Nature News Resources

Nature News Redesign

Nature News has been updated! Take a look at the new design below. To see an annotated version of the design, look under the "New Submission Process" tab. Click on the image to view the full newsletter mock-up. 

Sections of new Nature News

The new Nature News design includes seven sections

• Header - the header includes a link to view the email in a browser, a donate button, an alternate language version of the newsletter, a localized title (e.g. "Idaho Nature News"), and a quote and article link.  These details are all provided by Centralized Services. 
• *Stories Near You - the first newsletter body section contains local stories submitted by the local BU. The zip code of the constituent determines which stories they recieve (aka all recipients residing in Florida will recieve Florida Nature News). 
• Stories From Around The World - the second body section contains stories curated by Centralized Services.
• *Stories You May Be Interested In - this is the NEW personalized section. In this section a constituent recieves stories based on interests noted in their BBCRM profiles (if any). 
• Photo Of The Month - section includes a featured photo curated by Centralized Services. 
• Trending News - section contains news stories curated by the global media team. 
• Happening Now - section contains info on global campaigns. Curated by Centralized Services. 

Note on the New Nature News from Jenny Elliott, Director of Analytics: 

• Every single link in the Nature News email includes tracking that we can tie back to your BU. The updated technical design allows us to easily roll together email performance from your particular Nature News send email alongside any other emails you've sent out through the Centralized Email Program. Practically speaking, we are working to make email metrics as a whole more accessible to all stakeholders.

• Links within Nature News have enhanced tagging to tell us "section" details with greater specificity. Previously we could track people clicking on national vs local stories, but we have also woven in specific tracking for the Stories that May Interest you section, header links, footer links, Photo link (if applicable), Trending News, etc. Additionally, all of these link clinks can be directly tied back to the individual constituent (when the link is pointing to a TNC domain such as nature.org). We will know what specifically is of interest to individual people, can look for trends within geographies, understand the impact of the personalized content, and more!

Training

Training will cover four main topics: 

• a walkthrough of the new Nature News design
• strategy tips for submitting Nature News stories
• style guidance including on image size, image selection and copy length
• and a walkthrough of the new submission form

Nature News Submission Process

Timing: Julia will continue to communicate Nature News submission dates each month. 

How to Submit: Each story will be submitted separately via a form in the Marketing Requests Portal (hosted on Jira Service Management) with your usual login to submit tickets on the Portal. Any images accompanying the stories will be uploaded at the same time on the same form. Communications on each ticket will be done on the ticket in the portal. 

How to Edit: Edits will need to be done with a Jira Service Management agent account. Scroll down to the section on editing to learn more. 

Click the image below to view a mock-up of the Nature News newsletter and preview the different sections and layouts for stories. 

New Submission Form on the Marketing Requests Portal

Fields on the Nature News Request Form: 

• Raise this request on behalf of: This should typically be left to default to your name and email. If you are submitting for someone else, please enter their name here. 
• Summary of Request: This is a title for your request for you and others to reference. Format as Nature News request: [BU][MonthYear][story title][story priority]. Example: "Nature News Request: Florida - Dec 2020 - Panther Event - Story 1"
• Email type: Select Nature News 
• Business Unit: If you are in the USA, select your state (or the state you are submitting for). If you are outside the USA, scroll to the bottom of the list and select your region. 
• Associated interest: If your story is about one of the "interest" topics listed, select that interest. Otherwise, choose none. Single select. 
• Stories near you - story layout: Select one of the options for how this story should appear on the Nature News template. Note: Large Photo can only be used for one story each month. Also, if you choose a photo option, make sure you include all necessary photo variations with your submission. 
• Stories that may interest you - story layout: If your story is used in the "stories that may interest you" section in a newsletter for another BU, how would you like the story to display? Select one of the options. If you choose to include a thumbnail, make sure to upload a 260x260px image with the request. 
• Story priority: select the order that you would like stories to display. If you are submitting four stories, enter 1 in this field for the highest priority story and enter 4 for the lowest priority story. 
• Title of Story: Here you should enter the headline of your story as you would like it to display on your version of Nature News. 50 character limit. 
• Text for Story: Enter the description of your story as it will display below the headline on your version of Nature News. 200 character limit (300 for stories w/o images)
• Call to Action Title: Enter the text that will be used as the link to your story. 50 character limit.  
• Primary Call to Action URL: URL where the CTA will link to, must include an Adobe campaign tag. Campaign Tag Generator. 
• Photo Caption/Credit: if you are including a photo, enter the credit for the photo (do not include caption). Copyright symbol will be added automatically. 
• Alt Text: If you are including a photo also include alt text that describes what is shown in the image for those who cannot see it. Check out the style guide tab for recommendations on how to write alt text. 
• Attachments: If you are including an image, include 2-3 versions of the image here for the the different ways it may display. Include a 1200x600px version (large image), a 560x420px version (Image on Left) and a 260x260 version (thumbnail). Images should be named as follows: IMAGE_[SIZE]_[BU]_[MO][YEAR]_Story#.jpg
  • Example: IMAGE_1200x600_WAFO_Nov2020_Story1.jpg (actual image size 1200x600 - will show in email as 600x300) CRITICAL: Make sure the "x" in the image dimensions in the file name ("1200x600") is LOWERCASE. The images will not process correctly if the "x" is capitalized. 

