I hope you find my writing and business tips and observations useful. My business and blog are dedicated to helping businesses communicate clearly and reach their potential.
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Getting free website PR
There are many ways to get PR – run an event, host a competition, support a worthy cause, just to name a few. Of course, you then need to let the media know about your PR so they can spread the word to a larger audience – this is generally done through a media release (although now days blogs, twitter and other social media outlets are useful, too).
However, being mentioned in the media is more effective if your bsueinss name and URL are also mentioned. For example, “Tash Hughes believes SMS text is wrong on a website” is not bad but for PR purposes it would be much better as “Tash Hughes of Word Constructions believes SMS text is wrong on a website”. Even better is a link (for online media) and URL to make it easy for people to follow through.
Joan Stewart has created a great list of ways to get your URL included in any media coverage – most are free, too.
Have you had your URL mentioned in any media exposure? What impact did it have on your business?
Press release or media release?
Which term do you use and prefer?
Traditionally, people would send an announcement to the newspapers to share news so it became known as a press release.
With the introduction of radio and TV, press releases had more uses than just newspapers; now, if you have news to share you may send it to any combination of newspapers, magazines, radio, TV, websites and newsletters.
The term media release covers all forms of media so seems more appropriate in most circumstances now than a press release. I certainly consider that I write media releases, but I am comfortable talking to people who still use ‘press release’.
I wonder if age or work background impact much on which name people use – what do you think?
Media release quotation marks part ii
Last week I wrote about a media release not using quotation marks correctly. Unfortunately, I have just read another release from the same PR company (written for one of their clients) and they have actually misused quotation marks again – breaking different rules!
Samples of the release (identifying features adjusted for the sake of their client):
“We’re fine tuning the offer for them.” XYZ managing director Fred Nerk said.
“There’s lots of ducks that need to be lined up in terms of how the groups support the plans”.
“Now they’ve thought ‘hang on, we need to provide for this”.
The rules they don’t know are therefore…
- while what the person is saying may be at an end, a full stop is not used at the end of speech if it is followed by details for the speaker. Apart from anything else, they have created XYZ managing director Fred Nerk said.as a stand alone sentence which is incomplete. A correct example is ‘I am working on it now,’said Mary.
- punctuation goes inside the quotation marks, except if the punctuation is part of the surrounding sentence rather than part of the quoted material
- if a speech includes a quote, two full sets of quotation marks are required, and generally the second set will be different to the first (i.e. if one quotation mark is used, the inner set will have double quotation marks). So a correct example is “I spoke to the officer in charge who said ‘this is a major catastrophe,'” said the reporter
If we add in the incorrect spelling of the client name (yes, really!), typos and words like ‘throught’, this media release is a very poor return for the client’s money. To me it shows an absolute lack of respect to their client and is unprofessional.
Media outlets will often use a media release as the basis of any reports and they obviously don’t expect to have to spend time correcting silly errors like this. If they have two equally promising stories to run, the better presented media release is likely to win so I would be very cross if a PR company sent out a release about me in that state.
Would you expect a PR company to get the writing elements right, or would you be comfortable checking it for errors yourself?
Media release stories
Writing a media release for your own business is quite possible, or you may want to get a professional writer/PR or marketing person to do it for you.
The key of a good media release
The key part to any release, however, is the story in the release. It must be newsworthy if it is to gain any interest or publicity. And it must be newsworthy for the media outlet you are sending it to – an article about an innovative tractor part would be newsworthy in an agricultural magazine but not so much in a women’s fashion magazine.
With a bit of spin or a changed perspective, many stories can be made more interesting than they first appear, but a journalist still has to get an article out of the story for them to follow up the release.
I have seen instances where the interest of the story, its newsworthiness, is listed as the be all and end all of a media release. But there is one other important factor in a successful media release.
The story in your release must be relevant to your business if it is to benefit your business. So you could write a release about that great tractor part, grab the attention of a journalist and see the part get some publicity. How does that help you if you sell shoes or books? Of course, if you sell food and can add “This new tractor part means we harvest sooner so your food is fresher” or if you are a web designer and can add “Since we redesigned their site, this tractor part has sold millions” it has relevance.
Planning your media release
So before starting a media release, you need to ask yourself:
Will this story interest a number of people?
Is there a media outlet that will reach those interested people?
Is this story relevant to my business?
If they are all ‘yes’, get writing! Or hiring!
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