Who has time for THAT????

OK, you do need to make time for what I like to call “big thinking” to continuously improve your PR and marketing efforts over time. But there are also a million little things that can generate huge improvement in your day-to-day work NOW. With that in mind, I present the first installment of “Small steps, big results,” which (I hope) will become a regular feature on Matter Chatter. On to the tips…

For the love of all that is holy, kill the jargon!

Real people (like, the people you hope read and care about your release) hate jargon. And, if you’re being honest, you’ll admit that a little bit of you dies every time you write about “taking paradigm-shifting, turn-key solutions to the next level.”

We’ve all done it. Let’s all agree to stop. (Not sure if you’re using jargon? Here’s a good reality check.)

Use the quote(s) to SAY something

At some point, you are going to be tempted to have your executive quote start with “We are pleased / thrilled / delighted…”

Don’t do it. Ever. Really, don’t. Trust me.

The quote is the place where you can editorialize and provide context around the facts that are provided in the rest of the release. It’s also the part that tends to be pulled verbatim into news stories. Say something additive, interesting and valuable.

Give yourself a fighting chance that somebody will finish reading the entire release

Write shorter releases. That is all.

Fine…if you can’t get ‘em under 400 words (additional benefit alert – you’ll save yourself some $$ on wire distribution!), at least break up the content visually by using section headers (ahem) and bullets.

Taking my own advice, I’m going to stop now. Do you have other tips? Drop ‘em in the comments!

The guy is brilliant and, if you’re in PR, you can’t help but know that he has a cat named Karma and, when he’s not jumping from an insane altitude, he’s training for an Ironman. Oh, and he’s the founder and CEO of a PR/journalism game-changing company called Help a Reporter Out (HARO).

HARO was founded on Facebook in 2008 and has since grown to be THE social media services company that connects writers and sources. In my opinion, two things make HARO particularly unique: It’s a free service for all involved and it’s a no-BS community where PR pros are held accountable for the pitches they send. Users get booted for spammy, spray-and-pray pitches and, as a result, HARO is somewhat of a safe haven for members of the media.

The lucrative HARO “sponsorship” program that Shankman created is also noteworthy. He places advertisements at the start of each email, which are chock-full of media queries, and the open rates are said (by HARO) to be about 75 percent.

In fact, this business model is so remarkable that, just last week, Shankman announced that his little enterprise had been scooped up by Vocus, a company that provides on-demand software for public relations management and manages the press release distribution service called PRWeb.

We join the industry in congratulating Peter Shankman on this significant accomplishment. According to a Mashable story, he will continue to build the HARO brand with the help of the folks at Vocus and, more importantly, the service will remain free. We look forward to seeing what the future holds for HARO – and continuing to use this fantastic service to supplement our daily PR activities and outreach!

Sure, the type of asset shared might be slightly different than it was 10 years ago, whether it be compelling video or a multimedia slideshow, and we might be forced to show how genuine we are in only 140 characters – but the role of a PR person as a reliable source of accurate and interesting information remains unchanged. I’d take this a step further and say that operating as a sincere individual with appealing things to talk about not only makes you a good PR professional, it makes you a good friend, dinner companion, date, drinking buddy, (insert role here).

Not only does this just feel instinctively true, research indicates that creating valuable resources is more effective than algorithm chasing as it pertains to SEO, a vital aspect of measuring a PR campaign or even the worth of a single press release. With sophisticated, ever-changing formulas for determining Google rankings, I say the best bet for keeping your clients top-of-mind (and top-of-index) is to tell a winning story and just keep it real, man.

I turned back to the old “man on the street” format this week. After last week’s Brody PR faux pas, the old PR vs. journalism debate got some digital ink in the same way that the working moms vs. stay-a-home moms debate dusts up every year or so. It got me thinking, can’t we all just get along? And, I turned to some former colleagues for their “real” do’s and don’ts for forging a healthy PR / journalist working relationship. Here’s a sample of what they said (with names cloaked to protect the innocent!).

DO
Overall, my former co-workers see the value of a good PR professional. “Believe me, us editors have a vested interest in filling our pages. If we have interest in something you’re plugging you’ll generally hear back from us PROMPTLY… PR is an invaluable resource that I would have a hard time doing without. And there’s the sordid truth of it all.” – Editor of metropolitan travel and lifestyle magazine

“The key for a good release is similar to a good news story – ABC, baby: accuracy, brevity and clarity. Since I’m only using the facts, flowery prose ain’t going to cut it. Just stick to the basics, and if there’s a news hook somewhere in the release, make it obvious. Most of us don’t have the time to read a three-page release so if the good stuff is buried, it might get missed. Sadly, for people like me, you’re just going to have to dumb everything down.” – Daily newspaper business reporter and features writer

One of the top requests on any list is to know your publication. “If your email isn’t about my coverage area, why are you sending it to me?” asks the education reporter at a suburban Boston daily newspaper. One writer at a construction trade publication shared this real example, “I just got two emails about Suicide Prevention Week. Unless these people can tell me how suicides are a problem in the architecture and engineering field, I’m probably going to be turned off on future emails from you or your firm.”