Editing Content 

If you need to edit a Nature News request, you will need to do so with a Jira Agent account. 

If you have already submitted and need to log in from the Agent side to edit, click here. 

Each BU can have one email captain who is also a Jira Agent who can submit stories and edit the tickets they submit to Nature News. You can view the current list of Agents here. If your BU does not currently have an agent and will need one, please submit a Marketing Request Ticket to request one. 

Find information for new Jira agents and how to login as an agent in this document on Box. 

Why do you need to make edits? 

1) As always, things change or mistakes are caught or new photos are obtained and the content can be improved. Edits will always be needed. 

2) Jira requests time out. If you start submitting a story and you leave the ticket open for several hours without submitting, after a few hours the ticket will auto-submit and you will no longer be able to edit. To finish submitting the content and adding details and/or attachments, you will have to log in and edit the ticket.

3) You need to delete a story you submitted. If your story needs to be pulled from the lineup, simply set the story status to "closed." 

Nature News Image & Text Style Guide for Contributors*

Image Specs

Format 

JPG is preferable, but if there’s transparency, PNG is allowed. 

Word Count

'Stories Near You' - Local Featured Stories 

50 characters for story titles

300 characters for story text formatted w/ no image

200 characters for story text formatted w/ an image (image on left or large photo)

50 characters for CTA links

'Stories You May Be Interested In' - Interest-Based Stories

50 characters for story title

200 characters for story text 

50 characters for CTA links 

Writing Guidelines

• Use title case for headlines. Capitalize the first letter of every word except articles, coordinating conjunctions, and prepositions of three letters or fewer. There’s one exception: Any word that is the first word in the headline or the last word should be capitalized, regardless of its part of speech.
• Follow Associated Press style in your teaser blurbs. Note: Common names of species are lower case unless they contain a proper name that would be capitalized in a normal context, in which case that word should be capitalized in the species name: “Kirtland’s warbler,” “Florida panther,” “burrowing owl."  See more style guidelines for all TNC digital content here.
• Include only the photo credit – no captions please. Use this format:  © Kent Mason or © Sherry Crawley/TNC

How to write alt text 

Alt text should briefly and specifically describe what the image shows, and include any relevant or important elements in the image that you'd miss if you couldn't see it. For example, "dog playing with a ball" is short and does sketch out a picture, but "border collie carrying a ball through a grassy meadow" paints a much more vivid picture.

When deciding what to include in your alt text, pay close attention to what's in the image. Does the image show a specific animal or plant species? Is it a specific and obvious time of day, is there visible weather (such as a lightning storm, snow, rain, powerful wind), or is it clearly a certain season? Do these elements matter to understanding the image? Is the landscape a specific or recognizable location, especially a historical or Indigenous location? Is the image an underwater or aerial photography shot? Are there people and do you know their names and/or titles (and are you approved to use them)?

Alt text best practices

• Use specific descriptions of the image or graphic - describe the image as if to a person who can't see it (which is what alt text does).
• If a graphic or image includes text, reiterate that exact text in the alt text. For example, when writing alt text for an image of a quote include the whole quote in the alt text using single quotation marks (').
• If the image is used for a specific purpose, such as a link, the alt text should describe the action and/or destination (such as "The Nature Conservancy of Illinois Facebook page").
• Include the name and title of a person if it's known, especially for headshots and especially for recognized individuals (Lynn Scarlett, Jennifer Morris, etc.).
• End alt text with a period. Alt text doesn't have to be a complete sentence, but a period causes screen reading devices to pause after reading the alt text out loud, which provides a helpful distinction between alt text and the next sentence on the page for people who with visual disabilities.

Further Personalization through Interest-Based Stories

The new Nature News design includes seven sections

• Header - details provided by Centralized Services. 
• Stories Near You - the first newsletter body section contains local stories submitted by the local BU. The zip code of the constituent determines which stories they recieve (aka all recipients residing in Florida will recieve Florida Nature News). 
• Stories From Around The World - curated by Centralized Services.
• *Stories You May Be Interested In - this is the NEW personalized section. In this section a constituent recieves stories based on interests noted in their BBCRM profiles (if any). More on this below!
• Photo Of The Month - curated by Centralized Services. 
• Trending News - curated by the global media team. 
• Happening Now - curated by Centralized Services. 

How do interests work?

As a story submitter - what is my role in all of this? 

As a story submitter, you will tag your stories appropriately as you submit them. Each story will be submitted separately with a different Marketing Request Portal ticket. When you submit a ticket, you will mark the BU the story is from and, if applicable, add an interest label. Both the BU label and the interest label determine who (if anyone) recieves your stories outside of the region your BU serves. 

Timing

• Fall 2020: new submission process built and tested
• December 2-7: training sessions held on new submission process
• December 7: begin submitting nature news stories for January issue via new Jira process. 
• April 2021: Agent accounts created in Jira for folks who submit stories on behalf of a BU.