4 ways to elevate the humble press release

A recent estimate suggests that about 1,750 press releases are distributed online every day.

Still, their effectiveness depends upon what is being measured.

The competition for placement has increased, so it’s safe to say that press releases can always be improved. Here are four ways that PR professionals can do just that:

1. Reconsider your target.

In his book, “The New Rules of Marketing and PR,” David Meerman Scott tells how authors Bryan and Jeffrey Eisenberg successfully marketed a book by sending out digital press releases every day for months. Though this sort of “outside the box” thinking isn’t something that every business can (or even should) do, it does illustrate why they published so many press releases: They were targeting “influencers,” not mainstream journalists.

Along those lines, a friend who’s a history buff recently read in The Wall Street Journal about a book of letters written by a German soldier during World War II. When my friend looked for the book, he found it had a limited printing and would cost hundreds of dollars.

Despite its promotion in The Wall Street Journal, it never generated enough buzz to be published for the mass market. This is a main theme of Scott’s book: Niche influencers are better for target audiences, and mainstream media placement isn’t always hugely beneficial.

2. Tighten your language.

We see plenty of content about what journalists prefer in press releases . Some qualities most often mentioned are:

• Straightforward. This approach offers the bottom line up front. It’s not verbose, instead succinctly explaining who, what, when, where and why (or some variation of these).
• Jargon-free. These press releases have an external voice. They are edited to describe your point of view or messaging to external targets.
• Subject-matter appropriate. These target journalists or influencers who create content about a particular subject.

By making your press releases accessible and relevant to your recipients, you will gain an advantage over those who just blast them out. Create your releases as a team, and have multiple people edit and proofread them.

3. Improve your ancillary resources.

Most every PR pro understands that attachments aren’t advisable. Still, ancillary resources are important. Try these tactics to create interesting, pertinent, unattached ancillary resources:

• Use a cloud-based storage app such as Dropbox, Google Drive or Evernote . You can share links to files using the services in your press release without attaching anything to an email or from a distribution list. An alternative to this would be to link to your the media page on your website.
• Use data visualization tools to create relevant, interesting visuals. There are tools that nonprogrammers can use to make rich visualizations with little technical know-how.
• Hire a third party to create visualizations to accompany your press release . Depending on the subject, a graphic designer or programmer may be able to create interesting visuals that substantially enhance your press release.

[RELATED: Master your visual communications prowess at this conference at the National Geographic Museum.]

Remember, too, that journalists and influencers love exclusivity. Offering exclusive visuals with your press release gives you a greater likelihood of securing placement.

4. Don’t send a press release at all.

Journalists and influencers who have established relationships with you (and are pertinent to your subject matter) and much more amenable to pitches.

Never use a press release when you can send a targeted pitch.

A version of this article first appeared on Cision.

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Are you following these 3 clothing rules for public speakers?

During the decade I’ve been blogging, I’ve written several articles about what speakers should wear. It’s time for an update, because there’s some new research on the science of apparel.

New research shows that formal business attire—suits for men and the equivalent for women—increases your ability to think big, abstract and creative ideas.

All of those are good for speakers, so suit up.

Be consistent, of course, with several other important aspects of dress: Dress better than the audience (but not too much better), and ensure your clothes are relevant to your talk.

For example, if you’re at an entrepreneurs’ conference in Silicon Valley and everyone is dressed in T-shirts and jeans, you might wear a sports coat. A suit would probably be overkill. Bankers, on the other hand, will expect you to wear a suit and a tie.

We negotiate better in suits than in casual clothing. If you’re undertaking significant audience interaction, keep in mind that dressing up empowers you in several ways.

If you’re speaking about creativity, however, a suit could indicate that you’re not a creative type. In that case, balance formal attire with the iconic statement you’re trying to make. Think of Steve Jobs’ black turtleneck and jeans. He was signaling that he was different from the typical corporate executive, and it worked well for him.

[RELATED: Join speechwriters for three U.S. presidents at our executive communications and speechwriters conference this March.]

