Elementary Writing

This is the fourth article in our online course series on the theory, practice, trends and secrets of New Age Public Relations. Other topics that we cover are:

Press Release

Press releases are the single most important tool in PR. This is a short news story you hope will be published by a paper or magazine, or prompt one of their reporters to write an article based on it. And it is all about two profound actions:

• Writing a winning press release
• Sending it to the right people.

If that sounds simple, you’re right. It is simple. But it’s only easy when you know the right steps…

How to Write a Great Press Release

The first question editors and journalists ask when they pick up your release is “Is this important?”. And you know what? – Most press releases do not work.

That’s because they are written in a way that is antiquated, outdated, and deadly boring. These often come as templates in your word processing program. Don’t use them – they’re probably OK for some people, but they are not really good at creating the kind of excitement and interest that you want from the people who are receiving your press releases.

You have to actually have a message that is newsworthy, and if your news is not of such, you must develop the skill of adding a value to your story. (To learn more about art of storytelling in PR please read our recent article on advanced PR techniques).

Press Release Headline

In headline, state your most exciting news, finding or announcement in as few words as possible. Emulate the headlines you see in the newspaper every day.

Bad Press Release Headline:
NEW WEBSITE THAT OFFERS EVERYONE THE OPPORTUNITY TO MAKE LITERATURE ONLINE

Good Press Release Headline:
BIG LAUNCH: ONLINE NOVEL WRITING PROJECT THAT EVERYONE CAN JOIN

You’ve just thrown a meaty hook at the reporter.

The Press Release Subhead

Subheads are remarkably useful tools, yet usually overlooked by press release writers. Basically, the press release subhead gives you the opportunity to flesh out your angle and further hook the reporter, without stepping on the drama of the press release headline.

The Lead

The lead is the most important element in a news story; it is the story opener when written in the inverted pyramid structure. The inverted pyramid is a graphical representation of how information should be arranged within a news story. The most important information – made up of the 5 W’s – comes first and the information of lesser importance follows.

It is essential that the lead catches the interest of the reader immediately and by rule-of-thumb it includes the core information of the story, or the traditional 5 W’s: Who, what, when, where, and why. Its objective is to satisfy the reader’s curiosity.

Occasionally an H, for how, is included in the lead. In addition, a news story usually includes the answer to “what’s next?”.

The Rest of the Press Release

The balance of the press release serves to back up whatever claims were made in the lead and headline. Use enough supporting material to make your case, and to demonstrate that, whatever angle you’re promoting, it wasn’t something you slapped together carelessly.

An important question to ask in addition to establishing newsworthiness is simply: “so what, who cares?”

Quotes

Quotations are great additions to news stories; they add credibility and weight and make your story readable and interesting. Quotations can support arguments and information, as long as you attribute your quote, making it more credible and showing you did research, while avoiding any legal or ethical issues.

Inline Tip:
Never start a story with a quote; your story is what’s important, not your company’s president.

Boilerplate

Finally, spend a sentence or two describing your company and what you do. This paragraph is known as the “boilerplate” — an old newspaper term meaning a block of standard text that’s used over and over again (e.g. the explanation of symbols on the stock price page).

In this case, it’s text that you might use at the bottom of all your releases. Place your boilerplate right above the # # #’s.

Inline tip:
Below the ###’s, add a line that says something like:
If you’d like more information about this topic, or to schedule an interview with John Smith, please call Pat Brown at 555/555-2222 or e-mail Pat at pr@yoursite.com

Common Press Release Copy Styles

Press releases falls into a few well-defined categories, each used in accordance with the general format and theme of your headline. The style of copy you use in the body of your release must follow the pattern and pace established by your attention-getter. If you use a direct, factual headline, your body text will usually be most effective if it, too, is factual.

• Straight-line copy
  This is the most frequently used type. It directly follows the headline and proceeds in a straight and orderly manner from beginning to end. It does not waste words, but starts to sell the benefits of your PR subject immediately.
• Narrative copy
  Follows the headline with a story that logically leads into a discussion of your PR subject. This can be a dangerous style to use because you must construct an interesting story that will keep the readers involved long enough to make your point.
• Institutional copy
  Sells an idea, organization or service. Your copy must create confidence in the company or organization, not your PR subjects itself.
• Dialogue and monologue copy
  Permits the person giving the endorsement in your headline to do the selling in his or her own words. The trick is to retain the attention-getting power of the testimonial and at the same time sound natural and convincing.
• Gimmick copy
  Depends upon humor, poetry, foreign words, great exaggeration, gags and other devices to create promotional power. This is rarely used because in most cases you are writing a press release to tell a straight, informative story.

