Catching Flack

I was thinking about post-Thanksgiving leftovers and realized I had some leftovers in my files to share with the Catching Flack readership. To wit:

• PR Fuel: Free tips and advice from eReleases.com
• Free PR tips and articles from eZine Articles
• PRArticle Library: A trove of articles on a variety of PR topics
• Library of PR Articles from AllBusiness.com
• Steven R. Van Hook’s All About Public Relations

Enjoy!

Do you use too many words when you write? Who doesn’t?

If so, perhaps you should heed the timeless words of William Strunk Jr., author of the #1 book about writing, The Elements of Style:

Omit needless words: Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts. This requires not that the writer make all his sentences short, or that he avoid all detail and treat his subjects only in outline, but that every word tell.

But how to get yourself to use fewer words?

Joan Stewart, The Publicity Hound, has a simple technique: pay yourself.

Stewart suggests that you tell yourself you will give yourself $1 for every word you omit from your press release, blog post, pitch, or any other important written communication. “I’ve had people ‘pay’ themselves $60 or $70,” Stewart says.

Give it a try!

You may have noticed that I get PR news and insights for you from a lot of different places around the web. How do I find these valuable nuggets, you might ask?

I like to think of it as “walking my beat.” Here’s my basic routine:

1. Read PRSA’s daily email, Issues and Trends. I believe this is available to PRSA members only.
2. Scan Bulldog Reporter’s Daily Dog. Free sign-up here.
3. Scroll through Poynter’s Romenesko media news email. Sign up here.
4. Read Ragan’s daily PR email. Sign up here.

I’ve also set up a Google Reader RSS feed of 63  PR and media blogs, which I scan here at Google Reader. It’s obviously too long a list to copy into this blog post, but some of the better ones are listed in my blog roll in the right-hand column.

Don’t know how to use Google Reader to follow your favorite blogs? That’s a pity. It’s pretty simple. And it’s a great way to keep track of lots of news and opinions, because all you have to do is scan headlines and then click on them if they interest you.

If you’re looking for your free PR advice in video or audio form (as opposed to text), here are two of the best you should check out:

Doug Simon’s DS Simon Vlog Views:

Doug is a veteran New York video producer who has made the move into online video and decided to show off his talents by posting interviews with top PR industry leaders. Recent interviewees include Peter Shankman of HARO, Ken Makovsky, Richard Laermer of Bad Pitch Blog, and Sam Singer.

Eric Schwartzman’s On the Record, Online:

Eric is a machine, cranking out detailed podcasts and giving trainings about online PR at a furious pace. You get the benefit of it, as he posts his On the Record, Online podcast here. Recent interviewees include Dave Armon of PR Newswire, Craig Newmark of Craigslist, Keith O’Brien of PR Week, and David Carr of the New York Times.

If there was one thing, one thing that I could change about the PR industry, it would be the poor writing skills that are rampant in PR. It must be something about the people who are attracted to PR as a profession, because nothing else explains it. For an industry in which good writing should be a core, deal-breaking skill, the mediocrity of PR writing skills is, frankly, baffling.

I’ll let you in on a semi-secret: one of the reasons I moved over from mainstream media to PR 15 years ago was that I knew that with my above-average writing skills, I would always be able to find work. I’m sorry to say that 15 years later, there’s still plenty of demand for my writing skills in the PR industry.

If this sounds like a harsh critique, you’re right — it is. Good writers aren’t born, they’re made. And they are made with tough, no-nonsense criticism of their writing.

As we head into a downturn, this may be a skill you’ll want to improve. It could be one of the wisest investments you make in your career.

I got the idea for this item because next Wednesday Nov. 19 I’m moderating a PR University audio conference called, “Write Like a Journalist: Media Wordsmiths Share Proven Copywriting Secrets for Earning More Ink.” I’ll be joined on the 90-minute conference by:

• Sandra Allen, Director, Public Relations Studies, Columbia College Chicago
• Evan Cooper, Senior Managing Editor/Online Editorial Director, Investment News; Author, “The Ultimate Press Release: How to Create Breakthrough Press Materials for the Digital Age”
• Joe Grimm, Visiting Editor in Residence, Michigan State University; Writer, Poynter Institute Career Center
• John McIntyre, Assistant Managing Editor, Copy Desk, Baltimore Sun (circ. 372,970)
• Joan Stewart, President, Editor, The Publicity Hound

You might want to attend. But if you can’t, you should still make working on your writing skills a must-do for 2009.