Another study (which researchers fondly call the “red sneaker effect”) found that if you subtly vary your clothing from the norm—wear a red bowtie with your suit, or red sneakers with your academic attire—then people will perceive you as more powerful and competent.

This probably happens because the audience assumes that if you’re able to break the rules a little, you have confidence and authority. If you break the rules too much, however, they’ll see you as either clueless, crazy or incompetent.

Choosing what to wear is complicated, because attire is a primary way we signal our attitudes, social status, relationships with those around us and a host of other things. Clothing is a sign of status, profession and attitude.

Keep these three rules in mind, and you won’t go wrong:

1. Always dress a little better than the audience.

2. Dress in a way that signals you’re at the top of your profession or industry.

3. Dress in a way that subtly shows you can break the rules with impunity.

The trick is not to take any of these rules too far. Wear clothing that makes you feel comfortable, allows you to move easily and makes you feel like a million bucks.

My advice to clients is to always go to top-end clothiers and splurge on an outfit that makes you look fabulous. Bask in the sartorial splendor when all eyes are on you.

A version of this article originally appeared on Public Words.

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5 tactics for sharing long-form content on LinkedIn

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5 AP Stylebook shortcuts to keep you on your game

It’s likely that as a PR pro, you have an AP Stylebook sitting somewhere on your bookshelf.

If your organization uses AP style at its standard, you’re even more likely to have one on your desk.

Still, you might not be using it as often or as well as you should. As a refresher, here are five shortcuts to remember the next time you’re wondering whether it’s “word-of-mouth marketing,” or “word of mouth marketing”:

1. You can invest digitally.

PR pros and journalists who frequently use this resource should get an AP Stylebook account. The option to type your questions (Google-style) rather than flipping through pages can save you time, and the online results are usually more complete.

Besides having Stylebook entries as the physical book does, the Web version also has records of Q&As with editors, which give extra clarity to certain rules. You can find helpful information in these responses that aren’t listed as standard entries in the book. As with the book, the more you use the online tool, the easier things become.

If you’re active on Twitter, keep an eye out for the AP Stylebook account’s monthly #APStyleChat. This chat typically focuses on a specific area of interest and allows users to directly ask their questions to an AP editor. In January, the topic was political terms.

Download this free white paper to discover 10 ways to improve your writing today.

2. There’s probably a section for that.

If you’re like most PR pros, you do a lot of writing, but you aren’t also a linguistics or English professor.

Uncertainty surrounds using commas, dashes, hyphens and semicolons. Even though you’ve been writing press releases for years, that experience doesn’t make you immune to having punctuation questions.

There are nine pages of the 2015 AP Stylebook dedicated to these concerns. Challenge yourself to look at it more often. Once you’ve looked up a specific punctuation rule a few times, try to recall it by memory. Rely on this section to help you better trust your gut when it comes to knowing when to use an ellipsis or exclamation point.

The challenge can be applied to other sections of the Stylebook, too. Fashion, religion and social media all warrant their own sections in the back of the book. If you’re already an active user of these sections, try to keep up with how quickly words are added.

Each year, the terms that fall within these categories increase, and so do the number of pages they occupy in the Stylebook. It’s wise to stay current.

3. There won’t be an entry for every term.

Over time, you’ll develop an understanding of AP’s rationale for rules and will learn how to apply that thinking to questions you have. In the end, though, there’s not a hard and fast rule for every single term.

Take hyphens, for example. AP Stylebook says:

Hyphen are joiners. Use them to avoid ambiguity or to form a single idea from two or more words.

It also states that use of the hyphen is far from standardized. In most cases the use is optional—a matter of taste, judgment and “style sense.” Although it’s a common tip to use hyphens sparingly, the frequency of their use will vary from writer to writer.

You’ll be hard pressed to find an entry for “hard-pressed,” but the AP Stylebook does have an entry for “high definition (n.),” and “high-definition (adj.).”

