that the photo in the chair at the table under the portrait of Putin is not the only possible angle. That almost none of us, even those who are attractive in “dynamics,” win in “statics.” This means you need light and makeup, and, most importantly, time and desire for a full-fledged photo shoot.

Yes... It turns out that not everything is so simple. But a corporate newspaper does not have such a large scale. Isn't it possible to make a discount on this?

- In no case! If you are starting a publication, you cannot take the position of “Well, we’re not... (“Kommersant”, “Consultant”, “Vedomosti”). A corporate publication, like children's books, should be made “like for adults, only better.” It is difficult, but necessary, to prove to management that without spending on good printing and design, high-quality photographic equipment, and a professional copywriter, the process is impossible. After all, this is an indicator of respect for employees, a guarantee of interest in the publication. These are just a few drops in the ocean of problems, but they can be solved. Especially if the goal is to “be” and not “seem” to be a truly useful and interesting publication.

The phrase " corporate publication" entered the business lexicon relatively recently. But this is probably the most convenient and effective tool for creating a corporate culture, turning the team into a single society, when each employee, speaking about his company, uses the capacious word “we”. And the image in in this case, this is not an artificial structure built with the help of advertising and PR, but a real, sustainable image, practically not subject to external influence. Of course, this way of forming an image is not the only one, but if the plans are serious and long-term, then a corporate newspaper or magazine is necessary.

Why does a company need a corporate press?

What benefits does a company get when it starts publishing its own media?

Firstly, corporate newspaper– this is an excellent means of communication, both with employees and with people who are indirectly related to the company: partners, potential clients or even competitors. After all, a publication can have both an internal and external focus.The internal corporate media publishes materials intended directly for employees. This could be company news, orders, interviews, answers to questions, humor that is understandable to all employees, and much more. A publication that has a wider audience and is aimed at communicating with the public contains information that is interesting to a large circle of readers. These could be press releases, announcements of certain events, articles about the history of the enterprise or specific products, plans for the future, etc. In addition, such a publication can also be an excellent advertising medium, because it is distributed among interested people.

Secondly, corporate media contributes to the formation of a unified culture and business standards. This is especially true if branches are located at a great distance from each other. It is impossible to gather all employees at a seminar; it is impossible to explain to everyone the features of doing business and the company’s development strategy. And here a corporate newspaper is perfectly suited for answering a lot of questions, ranging from sales recommendations to strategic plans. It is important that every employee, when reading a corporate newspaper or magazine, feels like a member of a single team, involved in a common cause, so a lot depends on how the articles are written and what they talk about.

Thirdly, we must not forget that mass media, even corporate, is also an entertainment resource. Relaxing with a newspaper or magazine is as relevant today as it was 20 years ago, despite the availability of the Internet and dozens of TV channels. And for a person familiar with the company, and even more so working in it, to receive any Additional information and seeing familiar faces, workshops, offices will be doubly interesting. And if a corporate newspaper publishes good cartoons of managers and employees, anecdotes on the topic, stories about oddities, then such a publication is guaranteed success. By the way, themed crosswords or scanwords will also look good.

When developing a corporate publication, you need to remember that this is not only a place for publishing reports and orders, few will read them, but a means of uniting people around the company.

If a corporate newspaper is aimed at a wide audience, then it can be used as a full-fledged advertising platform, both for its own products and services, and for attracted advertisers - business partners, companies working in related industries. Your own advertising can be anything at all, cards in hand. And the entire concept of the publication can be built in such a way that each note will promote your products in one way or another. Although this is a lot of work and skill, because importunity is doubly inappropriate here.

Newsletter, newspaper or magazine?

The choice of publication format depends on the problems it aims to solve and the company’s capabilities, primarily informational ones.

Bulletin It makes sense to publish if there are few publications and news, they are not regular, but require prompt dissemination. They are often published by small companies. Their development, printing and distribution do not require much effort or investment.

Newspapers Suitable for regular and frequent circulation. The volume of materials is usually not very large, but you cannot delay publication, as they lose relevance. This is perhaps the most common type of corporate press.

If there is a need to publish large volumes of information accompanied by illustrations and photographs, then magazine fits better Total. But when determining the frequency of release, it is necessary to adhere to the principle of expediency. However, magazines have heaviest weight when forming the company's image.

