News Releases

Every day print media outlets get tons of news releases, and only select ones will make it into the paper. So when writing a news release you better make sure yours is perfect and will catch the attention of someone with the smallest attention span ever. From the lead to the last period everything needs to be in tip top shape. However, if I had to pick one part of the release that needed to be the best, I would say the lead, because that is whats going to catch peoples attention and get your release where it needs to be.

If you are wanting to write one but don’t know where to start, or just need a little help, check out this website. It’s pretty helpful.

E-mail 101

My Life Revolves Around It…

I can’t go more than an hour without checking my email, and that’s pushing it. I’m not going to lie I really want a Blackberry so I can check my e-mail no matter where I am. And don’t lie, you know you are like that too, just maybe not as bad. It’s just the culture we have come to know. We always have to be connected.

Email Etiquette
Not a day goes by that I do not send and receive at least 10 e-mails. Some of them are just to my mom telling her how my day is going, others are funny fowards, and then some are professional ones I send to important people. No matter who I am sending the e-mail to, I always try to keep it semi-professional and correct. I mean I don’t e-mail my mom with Dear Mom, blah blah blah, Sincerely, your daughter. But I also try and keep the ALL CAPS, and slang to a minimum. That way when I e-mail someone who I need to impress I don’t naturally TYPE LIKE DIS… So needless to say it amazes me at the college kids, and even adults that manage to send emails like that to their superiors and people they need to impress. Did they miss the email etiquette memo?

I found this link online that explains the top 32 rules of email etiquette. If you feel you might be one of those people who lack etiquette, or just wan to check and refresh your memory, take a lookhere Happy e-mailing!

Advertising

Making an advertisement for large print media is a difficult challenge.  You have limited space to convey your message, make sure your audiences understand it, and make sure it is creative enough to catch your audience’s attention.  Oh and you want it to stand out enough that they will remember the ad and the product.  So of course there is no pressure when your boss puts you in charge of coming up with a new print ad right?

You can take several approaches to this new print ad you have to design.  You can make it a public policy ad, take a global position, make it a “feature ad,” do a public service ad, make a rational ad, or make a handout.  I’ve seen great examples of all of these, but you have to figure out what works best for your audience and message you’re trying to convey.

I looked around on the Internet and found several print ads that caught my attention…

This Playstation Ad caught my attention and made me laugh, even though I’m a girl.  It was a very creative approach to catch people’s attention, and I’m sure it had many young men agreeing with it.

The Tarzan ad below took a global position, and did a great job catching my attention.  I think it would have been a little more effective if the text would have been a little bit bigger.  It took me a second to find the written message.  However, the graphics are great!

Public Speaking…Not Everyon’s Cup of Tea

It’s My Cup of Tea
I’ve never been a shy girl. In fact my parents still give me a hard time and tell me there isn’t a person in this world I wouldn’t talk to. I guess that’s why I love being a Communication Major so much. While my other friends are studying their butts off for an econ test I’m working on a speech. I’ve always enjoyed talking in front of people. Whether it’s informative, persuasive, or entertainment, I love it.

However there are a ton of people I know that don’t quite share the love for talking I do, several of which are comm. majors. I thought all comm. majors would love to talk but I’m obviously wrong. I’ve learned over the past several years there is nothing wrong with being afraid of speaking; it’s just something you have to overcome.

Practice Will Get You There
So for those of you who may not get as excited about public speaking as I do-stick with it. With practice you’ll get better. Take a look at this video; it’s by a group that helps people with their public speaking skills. It puts a humorous twist on all the things people deal with when having to speak in public. It gave me a smile or two because as much as I would like to think I’ve always been comfortable speaking in public, I know deep down I was like this at some point in my life.

Sweet Media Kits

The Basics

Every day editors sift through tons of press releases and media kits. So if you want your event to get covered by all the media you better make it pretty appealing.

Everyone has the basics included. Cover letters, fact sheets, program of events, biographical information, visual materials, logos, contact information, all that good stuff is included. I read about one bakery online who was taking their press kits to a whole new level and it was pretty sweet.

Pretty Sweet Media Kits

The Tumbleweed Catilion has made sure the media kits they deliver to local news mediums are creative enough that the editor will not want to miss doing a story on them. The kits include a very decorative folder with all the essential information, but it is eye catching and appealing. But what makes them so special is that a cupcake is delivered along with the media kits. And let me just say, I’d love to be the editor on the receiving end of this cupcake, it looks so good.

Take a look at these tasteful tactics used by Tumbleweed Catilion

What Did She Just Say?

Not As Easy As You Think

Doing broadcasting in general isn’t the easiest thing in the world to do. You have to worry with which camera to look at, when you’re suppose to speak, and try and read off a teleprompter and get the words right.