4. Explore to find hidden gems.

The next time you’re on the hook for writing an organization’s 5K press release or a recipe for a cooking website’s blog, look no further than the AP Stylebook’s “numerals” pages.

Although this isn’t its own section, there are nearly 20 terms that fall under this classification. Dimensions, betting odds, ages and dates can all be found here. Knowing this can save you time, if you’re looking for the proper term for 9-iron—or how to best write that a bill was defeated by a vote of 7-5.

As the winter weather in many parts of the country makes headlines, remember that there’s a Stylebook grouping of “weather terms.” The same goes for “weapons,” in case you find yourself covering another press conference related to gun violence.

5. Thumbing through isn’t exclusively a newbie tactic.

Don’t assume you’re an AP style pro just because you’ve an experienced writer.

Although labor intensive to your thumbs, it’s worthwhile to flip through the book from time to time—even if you have long worked at a newspaper or organization that adheres to AP style.

RELATED: Free guide: 10 ways to improve your writing today. Download now.

If the thought of paging through the entire Stylebook turns you green, look at certain sections that are of interest or pertinent to your job. If you send lots of press releases related to sports, study the sports section. If you’re in the restaurant industry, check out the food entries. If you work with lots of corporations, see the business rules.

If you find yourself always using the punctuation guide, use Post-It Notes to bookmark that section. Your thumbs will thank you.

Ragan.com readers, what are your favorite style points–or the vexing entries that have you double- and triple-checking them? Please let us know in the comments section.

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Volkswagen CEO's gaffes recall those of BP's chief exec

It’s almost as if Volkswagen AG CEO Matthias Müller studied the performance of infamous British Petroleum CEO Tony “I’d like my life back” Hayward and said, “Yes, that’s how I’d like to respond to our own company’s crisis.”

VW, which is still reeling from an emissions-rigging scandal affecting millions of vehicles, has admitted intentionally programming its engines to fool laboratory emissions tests.

On Jan.11, Müller gave a phone interview to National Public Radio that went so poorly he had to ask for a do-over.

The first time around, the reporter asked him about the perception that his company has an ethical problem, not merely a technical one. He responded: “It was an ethical problem? I cannot understand why you say that.”

As you might imagine, that answer landed like a lead balloon-and his staff quickly blamed his tin-ear response on a noisy environment. According to Bloomberg Business:

“This was a very extreme situation in which this interview took place,” spokesman Claus-Peter Tiemann said by phone. “Mueller was standing in a crowd of journalists with questions being shouted at him in different languages. One question obviously was misinterpreted, taken out of context maybe, so the interview was redone.”

Not knowing the specific setup of the room or understanding VW’s rationale for conducting an interview in such an unpredictable environment, it’s difficult for me to judge whether VW made the wrong call by holding the interview at all. (I suspect, based on the outcome, that it was.)

Keep your cool in a crisis with these 13 tips. Download the free guide now.

Regardless, he should never have answered a question he didn’t fully understand, which is what he says he did. His spokesperson’s explanation, such as it was, used weasely passive language that left unclear whether he was blaming the gaffe on the reporter or his CEO.

An executive in crisis mode has little margin for error. His interview not only makes it look like his company is still spinning its dishonesty, but it also infuriated Connecticut’s attorney general (“one of the state attorneys general leading a multistate investigation”), who said, “In an apparent moment of candor in Detroit, we now learn that the company’s newly appointed and most senior leader doesn’t believe Volkswagen lied, which is undisputable.”

If you think this is thin evidence on which to associate Mr. Müller with Tony Hayward, consider that this isn’t the first time he’s bungled an interview. According to Bloomberg Business:

Last year he suggested to a group of journalists in Stuttgart, Germany, that he was too old to succeed then-CEO Martin Winterkorn. He later said he’d been misunderstood. Then during Porsche’s annual earnings press conference he let slip plans for an all-electric vehicle. Though he evaded follow-up questions, the unit showed the car months later at the Frankfurt motor show.