Use these techniques as guidelines, not as rules. You should practice writing headlines in several different styles and then write supportive body copy for each.

ABC and other press release writing rules

The most common writing rule-of-thumb is the ABC rule: Accuracy, Brevity and Clarity. Even the Associated Press Guide to News Writing begins with a similar message:
“News writing should be clear, concise, accurate and interesting.”

• Your press release shouldn’t sound “hypie”
  Or seem like an advertisement in any way. However, It should be written in a way to not only solve an newsworthy issue, but also to advertise your business!
• Newspapers need information as much as you need publicity
  They are looking for timely, educational and informative information. Conversely, local radio stations may be interested in airing stories that are funnier, quirkier or more controversial.
• The more back-up information you provide the better
  The easier you make it for a journalist to cover your story, the more likely they’ll be to include it. Include photos, samples, interview availability times, research backup, and the like.
• Prepare a draft
  Try it out first on two or three members of your external audience, then adjust as needed.
• Make sure to send press releases to all media in your area, no matter how small
  It’s much easier to get local, rather than regional or national, coverage.

As usual in life, luck plays a role. You may have the greatest story, have done the best press release and made all the phone calls to follow up the release, but there is another big story, for example, a terrorist attack or an earthquake, that overshadows your issue. On the other hand, if you provide your release on a day with little news, you may get a lot of coverage.

Press Release Formatting Tips

Formatting Your Press Release or Presentation can be just as important as content. Read what you write with a red pencil in your hand.

Be brutal. Cut out meaningless words and useless phrases. Combine some sentences and eliminate others. Give your readers a long flowing sentence that combines several thoughts and presents important facts. Then use a shorter sentence to quicken the pace for the reader.

• Mixed case
  Never write your press release in all UPPER CASE LETTERS. Your release will not be approved by the FPRC editors or it would be ignored by journalists.
• Check your spelling
  Errors in spelling and grammar will lower the credibility of your press release
• No HTML
  Never include HTML or other markup languages (like XHTML or XML) in your press release.
• Make sure it is long enough
  Refrain from verbosity and try to keep the release to one page. If you have to go to another page, be sure it has all the contact info again and type “more follows” or the first three words of the next page in the lower right hand corner. If your press release is shorter than 250 words, then it probably isn’t newsworthy.
• Have accurate contact information
  You need a real person who’ll bend over backwards to get the information reporters want. So put a person’s name, phone number(s), email address etc. at the top of your release. Better yet, include an alternate information source for the reporter’s convenience.

Follow up journalists you know to check that they have received the release and have all the information they need. This both alerts them to the release and also helps to prioritize your story in their mind.

When to Send a Press Release

So what is the best time to issue a media release? Well, it all depends on the timeliness and news value of the story. A few events that might justify a press release include:

• offering a new service
• developing a new product
• the opening of a new business
• winning a big order
• moving to new premises
• winning a prize or award
• celebrating an anniversary
• sponsoring a local sports team
• assisting a charity or charitable appeal
• special offers, events, and so on

Inline Tip:
AAP conducted a survey of all News Rooms in Australia last year and found the best time to send a media release is between 6 and 9 am and 3 and 6 pm.

Press Release Checklist

• Is it new?
• Are the main points at the top?
• Is it short, sharp and simple?
• Does it include direct quotes?
• Does it provide a contact name and number for more information?
• Have you avoided jargon, flowery language and generalisations which cannot be supported?
• Have you circulated a copy to everyone from the campaign whom the media might contact?
• Have you made follow-up calls to journalists you know?

Press Release Publishing and Distribution

The media receives thousands of releases daily. With seconds to gain attention, the response your individual release evokes is affected by its relevancy to the editor who receives it, its timeliness and the message it conveys.

Tailored submissions – by state, area code, newspaper circulation, dailies or weeklies, magazine categories, E-zine category, AM or FM radio stations, or even a specific topical or geographic area like Travel or Latin America – means the most relevant media receive your release, increasing the likelihood of media pickup.

Some other places you should consider in your press release distribution campaign are:

• online industry publications
• blogs
• newsletters
• trade associations
• online news sites
• the client’s Web site
• free press release listing sites

Free Online Press Release Distribution Services

There are quite a few free PR distribution sites on the Web. Many of them are not worth the time it takes you to submit a release. However, there are some that are quite good.

Following are the 4 criteria that you should consider while evaluating a list of the top free press release distribution sites.

• Page Rank
  It is the Google page rank of the site. You should only run for PR sites that have a page rank of 4 or higher. To determine the page rank of a site, you may use Page Rank Checker free online service.