I’ve dabbled in some of that here at school with Planet Blacksburg. We did a sports show that thankfully wasn’t live. I can’t count the number of times I read something wrong off the teleprompter and had to do it again. I also had a hard time realizing that writing for broadcast is so much more different. I did short quick sentences and had to spell stuff out the way it sounded. It took me several times to grasp that we only had 30 seconds to do the story and I couldn’t write the novle I’m use to writing

She Said What…
I can’t even imagine doing live broadcasting. I had a hard enough time with the taped stuff. There are no second chances to fix something when you screw it up live. I have to give newscasters credit, they handle their slip ups pretty well, but I guess all you can do is laugh along with the rest of the nation. The girl in this video did pretty well at going along with her quite embarrassing slip up…

Crisis Communication

Be Proactive, Not Reactive

In my Issues Management class I had last semester, I had a hard time first understanding when my professor began to explain why a crisis is normally predictable. I was only thinking of hurricanes or some other “act of God.” But the more we went through the class, the more I realized that 9 out of 10 times, your organization should have had some idea that something was brewing. Through media scanning and watching over public interest groups, if your organization is being mentioned in something that is going to require some issues management, then you should know about it and fix it before it becomes a crisis. Take Enron for example. There were people in that company who knew what were going on. Maybe had something been said before it was too late the company could have been saved. Instead the people who knew what were going on stayed quiet, a crisis occurred and the company went bankrupt.

I really like the follwing model that kind of shows the cycle of an emerging crisis. If you want go to the website and it goes into more deatil about each stage.

It’s More Than Spell Checking

Accuracy Is Everything

A few semesters ago I took a Media Writing class that was all about writing for print sources like a newspaper. I was dreading the class because in my mind I didn’t want to be a journalist, and I had no interest on doing a interest piece on the local farmer and his cow. Going into the class I figured I would do great. I’m a strong writer, so how hard could a class all about writing be. I found out when I got my first paper back with a big fat 60 on it.

If your mother tells you she loves you….

The cause for my 60 was the errors in my paper. And I don’t mean sentence structure is what got me my first ever 60. It was my factual errors that got me in trouble. Our professor had told us this would happen, because if you spell a name wrong or put the wrong information in a real news story your company loses credibility. At least all I got was a 60. He would tell us over and over again “if your mother tells you she loves you, check with someone else.” It was this class that taught me journalism is a lot harder than I thought it would be. And now I can’t help but smile when I read the paper and see errors or the corrections section and think how glad I was to have a professor to drill me like he did.

So what’s it got to do with PR?

While I was writing my articles I kept thinking what does this have to do with my future career? I’m not going to be writing newspaper articles. Then my professor told me this story. He was in Chicago covering a Chicago Bulls game right around the time Michael Jordan was going to open a restaurant. His PR firm sent out the press release announcing the opening and to their surprise, they had spelt their own (very famous) client’s name wrong. Needless to say the firm lost a huge account and several people lost their job. So it’s not just newspaper that has to be accurate. Everything you do has to be right, or you could wake up the next morning to a big embarrassment.

I found a great link that has a ton of newspaper misspellings and the corrections the newspaper wrote to try and fix them. Check it out: http://www.regrettheerror.com/

Document Design

More to Design Than I Thought

One of the classes I am in this semester is all about document design-color, proximity, arrangement, consistency, and all that fun stuff. Until I started this class I never really paid close attention to documents and they way they are designed. Now I can’t look at a flyer without critiquing it. I don’t think people realize that the color of the paper or the size or type of font can say just as much as the textual message on the paper.

Since I can’t go anywhere and not critique the design of a document, I grabbed the carryout menu below and used it for my class. I love the resturant (who’s name will remain annonyoums) but the carry out menu could use some help. It has bolded and underlined headings, things off centered, inconsistencies, and over all just an overwhelming document.

Ok so this exapmle I found is a little extreme, and while it’s not a document it can show just how important everything is. Your text is the message but the colors and backgrounds you use are just as important. What good is the text if you can’t read it (like this one)

Research…won’t that take me forever?

So maybe I’m a nerd…

When most people say research, the cringe at the thought of having to look at books all day and search for things on the internet and other places, but I kind of like it. I guess I’ve always kind of been a nerd but once I got past those days of middle school where you had to put a source on a note card and all the info that came with it (I know you know what I’m talking about) and I was able to do my own research my own way, I really liked it. I guess maybe that’s why I like PR so much. While it’s frustrating to have to sit and search and search for information at times, I really enjoy it, especially when I get to look at my finished product and know that I put it all together.

But it got past the focus group…

I guess when I say I like to research I should clarify. I love having to write papers and research all the information for them, but I absolutely hate having to do focus groups and that kind of research. I guess I’m more of a secondary source girl. I had to conduct a focus group once and it was terrible. For the first 10 minutes everyone just looked at me then after that the one guy wouldn’t be quiet and I didn’t really get a fair, equal representation. I guess since my one bad experience I’ve had a bad opinion of focus groups. I constantly see bad commercials, ads, and product ideas and the first thing I say is, wow that must have been a bad focus group. It seems like everything these days’ relies on focus groups, and while they can get you valuable information they don’t always work. What ever happened to good ole fashioned research?