There is an opinion that corporate publications are for big businesses. Not at all, even a small company can have its own press, but its main audience in this case is outside the team - clients, partners, just interested people. Openness attracts and builds trust.

Corporate media publishing process

Stage 0. Before you start working

First of all, you need to decide on the circulation of the publication. And this is not a question that can be postponed, because Russian legislation Any media published with a circulation of 1,000 or more copies is subject to mandatory registration with the Federal Service for Supervision of Compliance with Legislation in the Sphere of Mass Communications and Protection of Cultural Heritage. The process is not complicated or expensive, it takes about 1.5-2 months. You can do without registration, but then you will have to limit yourself to 999 copies.

The publishing process itself can be represented in several stages:

Stage 1. Development of the concept, design and layout of the publication

This work is performed once. The concept of the publication is developed, the design of each page is thought out and a layout is created, on the basis of which each issue will then be laid out. It is desirable that the principle “One page – One section” be observed. The first page is usually occupied by announcements of publications of the issue and management messages, the last by entertainment sections. The remaining pages can be filled out at your own discretion.

When developing a design, it is necessary to take into account the specifics of the company’s activities, publication format, color, and much more. It is better to use light colors that do not distract too much from the content. Photos and drawings must be processed taking into account print quality. For black and white printing, the drawings must be contrasting and this is the main requirement; for color printing, they must comply with the capabilities of the printing house.

Particular attention should be paid to the design of the text. This is the case when everything should be in moderation. There is no need to use any fancy fonts; the easier the text is to read, the better. There is no need to write huge articles; it would be better if they were medium in volume, simple and easy to understand.

Stage 2. Collection of materials and preparation of publications

The most labor-intensive and time-consuming stage is preparing articles. Even a small note can take a lot of time and effort, because, first of all, you need facts, and there may not be so many of them for the whole issue. It is better to entrust texts to professionals; self-written materials can turn a publication into a wall newspaper.

Stage 3. Layout and preparation of a corporate newspaper for printing

Several programs are used to prepare a corporate newspaper or magazine for printing. One, the main one, is used directly for layout, i.e. assembling pages, others for creating and processing graphic objects - design elements, photographs and illustrations. The most convenient standard for newspapers is A3, for magazines – A4. Layout can be done in any of the special programs, but not all printing houses work with them. Therefore, it is better to send files for printing in PDF format with a set of unique fonts used in development, in addition.

Stage 4. Printing a corporate newspaper

Printing issues are usually resolved by the printing house staff; the editors only provide the newspaper file in a pre-agreed format. But even at this stage, problems may arise, so it is better to control the process personally before releasing the transparencies. Only when the slides are made and checked for font compliance, display of pictures and photographs, can you relax and wait. It is also better to agree on printing deadlines in advance so that there are no surprises in the form of print run delays, etc.

Stage 5. Distribution of corporate publication

Delivering a copy of a corporate newspaper to the reader usually does not present any problem; copies are sent to departments and then distributed to employees. It is important that every employee, regardless of his position and status, receives his own copy, so the circulation must be calculated based on the number of personnel. A wide audience will also require high costs, so mailing services will also have to be connected to postal services.

Do it yourself or order it?

Deciding whether to create an in-house publishing team or turn to third-party developers depends on plans and feasibility. It’s easier, faster and cheaper to order a publication from specialized publishing houses.

It is more difficult to do this on your own; you will need to train staff and purchase software and a decent amount of time. But in this case, the publishing process will be completely under the control of the company.

The optimal option would be when the company assigns an employee to coordinate the publishing process, and all the main work is performed by external specialists. This will ensure that the corporate newspaper or magazine has the proper professional level and full compliance with the corporate image and policy.

How to publish corporate media is a secondary issue; the main thing is to decide on such a step. Yes, publishing is not an easy task, but it is undoubtedly worth it. A corporate newspaper is an attribute of a civilized and successful business, a tool for creating a positive image. Today it is not enough just to produce goods or services; you need to be noticeable, have your own history, traditions and big plans. Own publication solves a lot of similar problems, raises business to a high standard new level, turning an ordinary organization into a society, a full-fledged work collective, united by a common cause and common goals. Once you realize that you can make your business better, you can no longer stop, because inaction is moving backward.