  Check Page Rank of any web site pages instantly:

  This free page rank checking tool is powered by Page Rank Checker service

• Google News
  This service contains most of the press releases that are published by the site picked up by Google news? To find out if a PR distribution site is getting their content indexed by Google news, go to Google News and do a search for “site:sitename.com”. This will show all of the stories by that site that have been indexed by Google News. As an example, a search for all press releases for the free PR site BigNews.biz, would look like this “site:BigNews.biz”
• Traffic
  Does the free press release site get any traffic? For this list you should use Alexa.com to check traffic. You will have to set your own standard for what you feel is acceptable, e.g. you may accept any site that is ranked above or around 300,000 by Alexa.
• Cost
  You are looking for sites that are primarily free. However, they may offer additional services for a fee or some premium paid services.

Keeping in mind the 4 points listed above, here is a list of the top 10 Free Press Release Distribution Sites:

1. PRLog.org – PR:5 | Alexa: 12300
2. Merinews.com – PR:5 | Alexa: 12900
3. PR-Inside.com – PR:4 | Alexa: 19100
4. IndiaPRWire.com – PR:6 | Alexa: 18400
5. PR.com – PR:5 | Alexa: 26300
6. OpenPR.com – PR:5 | Alexa: 40400
7. ClickPress.com – PR:5 | Alexa: 42450
8. PowerHomeBiz.com – PR:5 | Alexa: 44000
9. 24-7pressrelease.com – PR:4 | Alexa: 45200
10. NewsWireToday.com – PR:5 | Alexa: 44750

To How Many Distribution Services Should You Send Your Press Release

Don’t forget to spread out your releases over a few days, and don’t submit them to everyone, editors are in charge of several sites at once.

Instead of submitting to all, submit only to 5. Then use the rest of the time to find the top 10 editors, journalists or bloggers on your topic and send them an e-mail, linking to the release somewhere it was published. If you really got something interesting to tell the world about then this will get you more mileage

Sample of Effective Press Release

BIG LAUNCH: INTERNET NOVEL WRITING PROJECT THAT EVERYONE CAN JOIN

[For Immediate Release]

Novel “People” – The collaborative community endeavor of making and publishing the first, solid state fiction book online, officially launched.

November 29, 2008 – Make Literature Online, the fastest growing collaborative writing community, today announced the launch of its first fiction book writing project: The novel “People”;

A tale of people that collide into each other. That fight with each other.
That seek for acceptance, friendship and love.

Since its launch in April 2008, Make Literature Online website was quickly became the favorable collaborative writing environment for writers, readers, pros and enthusiasts, and has quickly gained a substantial following.

Armed with little more than a desire for a fresh literature experience, users of all backgrounds and skill levels have unique opportunity to take equal part in shaping the storylines of new novels, by submitting inspiring ideas for new stories, new chapters for ongoing fiction writing projects, or by selecting the best writings from an online catalogue and discussing the submitted stories in forums.

“People” – the novel, is the first result of this collaborative community effort. One which storyline was selected among numerous of other submissions as most interesting and inspiring to launch new novel creation process that everyone can and should contribute.

The proof of this open concept is the storyline author itself: Raluca Enescu – young student of sociology and philosophy from Romania, in her words “a bit of a hippie, a bit of a thinker and somewhat feminist”:

“I’ve seen the movie »Crash« a while ago-and I guess that’s where I got the idea of people of different backgrounds, views and mentalities colliding into each other. Let’s just say it’s a »critical thinking« experiment. It’s an exercise of »how to see trough the eyes of the other« – which, I believe, is much needed for living in the real life, among real people.”

Asked to comment on how does she anticipates her storyline developing on the course of this project, Raluca said:

“Well, I wouldn’t want to make any predictions. I think this is up to the ones who will write the story, not to me. The thing is- everyone who will contribute will have a very different view on the storyline and the characters. There can be very conflicting views. That’s the beauty about collaborative writing.”

At the dawn of the 21st Century and Social Media revolution, new media is forcing the rapid evolution of communications and is reinventing the conventional fiction writing into the art of “personalized” storytelling. This is the practice of matching our stories with the preferences of those we wish to reach, through the active communication and interaction with the audience.

The destiny of “People” novel is now entirely in hands of the online community and its vast creative potential demonstrated so many times in recent years. If successful, this project may mark a new chapter in the history of modern fiction literature, and be the roll-model for many similar ventures that are jet to come.

You’ll be able to follow “People” daily progress on its official blog at www.MakeLiterature.com.

###

If you’d like more information about this project, please call Dusan Knezevic at Make Literature Media Inc. : (+381) 64-318-6567 or e-mail Dusan at knez.dusan@makeliterature.com

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