The Ultimate Guide to Strengthening Your Chamber News

15 Aug 2024

Published in: Black Country Chamber of Commerce News
With the Paris 2024 Olympic games officially drawn to a close, see how you can take on the challenge and help your business win big this summer. Fight the summer slump and keep the ball rolling with our seven top tips to boost your news stories and blogs by utilising your Chamber dashboard.

A woman ties the laces of her running trainers on an athletics track.

1. Prepare for Victory

As tempting as it is to start writing in your dashboard, building your story in a separate Word or Google Docs file allows you to try out different ways of formatting before copying into the submission portal.

This way, you can get a feel for layouts, spacing and the overall presentation of your story like your audience will see it. Plus saving a separate document means you will not lose the wonderful draft you have been working hard to create.


A man dives deep into a blue tiled swimming pool.

2. Dive into the Introduction

Every story has a beginning, and it is mandatory to include a title and summary – introductory sentence for each submission. Keeping the title short e.g. roughly ten words maximum, allows readers to spot an eye-catching headline and click to read more.

They do not want the entire story in one title or the first sentence so no need to worry about being too vague at that point. Your first paragraph will be your time to really shine.


The silhouette of a woman approaches a dark room with a spotlight in the centre as she prepares to weightlift.

3. Build Up to the Action

Avoid giving away all your best points too soon – but make sure not to draw everything out for too long either. For event roundups, a general rule of thumb is to follow the five W questions. What happened and when? Where and why? Who was there?

Plus, what did they say? For blogs with ‘top tips’ or similar, it’s best to keep a consistent format with headings and use slightly more informal language to draw readers in. It’s easier to engage with something that you can tell is written by another person – so avoid heavily relying on ChatGPT and other AI text generators for the bulk of your story.


A group of male rugby players celebrate on the field, raising each other up after a game.

4. Close on a Winning Note

An outro is just as important as the introduction. Here, you can give a word of thanks to your team, partners, special guests etc… Or something short and sweet like my personal favourite: ‘If you want to learn more, visit our website: https://www.blackcountrychamber.co.uk/news/all-news/’

Remember, not everyone visiting Chamber news/blogs will be familiar with your business, so including a call to action at the end of each story gives newbies a chance to click and see what you offer through your own site.


A silhouette of a man with a professional filming camera points towards the centre of a sporting arena as empty audience seating appear behind him.

5. Capture the Memory

Using images and videos adds another layer of engagement to your story. Nobody wants to read a wall of text, so breaking up your story with different media can help facilitate your message to the audience. Additionally, appropriate photo ratios for the cover image (we recommend 1920 X 1080px) will look more presentable in the news feed and ensure that nothing important is cut out of frame.

For videos, our portal can embed content from YouTube, Vimeo, Vine, Instagram, Dailymotion or Youku. If your video exists on a different platform you will have to link the URL to open in another tab.


The legs of many cyclists ride their bikes during a city road race.

6. Create a Chain Reaction

URL links are the simplest way for an audience to click through to your website. However, copying and pasting URLs into the portal will not actually link them. To do this, highlight the text you would like to link; click on the ‘paperclip’ icon and paste the URL into the ‘To what URL should this link go?’ section before clicking the blue ‘Insert Link’ button.

This way, you can link the word ‘website’ to your webpage, ‘our partner’ to your business partner’s webpage and so on. This is a good way to avoid using long weblinks.


Laptops, pens and microphones at a panel desk during a press conference with people wearing lanyards seated behind the table.

7. Go on a Virtual Press Tour

After uploading your story, bring some traction by posting about it on socials. Whether Twitter, Instagram or LinkedIn – by linking the URL with a bit of context, it makes it easy for your audience to click through and enjoy your masterpiece. Even better, tag us in your post and we can give it a like so more Chamber members can see it.

Now, it’s time to go for gold and represent your brand with a whole new set of skills in your toolkit. Have no fear – the process of writing will become easier the more you practice. Before you know it, you might even find yourself buzzing to write a submission for our upcoming business awards…

Want to learn more?

This month, our Start-Up Business Club workshop ‘How To Build A Creative Marketing Strategy’ will cover everything from A to Z.

Are you ready for a new challenge?

BOOK YOUR PLACE

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