Another word of advice my friends shared: Tone it down. This goes for the relentless follow-up and coming on too strong with fake positive-ness. One or two calls or e-mails as follow up, then take the hint. “I like it when PR people can actually help me when I initiate the contact and ask them for information about a story I’m working on,” said a usually grumpy technology trade staffer.

DON’T
My education writer friend shares these PR potholes:

“Misleading pitches – Spend three graphs talking about the need for childhood literacy development, then we find out your pitch is for some god-awful kids book.

Availability – If you send a pitch, I assume you are ready to turn it around immediately. So if I call back to follow on your pitch, and you don’t have time to respond or no one is available to talk to me, oh boy!, have you just made an enemy for life.

Bad grammar – Recently, someone sent me a release about Sarah Palin’s resignation from ‘pubic life.’ Just. Don’t. Bother.”

And, don’t both trying to buddy-up to journalists in “creepy” ways, says my tech writer pal. “One lady sent me an e-mail after my company’s massive layoffs giving her condolences and asking if she could help in any way; and I’ve never met her in person!…(Another) wished me a ‘Happy Easter’ and then turned out to be Jewish. One PR guy asked me a ridiculously complicated question about some obscure market, as if it were the most natural question in the world.”

In general, these guidelines boil down to being a good person, not a sleestack, as one of our clients calls it, and taking pride in your work. If I were in Brody PR’s shoes, I might have admitted the goof sooner and pledged to walk the straight and narrow from then on. But isn’t it a whole lot easier to do that from the start?

Online media outlets continue to push the boundaries of traditional journalism, rapidly releasing news with no respect to embargoes and leaving well-respected news sources like The Wall Street Journal to take matters into their own hands to compete.

The loss of the sacred embargo is frightening to PR professionals, but it also makes us stop to think about the importance of quality hits over quantity. When you distribute an embargoed story to your entire media list, can you really expect the best results? Can we blame the outlets that have taken a stance against this approach? Probably not.

The Bad Pitch Blog is full of examples on how the ‘spray and pray’ approach has repeatedly gotten PR professionals in hot water. A skilled PR professional knows quality results come from establishing strong media relationships through strategic pitching and exclusive opportunities give you the most bang for your buck. In the end, those who didn’t get the exclusive will probably still run the news because an outlet as esteemed as The Wall Street Journal ran it.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out in the world of media. The new policy could have a positive effect on The Wall Street Journal with an increased the number of breaking news exclusives coming their way. And I don’t know a client that wouldn’t give up a few mediocre hits for some ink in The Wall Street Journal, do you? Is this move the beginning of a trend? Will the embargo on embargoes really filter down through to other print publications?

That headline from Tom Foremski’s story in Silicon Valley Watcher in February of 2006 was my first introduction to social media press releases (SMPRs). It’s been three years since I came across that piece and I’m still not sure traditional news releases are completely dead.

With unlimited multimedia capabilities on the Web and an array of social networking and news-sharing tools available to us, it goes without saying that Foremski’s approach to SMPRs was on point. Readers want succinct, visually appealing and digestible, spin-free information. But what do editors want and, more importantly, what do they need?

Though PR professionals should always consider a press release’s intent and target audience before making any decisions about its message or format, I argue that you’ll get the most traction from a release that incorporates elements from both the traditional and social media approach.

Sure, there’s a time and a place for Foremski’s SMPR and the easy-to-follow template that Shift Communications created just months after his article appeared. There is enormous value in SMPRs that bullet information and offer approved quotes with an array of other social media and multimedia options. This is beneficial to the reporter or editor who wants to make the story his or her own, or the blogger who just wants to post snippets of the information with videos or podcasts that help tell the story.

But unless you’re merely pitching online editors and bloggers who live and die by social media, I don’t agree that bulleted information is the only way to go. Layoffs and hiring freezes have forced print and online journalists to wear many hats and juggle several roles. As such, PR professionals must consider these ever-changing duties and recognize that if we simply bullet information and put the onus of drafting the information on a time-strapped editor or reporter, we’re running the risk of our news being overlooked.

They key is to make the media’s life as easy as possible. As a former newspaper reporter and editor, I understand the importance of stories with a multimedia component. I also understand the need for well-written press releases that can be run verbatim when the news is important, but not worthy of a writer’s time.

By including a shorter, yet traditional, SEO-enhanced release and adding all the SMPR bells and whistles, we can enhance the opportunity for coverage and keep the media – and, most importantly, our clients – happy.