Lisa Herbertson has been promoted to National Real Estate Digital Editor at News Corp and now oversees digital real estate content across News’ metropolitan mastheads. Lisa had been the NSW Real Estate Digital Producer since February this year, and was a Digital Producer at The Daily Telegraph before that. She tells EA about her experience playing professional hockey and what she looks for in a good real estate story.
EA: Tell us about your background and in journalism and your experience playing semi-professional hockey
Lisa: After studying Sports Media at the University of Canberra, I took a job with Fairfax Community newspapers – writing about sport, real estate and news. My next stop was at the NSW Institute of Sport, where I was the Media consultant. While working in these two roles, I was awarded a scholarship with the international modern pentathlon association to be their official journalist at the Beijing Olympics. I was also given the opportunity to work for the official news service at the Delhi Commonwealth Games and Beijing Paralympics. Both great experiences.
But I was finding it hard to juggle work and my hockey training and I was offered a spot on the Eintracht Frankfurt women’s team in 2008, so I quit work and moved to Germany for about three years. The club supported me to play and live in Germany, so I was able to explore Europe a bit, and also continue playing for the Australian Indoor Hockey team.
It was a great time in my life. And a great experience which I am very grateful for.
After playing for the Aussie team at the Indoor World Cup in 2011, I hung up my hockey stick and decided to come home to continue with my career. Right after one last adventure – travelling home from Europe without catching a plane … lots of boats, trains and fun!
So then I came home and was quickly offered a role with the NewsLocal community newspaper group, and after four years there I took up a role with the Daily Telegraph as a digital producer. From there, I moved into a NSW digital producer role for the NewsCorp real estate team earlier this year, and have recently been appointed the National Digital Real Estate Editor.
What does your new role entail?
In my new role, I work with journalists and editors around the country to ensure that News Corp is first to cover real estate stories, and that we have the best coverage of auctions, celebrity news, new data analysis, and plenty of #propertyporn.
NewCorp has a partnership with realestate.com.au for our digital news, and I work with the team there to enhance and promote the best stories across social media and various websites.
What do you look for in a good real estate story?
For me, a good real estate story has a hard news angle, is informative, and appeals to the average punter. I think that connecting to people’s interest and answering their questions in a story are really important, and if it can be a bit of fun too then that’s a bonus.
Any time I build an online story, or post something to Facebook or Twitter I ask myself ‘Would I click on that?’ and if the answer is yes then I know I’m a good chance at the content being a success and getting plenty of eyeballs on it.
The other most important thing is appealing to the community you’re writing for. It’s really important to get to know your audience, and what they like, what they’re interested in, and their online reading habits.
