Telekom Netz

Emotionalizing Deutsche Telekom’s network expansion

Deutsche Telekom’s network blog is an example of the digital transformation that many communicators are currently experiencing. Telekom Netz spokespeople are becoming corporate journalists who use their own platforms for storytelling, setting topics and journalistically reporting on projects of their Telekom Netz brand.

Challenge

Dry press releases on the dry topic of network expansion – Deutsche Telekom no longer wanted to engage in this type of communication. That’s why The Digitale suggested emotionalizing the topic of network expansion and taking a more journalistic approach. Telekom Netz press spokespersons were to become corporate journalists. The aim was therefore to transform the current topics on Telekom Netz’s network expansion into attractive blog posts for Telekom Netzblog. Background information, field reports and insights into the technology were on the agenda. Added to this were people and their activities in network expansion, special challenges and reports – in short, topics that are read, clicked and liked more.

This was intended to make the topic of network expansion more emotional. In a further step, The Digitale Telekom Netz was also to help set up a YouTube channel. The idea was to publish the emotional stories from Telekom Netzblog in video format on YouTube and create a community. We also successfully supported Telekom Netz’s press spokespeople in setting up a Twitter channel.

Goals for Telekom Netz

• Increase traffic to the Telekom blog
• Increase the reach of the articles
• Emotionalization of the topic of network expansion
• Journalistic choice of topics and implementation
• Development of a multi-channel distribution
• Clear SEO strategy for better Google ranking
• Support in setting up a Twitter channel
• Support development a YouTube channel

These services we have used for Telekom Netz:

Measures for Telekom Netz

In February 2015, the Telekom Netzblog was launched in the “Network” navigation area of Deutsche Telekom’s blog. Since then, a team of regional Telekom press spokespeople, supported by The Digitale, has regularly published its own background stories and reports from the multifaceted world of network expansion. In a mix of portrait, knowledge and documentary episodes, an emotional insight into the multifaceted world of Telekom network expansion is offered, giving the community the opportunity for direct exchange. If required, The Digitale creates additional content that is optimized for search engines and prepared for social media. The Digitale built up an efficient multi-channel distribution with the Telekom Netz team. Together with the Netzblog team, The Digitale set up the Telekom Netz YouTube channel with 72,000 subscribers and the Twitter account @Telekomnetz with 12,400 subscribers. The Digitale also distributes the content via paid channels, Facebook and promotes the YouTube channel.

Clear SEO strategy ensures good Google ranking

In addition, there are special campaigns such as the “Elbeblogger” in 2015 and the “Telekom Netztouren” (every year since 2016), with which we were able to achieve great coverage successes. In particular, organic link building via the Elbeblogger competition (Telekom was publicly looking for a blogger to report on Telekom projects along the Elbe) and a clear SEO strategy have led to the Telekom blog achieving a significant increase in search engine visibility since 2015.

The press spokespeople from Telekom Netz and The Digitale have received numerous awards for their communication of the network expansion, including dotCOMM Awards, DCA Digital Awards and Drum Awards. The coverage of the Ahrtal flood disaster in 2021 was particularly highlighted.

Results

Since 2015, Telekom Netz’s communication about the network expansion for fibre optics and mobile communications has become more journalistic and emotionalized. The multichannel distribution has been a complete success. Supported by the Telekomnetz Twitter channel and the Telekom Netz YouTube channel, the Netzblog was able to significantly increase its traffic. The number of subscribers on Twitter rose to 12,400 and on YouTube to more than 72,000.