Wait, there’s more. Remember how Tony Hayward was savaged in the press for attending a yacht race during his company’s disastrous oil spill? Here’s Bloomberg Business on Mr. Müller:

The 62-year-old Volkswagen veteran, who previously ran the Porsche sports car brand, was photographed with a bottle of champagne at the Leipzig Opera Ball shortly after he took over as CEO in the wake of the scandal. He then turned up a few weeks later smiling on the sidelines of a car race in Bahrain.

Tone-deaf statements. Minimizing the crisis. Showing up at ritzy events as his company’s reputation was taking a severe hit. Sounds like Tony Hayward to me.

Brad Phillips is the president of Phillips Media Relations, which specializes in media and presentation training. He tweets @MrMediaTraining and blogs at Mr. Media Training, where a version of this story first appeared.

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Is it beneficial to know how much your co-workers make?

Money can’t buy happiness, they say.

I once worked for a Fortune 500 company. I started at the bottom. I climbed the ladder and eventually got promoted to a leadership position. I was thrilled, so thrilled I came in early, stayed late, started projects, volunteered for cross-departmental teams, took on additional responsibilities. I worked really hard.

I felt good about my job. I was happy.

Then I found out another supervisor—a lazy, argumentative, culture-killing supervisor—made about 50 percent more than I did.

I became a lot less happy.

I tried to forget it. I kept telling myself all that mattered was whether I was satisfied with what I made. I kept telling myself that what others earned was irrelevant. I kept telling myself nothing had really changed.

Everything had changed, because now I knew.

To my discredit, I never got over it. I couldn’t change how much he earned, but I could change how hard I worked. To my discredit, that did change.

I still worked hard, but not that hard.

When Buffer, the social media management company, released a calculator showing how employee salaries are determined—and letting non-employees know what they would make if they joined the Buffer team—I was a little taken aback. The idea seems crazy.

Not to some. According to co-founders Joel Gascoigne and Leo Widrich, “This means that now anyone can see what they might make at Buffer by plugging in their own data for location, experience and so forth.” Judging by the response, tons of people applaud yet another of Buffer’s steps toward transparency and openness.

Learn how to use mobile to drive internal communications success in this free download.

I still wasn’t sure, because I kept thinking about a scene in Alison Ellwood’s fantastic “History of the Eagles” about the band’s 1994 reunion.

The first time around, the band members formed a corporation called Eagles Limited, which, as Don Felder put it, “was all for one and one for all.”

When they reunited, Glenn Frey decided on a different approach. “I’m not going to do it unless Don [Henley] and I make more money than the other [three] guys,” he said. “We’re the only guys who have done anything career-wise in the last 14 years. We’re the guys that have kept the Eagles name alive on radio, [on] television and in concert halls.”

(He had a point. Frey and Henley had both scored a number of top 10 hits. The other erstwhile Eagles enjoyed less success.)

“So,” Frey said, “we came up with a deal I was happy with, Don was happy with, Timothy [B. Schmitt] was happy with, Joe [Walsh] was happy with … and Don Felder was not happy with.”

Eventually Felder agreed to the deal and the Eagles reunited, cut a new album and performed sold-out shows around the world.

Still, Frey said, “Don Felder was never ever satisfied … never ever happy. A rock band is not a perfect democracy. It’s more like a sports team. No one can do anything without the other guys, but everybody doesn’t get to touch the ball all the time.

"Time went on, and Felder became more and more unhappy. He couldn’t appreciate the amount of money he was making. [He was] more concerned about how much money I was making.”

Which, of course, is exactly what happened to me—or what I let happen to me.

Odd things happen when we start to compare and contrast. I had been happy with what I earned as a supervisor—until I learned what another supervisor made.

Then I was unhappy.

Yet all that had really changed was the addition of one small piece of knowledge. My pay hadn’t changed, my duties hadn’t changed, my opportunities hadn’t changed—I was the only thing that had changed.

