Who reads a media release?

Unlike a lot of business writing I do, media releases are not written for the end user.

What does that mean? Well, usually if I write some webcopy, an article or a flyer, I write it in a way that appeals to the consumer of that business. So I would write words to the effect of ‘this will solve your problem’.

With a media release, I am writing to a journalist or other media person who may or may not be part of the business’ target audience. Of course, I am writing to the journalist but in a way that will appeal to their readers/viewers/listeners. So it is usually written in the third person such as ‘this will solve the problem for your readers’

Aiming a media release at your target market won’t work; it needs to catch a journalist’s attention and then be used as the basis of their article. Think of it this way - if you read a company’s website or flyer, you expect them to use ‘you’, ‘your’, and so forth; when you read a newspaper article, it will be one step removed and will not refer to ‘you’ at all.

Good blogging

I recently read a post by Jeff Attwood in his Coding Horror blog. He wrote thirteen blog cliches that he doesn’t like seeing in blogs - it is like a list of what not to do for a good blog, and was quite an interesting read.

While his post stands as is, some of his points particularly stood out to me so I will discuss them in my blog

One that I very much agree with is his point 5 - the big blogroll. He writes about the waste of listing many blogs in your blog roll, and wrote “It feels artificial and insincere.” Personally, a selective blogroll is a value-add; a long blogroll is ignored.

So what is wrong with listing so many blogs? For starters, a long list doesn’t give any sense of referral or recommendation to the listed blogs, compared to a select listing is likely to be meaningful. It is also hard to find anything from a long list - so at least break the list in to sub-lists to make it more user friendly.

A particularly long list can also distort the look of a page, especially for short posts.

Having said that, what are the advantages of including some blogs in your blogroll? For starters, it builds the blogging community to link and refer to each other. A crafted blogroll can also help your readers find more information on relevant topics, which they will appreciate.

Links to and from your blog can help with your traffic and search engine rankings, so that in itself makes a blogroll and reciprocal links worth considering. But remember that links within your posts are also effective for rankings and readers, so a minimalist blogroll doesn’t mean you can’t link to additional blogs.

What do you think? Are you impressed by a long blogroll when you visit a blog?

Happy writing!

What is a review?

Looking through some blogs recently, I have discovered some unusual interpretations of what a review is…

The online Oxford Dictionarydefines it as a formal assessment of something; a critical appraisal of a work; or a report after the event.

It seems simple - a review is a report about a book, course, website, blog or whatever to help others decide if the work is of potential use/interest/value to them. A review is not an ad (”this product has these features and is available only from us”) or a list of facts (”this website has 10 pages about getting fit”).

If you are writing a review, the following points may help:

• include all relevant details so someone can find the item easily if they want to. This includes the author and publisher for a book, product name and supplier/manufacturer for a product,  name and URL for a website or blog, and so on
• give a summary of the item so the reader understands what you are reviewing, but don’t try to include everything - remember, no one wants to hear the punchline before the joke.
• be honest - that doesn’t mean only list bad things or be nasty, but don’t say it is wonderful if it has some faults or problems. If I write a negative review, I always try to include something positive as well
• give an assessment, such as ‘thoroughly recommend this book’, ‘great value for money’ or ‘not as good as their previous model’. This helps the reader decide whether they want to know more or not.
• qualify the work if required. For instance, a book or movie review may state ‘entertaining for the under 10s but tedious for adults’ or ‘thought-provoking but not suitable for teenagers’ so parents can choose not to allow children to read/see it
• be impartial or upfront about any connections as this builds trust and your credibility - a rave review about something you profit from may damage your reputation

Reviews are a great way to give value to others, but only if people can trust you to give honest, genuine reviews.

Happy writing!

Qualify your statements

In business, there is a hope that in some way we can be the biggest and best so that clients will come flocking to us. And some businesses give into that temptation and make claims that are not exactly accurate, or even true.

Too much hype just makes people switch off, and being caught out in a lie or false claim doe not build am image of professionalism or integrity. In other, these behaviours do not build a strong business foundation.

So before you make any claims, be sure they are accurate and that you have checked them out.

Be very careful using terms such as ‘best’, ‘most popular’, ‘biggest seller’ and so on unless you have statistics and research to back you up.

If you say you are the first - don’t just check that no one else has done it before, check that your wording makes it clear what no one else has done before. For instance, saying I run the first business directory in Australia is not quite the same as saying I run the first online business directory in Australia. Likewise, there may be two interpretation of some words - online support could mean forums, a mail group, an information site, chat room discussions or some combination of the lot. So you may be the first online forum but not the first online support group.

And remember, it isn’t just to maintain your image and integrity - if you stray too far from the facts, you may face legal issues, too.

Stick to your topic

When writing, especially if it is an article or blog post, it isn’t hard to get distracted by related topics and ideas. But if someone has chosen to read about a certain topic, that is what they expect to read about.