The Internet may have changed everything, but let’s face it, most Americans still get a lot of their news and information from local TV news. And the principles of getting local TV coverage remain the same:

• Keep it simple and direct and relevant to the day’s news
• Make sure — MAKE SURE — you have good visuals to illustrate your story

Compared to print, PR actually has a better shot at developing good relationships with TV journalists, and here’s why: they need us more. “People think I have relationships with John Chambers [Cisco CEO] or Meg Whitman [ex-eBay CEO] but I don’t,” says Scott Budman, tech reporter for NBC Bay Area (KNTV-11). “I don’t. I have relationship with you [PR people].”

Translation: writers have more time to develop relationships and hence don’t need the PR person as an intermediary as much. TV people have intense jobs that require a lot of logistical coordination [lighting, locations, backgrounds, etc.] so we PR types can come in handy — if we know what we’re doing.

PRSA Silicon Valley had a “meet the editors” day at KNTV last week, and Budman & Co. gave a great inside look at how a TV newsroom really operates.

(more…)

There’s no hiding in the Internet era, especially if you are a company with a tech-savvy employee base. According to a very interesting article in today’s New York Times, companies are now being forced to write blog posts about things like layoffs as soon as they happen:

Blogging about staff cuts is particularly prevalent in Silicon Valley, where tech gossip sites pounce on every rumor and Web-savvy employees broadcast their every thought on personal blogs and Twitter feeds. Companies feel pressure to break bad news on their own blogs so that they can better control the message.

However, experts in human resources and public relations say it is only a matter of time before companies of all sizes and in all industries will feel compelled to blog about painful news.

“Control the message.” I put that in bold above. Either you control your message (as best you can) or other people will do it for you. That was true before the Internet but it’s especially true now and going forward.

This requires a new mindset, if you don’t already have one. And it probably takes practice. Here’s the drill:

• Think hard about what other people might find interesting about your company
• Be honest about whether they are likely to blog about it or release it in some other way
• If there’s any chance it could come out (and assume there is), get your messages together and figure out a way to get ahead of the story and tell it your way, rather than reacting to what other people say

It may look easy, but creating a smooth-running, entertaining national news or talk show is super-stressful. Simply producing TV is hard, and producing it to compete on the national stage is daunting. The people who rise to that level of the media are talented, tough and hard-working by definition.

So if you want to get on one of their shows, should you a) pitch like you always do or b) spend an extraordinary amount of time crafting the absolutely best pitch you can? It’s a rhetorical question, because the answer is obviously b).

I just finished an hour moderating a fascinating Bulldog Reporter webinar with Susan Harrow, author of “The Ultimate Guide to Getting Booked on Oprah,” who discussed the tips and techniques for breaking through with national talk shows.

The overriding message? Bring your A-game. Pitch incredible personal stories or novel products or services, not me-too drivel. Do your homework and be completely ready to go when you get that coveted call from a producer. Think through your entire segment. Practice with a media trainer to hone your skills.

This is true whether you are pitching The Oprah Winfrey Show or the NBC Nightly News. These people have the world, literally, to choose from. If you want to break through, raise your game to their level — don’t expect them to drop down to yours and help you.

Want to be on the top of the search rankings when someone’s looking for your product or service? Who doesn’t?? If so, you’ve got to use search engine optimization strategies when designing your web site and posting content. It doesn’t happen naturally.

What are the proven techniques? Sally Falkow posts an excellent primer called, “How to Get on Page One of Google.” It’s a quick read so check it out. But here’s the exec summary:

1. Get a domain name that contains a top search term for your product or service
2. Include a mix of rich content including video, text and images
3. Make sure your site architecture is bot-friendly (bots are the computers that search the Internet for content)
4. Have a blog on your site
5. Generate keyword-rich inbound links
6. Have a database of content for people and search engines to search
7. Issue search-optimized press releases

Fresh Air on NPR is probably the most desirable radio talk show placement, particularly for an author. You get lots of time, and host Terry Gross will engage you at a level that will really let people get to know you and your point of view.

Naturally, therefore, the competition to get on the show is brutal. After all, it’s on only five days a week, and oftentimes, they don’t even use new interviews, preferring instead to replay an old interview because the person has died, or written a new book or is starring in a new movie. Like I said, it’s a really tough hit to get, making it all the more valuable.

So you can probably use all the advice you can get, right?

So give a round of thanks to Debbie Stier at The 26th Story, who scored an interview with Fresh Air producer Amy Salit. It’s a short interview so you can head over to their blog to read it, but here are a few gems:

What makes a great interview?

[On] radio… you can feel if the person is speaking spontaneously. If they are, you can hear them thinking through their ideas. Their passion and enthusiasm comes through. They need to be talking to Terry instead of giving a lecture. I also like to hear something new, either to help explain a situation in society, or to reveal something new about a celebrity guest.