According to Frey, the same happened with Felder. If he’d been offered the same money as a solo artist, he might have been thrilled; my guess is the amount he made reuniting with the Eagles far exceeded what he had earned in the intervening years. Yet comparisons and emotions apparently colored his perception. “Great” money no longer seemed so great, because it wasn’t as great as what others made.

Are comparative salaries a real issue to some people? Absolutely—especially when we compare our relative compensation with the relative output of others.

That’s why I used to think it’s better not to know. If you like your deal, if you’re happy with your role and your level of pay, you could argue that knowing what other people make is irrelevant. You could argue that ignorance, in that case, truly may be bliss.

Now I think I’m wrong. Information is always better. Knowledge is always better. I grew up, in a professional sense, in a climate of nondisclosure and confidentiality and, well, secrets. Now I’m realizing that openness is not only better, it’s the best way to lead—because it’s the best way to build a real team.

So, hats off to Joel and Leo, if only for reminding an old dog that new tricks are often better tricks.

Maybe that’s just me. What about you? Is salary transparency a good idea or a bad idea?

A version of this article first appeared on LinkedIn.

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10 distractions corporate communicators face

For many corporate communicators, the job largely entails writing and editing. At least, that’s what we signed up for.

Sometimes, however, it seems like the last thing we get to do during our long, busy days is write.

This week, it seemed like every time I opened a document to start writing, I was distracted by a non-writing task. Here’s what I found to be the most common distractions in my job:

1. Unwanted writing advice.
I once had an extensive email exchange with a co-worker who wanted us to use “includes, but is not limited to” instead of “includes” in an advertisement listing product features. He argued that just using the word “includes” could be viewed as false advertising.

2. Common-sense moments.
Many times, communicators have to point out the obvious. For example, explaining that the email being sent to all our customers alerting them to a change in payment plans should be signed by a person, and not “the accounting department.”

3. Putting the cart before the horse.
How many times has this happened to you? You’re ready with your communication plan. The dates are set. The content has been written. Then you hear from the project manager, “We haven’t tested to make sure this system change will work. So let’s not send anything out yet.”

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4. Moderating disputes.
Because we are communicators, we often get pulled in middle of disputes between colleagues or departments. We are asked to run interference or speak to one person on behalf of another.

Me: “So what does Account Services say about this issue?”
Co-worker: “I don’t know. Can you find out?”

5. Pleas for transparency.
This week, there was a problem with our members-only system. Customers were seeing incomplete information on their accounts. The communications department, wanted to send an email to our customers acknowledging the problem. IT kept insisting the problem “will be fixed by noon” or “will be fixed tomorrow” and that the email was unnecessary. The problem continued for days when we finally sent the email.

6. Necessary rewrites.
You can often recognize when a piece needs a complete overhaul before you get to the second paragraph. Maybe it’s completely disorganized, is written in the wrong tone, contains outdated information or doesn’t include all the elements. You must either explain to the author how to fix it or fix it yourself. Either one takes time away from your own writing projects.

7. Technical troubles.
Outlook crashing, a cumbersome content management system, huge email attachments, and reminders from IT to “please send all requests to the help desk” can keep you from working on those writing tasks.

8. Pushy vendors.
They call, they email and they stop by with samples, even after you’ve politely explained that you are not going to use their services.

9. Style and usage questions.
This distraction is completely my fault. Someone asks a usage questions and I can’t let it go until I find an answer. This week’s issue was which diseases use an apostrophe and s (Alzheimer’s disease, Hodgkin’s disease) and which do not (Down syndrome, Stevens-Johnson syndrome).

10. Diplomacy.
The aforementioned pushy vendor that you’re not going to use. The freelancer whose work you’re completely re-writing. The colleague who took it personally when you critiqued her work. They all have to handled very delicately, which takes time.

Corporate communicators, what are your biggest distractions

Laura Hale Brockway is medical writer and editor from Austin, Texas. Read more of her work at impertinentremarks.com.

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