Changing topics within a piece of business writing can confuse your readers and reduce your ‘expert’ status. This is especially the case if you are presenting a number of points about a topic (such as ‘10 ways to save money’ or ‘tips for reducing water waste in your office’.)

As an example, I recently read an article listing various ways to sell a product. It started with market stalls, direct sales and wholesaling, but then went onto networking and advertising which are not sales methods although they can increase the number of sales made.

If you do want to include points that are not part of your original topic, change the topic to indicate the scope of the writing. Alternatively, write two or more pieces, each about a separate although related topic, instead of one piece on different topics.

Don’t apologise for being Australian

We all know that spelling varies between Australia and some other countries, notably the USA. We write neighbour, they write neighbor; we write centre, they write center.

Which spelling you should use depends on who your readers are - if you want to attract Australian customers, use Australian spellings, and so on. If your domain ends with .au, then use Australian spelling and metric measurements even if you have an international audience - be proud of being Australian and use our conventions, especially as you have already announced your link to Australia.

As an Australian, I can read US spelling and understand it without too much effort (even when it annoys me on an Australian site!) and I believe that the Americans can cope with reading our spelling, too. I recently saw an Australian site with an explanation of the two spellings - to me, this implied that any Americans visiting the site were too stupid to understand ‘colour’ means ‘color’. That, or our spelling is somehow inferior and should be apologised for in case the Americans don’t like us.

Either way, it is not a good message to send and was a complete waste of the site owner’s time to prepare the table. So, be proud of our country and our conventions, and give others the courtesy that they are intelligent enough to respect and understand that.

Link to relevant information

When writing about a product or information elsewhere, ensure people know what you are referring to. Your words will then make sense, especially if you are giving instructions or reviewing the item in question.

For example, I just read an email that said “Just go to the very bottom of the page and find my items” There was no link and there were no items listed at the end of the email, so I had no idea what page I should be looking at the bottom of!

If you are sending an email and referring to a particular product, webpage, article or whatever, include a link to it or attach it to the email. That way people are not confused and don’t have to waste time trying to find what you are writing about.

Likewise, if you are writing in your blog or on your website, add links to your products, articles and testimonials instead of referring to them and letting people find the information themselves. For example, my article about clear communications may give you more information about why to include a link. But are you going to search for it? Much easier if I say the article is available by clicking on this link, isn’t it?

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 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.

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!

Know who you are emailing

Writing an email (or letter) request may seem very simple, but it needs care and attention to get it right. A poorly written request is much less likely to get the results you want so the effort is worthwhile.

 Probably the main thing is to do some research beforehand so that you know who you are writing to. This includes using the name of the person, and probably even their business. By knowing a bit about the person/business, you can save yourself from looking ignorant.

For example, many website owners receive emails saying something like We would like to have a link to our website from yours and we will then add a link to your site on [our site]” However, they ignore the fact that the site only takes paid listings or does not have a links page.

Sometimes, these emails go further by asking for additional promotional activities from the business owner - again, not noticing whether these details are listed on the site or if the site even offers any sort of promotion to others.

The end result? The website owners disregard the email and the sender does not get any new links to their site.

And frankly, for the best results in a search engine, you should be selective about who you link with, rather than sending a standard email to every site you can think of in hope that some will accept your offer. But search engine rankings is a whole other subject!

Once you know a bit about the person/business you are writing to, you can aim the email directly to them.

To use the same example, asking for a website link exchange, a better request could be “We see you have a links page on your website. If you would like the benefits of another link to your site, we would like to suggest a link exchange.”

If you are writing a request email/letter, my tips on how to encourage someone to do something may also help.

Grabbing attention

When writing for your business, it is critical that you grab people’s attention quickly - there are too many websites, blogs, newsletters, direct mail letters and emails for any of us to read them all just in case they hold something good further down the page.

Having said that, you need to grab their attention in the right way or it can actually be damaging rather than a marketing opportunity.

What is the right way? Well, it varies according to the situation of course, but when preparing an opening to a document/webpage/newsletter consider:

• make it relevant - no point grabbing the attention of people interested in retirement villages if you sell motor bikes
• keep it honest - don’t promise a discount unless one is really on offer
• keep it appropriate - swearing, sexual references, hateful comments and so on are not necessary and are unlikely to win you good customers
• keep it as short and/or visual as possible - a half page paragraph is not going to grab like a 6 word word heading
• aim it at what your customers want to hear, not what you want to say - I recently read an email which started by saying how great their two organisations were - the final paragraph was about a competition they were running. It would have been much more effective to start with the competition to grab my attention.
• be realistic - or so far over the top that is obviously humour. An almost believable claim probably won’t build trust so people will move on
• be sparing with bad (or gimicky) spelling - preferably stick to good spelling altogether and be as grammatically correct as possible
• make it interesting or ask a question - or ask an interesting question!