Writers From Beyond Bylines & Beyond PR Share Blogging Resolutions For 2016

2015 carried us through and introduced us to many new ways of processes.

Many a newsroom climbed aboard the Slack train to better open lines of communication between teams.

Publishing grew aplenty (Think: LinkedIn’s long-form publishing, the sprouting of Medium, Upvoted by Reddit). Then there were the writing systems built for making life easier, like The Washington Post’s Talent Network, Freelancers by Vox Media.

Podcasts grew in popularity, and video blogging (Example: Periscope) became a critical part of breaking news and citizen journalism stories-on-the-spot.

Drones strengthened their foothold in the media landscape, albeit with little direction or guidance.

And freedom of the press took center stage in more than one instance, shedding light on the dangers of foreign correspondence and even freelancer safety here in the US.

And Away We Go

I typed to you around this time last year with our top five blogging resolutions. I went back to the team and extracted their wishlist for this year.

I’ll start.

Christine Cube, audience relations manager
@BeyondBylines, @cpcube | Blog: Beyond Bylines

I write a bunch. On Mondays, we publish blog profiles. On Fridays, I publish the Media Insider column. This year, I’d like to shoot for something totally doable: One enterprise blog post a month on an exciting development around journalism, blogging, social media, and/or writing. I wrote lots of things that I was excited about last year. Some of my favorites include a profile of business blogs for women, an update on Amtrak’s writer residency program, and a Career Crossroads piece on “finding the narrative beyond the newsroom.” This year, I’d like to pursue more of the same. Let’s see what unfolds in 2016.

Amanda Hicken, senior manager of strategic content
@PRNewswire, @ADHicken | Blog: Beyond PR

It’s no longer enough to have a large audience for your blog. Today’s bloggers are responsible for engaging with their audience and driving action. My resolution this year is to continue improving the calls to action we use on PR Newswire’s Beyond PR blog by taking a look at what has been successful in the past, as well as opportunities for improvement, and then using these insights to test different CTA strategies.

Anna Jasinski, audience relations manager
@BeyondBylines, @annamjasinski | Blog: Beyond Bylines

2015 was my first year working on the Beyond Bylines blog. So, many of my resolutions really involve my work in this space. I hope to keep us forward-thinking, technologically speaking. Keeping our content fresh to align with the advancements and changes in journalism and blogging worlds is really critical to me. I also want to develop the Beyond Bylines blog from an SEO perspective. Finally, I resolve to grow our readership and subscriptions for the blog by broadening our author base and featured guests. I loved talking with and writing about Hemal Jhaveri at USA Today, and I’d love to see us sharing more from influential and inspiring folks like her.

Ryan Hansen, social media manager
@PRNewswire, @RPH2004 | Blog: Beyond PR

With the new year off and running, my blogging resolution is to read more. Blogs, books, articles, op-eds, white papers, tweets, you name it. My goal is to improve my writing skills as a whole, and I believe that starts by becoming more educated on the subject matter at hand.

Jessica Alas, multicultural audience director
@PRNmltcult, @alasjessica | Blog: Beyond Bylines

I’d like to contribute some posts to an audience of journalists – particularly those in broadcast media – that will give them best practices on promoting their personal brand and connecting with their fans/followers. I also want to continue writing posts that highlight the importance of multicultural media, especially as we get closer to the elections.  I want to continue interviewing Hispanic and African-American journalists (for example, Derek T. Dingle); journalists who choose to remain working in multicultural outlets (rather than going to mainstream media), and explore their reasons for doing so.

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Christine Cube is an audience relations manager with PR Newswire and freelance writer. Follow @cpcube or check out her latest on Beyond Bylines on PR Newswire for Journalists.