#MediaMonday – Ashlei Williams
Plumbing + Hydronic Contractor News, also known as Phc News, is among the trade journals we receive. It is a key resource for contractors and is distributed to more than 44,000 mechanical and plumbing contractors in the plumbing, hydronic heating and piping markets.
Today’s Media Monday comes to us from Phc News’ Editor-in-Chief Ashlei Williams, who we’d like to congratulate on her wedding this weekend!
Ashlei, time to share:
Every journalist has their “thing,” whether it’s being an AP Style wizard or a leading subject matter correspondent. My thing is multimedia. [inlinetweet prefix=”” tweeter=”” suffix=”@_AshleiWilliams @phcnews #MediaMonday”]There is no one way to tell a story.[/inlinetweet] While a piece may best resonate with a specific audience in one format, it can also offer others outside of that target group a unique experience through written, cinematic, photographic, or audio elements.
For nearly a decade, I have been creating multimedia content for trade, business, philanthropic, minority and academic audiences. In 2013, TMB Publishing brought me on to establish a social media presence for the company. Phc News is one of three trade magazines published by TMB Publishing. The other two are Plumbing Engineer and The Wholesaler.
My top three priorities were: give the magazines personalities; help the sales team learn how to pitch digital offerings to advertisers; and teach the industry about social media. To do this, I led staff trainings on Twitter so that readers could get to know us, launched a bi-monthly social media feature and monthly column, oversaw each magazine’s improvement on five social media outlets, introduced a monthly digital metrics report, implemented video editing and two video series, and gave what is now our award-winning blog a more consistent presence.
TMB Publishing is a small but mighty company. For 20 years, the company’s leadership has managed to bring high-quality print content to readers; even through the last decade when many publications had to reduce or cut production. Digital media has helped us to not only differentiate ourselves in the market, but also establish ourselves as a resilient, cutting-edge publisher.
Over the past five years, businesses have started to understand that digital media is a tool that must be used across the company. Digital media has changed employee-to-employee collaboration, employee-to-customer engagement, salesperson-to-client brand messaging, and more. It seems safe to say that the concept of “content is king” is now understood when it comes to digital media. The shift now is toward understanding which content is king for specific outlets and audiences. And, that is what TMB Publishing is excited about.
This year, I took the helm of Phc News and Plumbing Engineer. In May, all of our magazines expanded their digital content offerings. Now, we offer website-exclusive articles and stories that only appear in our digital editions. While such developments are exciting for some, I recognize that for others digital media can be intimidating to our industry, which is just now beginning to utilize online platforms, and others like it. It is not my aim to force digital media anyone, but to equip others with what I consider to be just another tool for success in business today.
You can find Phc News on a variety of social media outlets including: Twitter , Facebook , YouTube, LinkedIn and Google+.
