How the City of Oostende Transformed its Communications with PR.co

When the City of Oostende in Belgium partnered with PR.co, they didn’t just streamline communications; they created several sleek newsrooms that serve multiple audiences. Curious how they did it? Read on.

How the City of Oostende transformed its communications with PR.co

When the City of Oostende in Belgium partnered with PR.co, they didn’t just streamline communications; they created several sleek newsrooms that serve multiple audiences. Curious how they did it? Read on.

Two years ago, the City of Oostende, a popular tourist destination on the Belgian coast, faced a familiar challenge that many dynamic cities share. With a diverse community and a busy local economy, the city’s communications team was under constant pressure to deliver important news to various target segments on time.

As the team’s output grew, processes that initially worked became inefficient. In particular, the lack of a good PR platform with built-in approval processes hindered their progress. Important feedback was often buried in lengthy email threads, approvals were difficult to track, and the stakes were high: a single oversight could easily lead to confusion or reputational damage.

This frustrating situation changed when Oostende’s communications team switched to PR.co’s newsroom platform in 2023. An organized, easy-to-manage workspace with built-in approval workflows made all the difference. Today, the city boasts several sleek newsrooms that serve as polished communications hubs for an array of stakeholders.

A need for better collaboration and workflows

The lack of a proper PR platform turned routine tasks into daily challenges for Oostende’s communications team.

“Our previous platform had no approval processes built in,” Lukas Lebegge, Communications Specialist for the City, explains. “So, when team members were on leave or off sick, it was tough to track whether a press release had been approved or where exactly it sat in the approval process.”

Tracking approvals was particularly problematic during the summer, when many team members were on holiday.

“Not everyone kept a list of where everything was,” Lukas explains. “Sometimes, it was hard to tell whether a stakeholder had seen a press release or not. Everything went out via email, and so you had to CC the right person to understand where things were.”

The mayor and city management, as is customary in government communications, also required oversight on every document before it was released. “If you made one slip or mistake and the press release got released before the right stakeholder saw it, it was a big problem. So, it was important to get this right.”

Additionally, the team was conscious about controlling the reach of their press releases. Rather than making them publicly visible to the general public, they wanted to keep newsroom content exclusive for the press. While journalists required detailed attribution and context, messages intended for citizens had to be written in a neutral, unified voice.

Other key audience groups, including tourists, as well as administrative bodies such as AG Oostende and Economisch Huis Oostende, also needed to be considered. Without a centralized PR platform to manage all these moving parts, maintaining consistent and timely communication became increasingly complex.

Needs, strategy, and implementation

When the time came to introduce a more efficient approach, the City of Oostende’s communications team sought a platform that offered robust approval workflows, granular user roles, and other custom features. Establishing a transparent, auditable workflow for each press release was non-negotiable, as it would bring predictability and peace of mind.

When the team first approached PR.co, they discovered they could easily create four independent newsrooms, each dedicated to a specific area: the city of Oostende, Economisch Huis Oostende, the tourism body, and AG Oostende.

PR.co made it easy to deliver tailored communication to every audience, which was exactly what the team was looking for.

They also discovered that PR.co’s team was willing to adapt the platform for the city’s specific needs. Each Oostende newsroom could, for example, be shielded from search engines to ensure releases were only accessible to their intended audiences and not randomly discoverable by citizens who search online.

“Being able to control who sees our press releases was incredibly important to us, and PR.co delivered on their promise,” Lukas notes. “Citizens cannot find the press releases, but our email campaigns keep the press fully informed.”

Additionally, PR.co customized the platform’s backend to match the way the city’s staff were used to working, making the transition seamless.

“PR.co was very helpful in finding solutions to help us adapt in small ways to our new way of working,” Lukas adds.

The PR.co solution in action

PR.co completely transformed how the City of Oostende handles daily communications. What used to be a tangled web of complicated approvals is now smooth and straightforward, all managed from one place.

Team members can instantly see where each press release stands, share feedback directly on the platform, and hand off tasks without any confusion or delays. The city can now send targeted messages to specific audiences without watering down their brand or overwhelming people with irrelevant updates.

For Lukas, the analytics are a game-changer. "I find the analytics are very intuitive," he says. "The dashboard shows exactly how many posts we've published and which ones performed well and which ones didn’t. Lately, I've been diving into the campaign stats more often because it's just so simple to use."

The 10-person communications team has found collaboration much easier too. Before, content reviews meant juggling endless emails and phone calls. Now everything from comments, to notifications, and document flows lives in one central hub. They can trace exactly what happened when, saving time and preventing those frustrating miscommunications.

Several wins for Oostende’s communications team

The switch to PR.co happened effortlessly, with minimal disruptions. PR.co facilitated a few initial training sessions and, by the time the Oostende team had to transition from the previous platform to the new one, everyone felt confident about what they were doing.

The team was also pleasantly surprised by how quickly the PR.co platform delivered results. “We were worried that our first few releases might end up in journalists’ spam folders,” Lukas recalls. “But that never happened. Our campaigns were picked up quickly, everything went smoothly, and it still does.”

The biggest change? How the team works together day-to-day. "All those conversations that used to scatter across different email threads now happen right in PR.co," Lukas explains. "Everyone can see what's being discussed, and we can loop people into specific teams so they get the updates they actually need to see."

Lessons for other Government communications teams

For other municipalities thinking about upgrading their communications, Lukas has some straightforward advice: sort out the people stuff before you worry about the tech stuff.

"Work out all your internal agreements upfront," he emphasizes. "Who approves what? How do decisions get made? What's the process when things go wrong? Figure that out first. Then when you start using PR.co, it'll slot right into those agreements instead of creating more confusion."

He thinks Oostende's approach could be a useful roadmap for smaller cities that are still figuring out their communications game plan. His philosophy? Don't try to do everything at once.

"Just start simple," Lukas suggests. "The basic features work really well and make sense right away. All the fancy bells and whistles are nice bonuses, but you don't need them to succeed. Get comfortable with the fundamentals first, then build from there."

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