Public Relations Tips: December 2007

Are you constantly facing on-the-job miscommunications? You may have a problem with mispronunciation and possibly be hurting your image at the same time.

Remember the abuse George W. Bush took for his mispronunciation of "nuclear?" Don't fall into that trap - learn how to pronounce words correctly for the best P.R. results.

The mispronunciation of vowels and the elimination of consonants and syllables are common problems. They are often the cause of misunderstandings. The following list represents a few of the words most commonly mispronounced. As you read through the list, check those you use frequently and may mispronounce. Practice saying them correctly. Make your own list of mispronounced words as you listen to others speak.

Correct Incorrect Correct Incorrect

Actual Akchul Library Liberry

All right Awright Literally Li/rully

Always Aw-weez Mayor Mare

Any Iny Midst Mist

Asked Axed Million Miyun

Attentive Atenive Mirror Mirra

Ball game Bawgame Model Mahdo

Because Buhcuz Nuclear Nuclur

Center Cenner Older Odor

Cold Code Particularly Particly

Comparable Compable Perhaps Praps

Could have Cudda Picture Pitcher

Didn't Dint Plenty Plenny

Etcetera Eksetra Probably Probly

In her manual Building the Power of Your Voice: How to Improve Your Voice to Command Attention & Move People to Action, Dr. June Johnson provides solutions to speech and speaking associated problems that may be preventing you from achieving further success in the business world.
http://101publicrelations.com/voicepower.html?utm_source=prideas&utm_content=voice_power

Posted by Dan at 07:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Are you always "dropping syllables"? Learn to fix the problem and you fix your professional image. According to Dr. June Johnson:

Consistently dropping syllables can seriously affect your professional image. The clarity and effectiveness with which you speak determines how seriously people take you. Each syllable in a word is there to be pronounced.

There are innumerable words in which syllables are frequently dropped. Note these few examples and others throughout this chapter.

reglar for regular

comtable for comfortable

particly for particularly

probly for probably

When George Bush was president, Dan Quayle often referred to him as Present Bush! I think that if Mr. Quayle likes the title of President, he should learn how to pronounce it!

President - - - Present

Consistently dropping syllables can seriously affect your professional image. Listen to others speak. Notice how often people drop consonants and how it weakens their speech.

You can learn more valuable tips for improving your speaking abilities in Dr. June Johnson's manual Building the Power of Your Voice: How to Improve Your Voice to Command Attention & Move People to Action.
http://101publicrelations.com/voicepower.html?utm_source=prideas&utm_content=voice_power

Posted by Dan at 07:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Here's a tip for using blogs for your business. Use other RSS sites to promote your blog. Basically an RSS aggregator is a program, and there are many of them out there that are really sort of cool, that goes out once every hour or so, and you can use it to automatically pull in RSS feeds from a bunch of different places for you to easily read whenever you want to. You just find a blog that you like and you just add it to your RSS aggregator. And then once every hour or so, your little RSS aggregator goes out, grabs all of the new content from this site and that corporate blog. It grabs them all and it brings them in and shows you the headline and maybe the first 20 words of that particular article. So you are able to, within a few seconds, get a quick overview of what is happening on all of these different sites and blogs and places that include an RSS feed, because RSS feeds don't just happen on blogs, they happen on a lot of news sites and even shopping sites.
And you can get a quick read of what's going on and instead of having to go to 10 different sites to see what's going on you can see them all at once right on your screen. And the best part is that producing an RSS feed is really sort of a cool technology that is built into most blogging packages. It becomes a snowball rolling down the hill. After a little while you couldn't turn off the traffic if you wanted to because it just keeps flowing in you because you've doing a good job of promoting it. And I will tell you very frankly, that one thing has done more to build my blogging business than anything else I have ever done, with the exception, possibly, of writing with a voice, as we talked about earlier. To find the top 40 places to promote your blog, read "Business Blogging Results."
http://101publicrelations.com/bloggingresults.html?utm_source=prideas&utm_content=business_blogging_results

Posted by Dan at 07:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The most important thing to do before you even write a release is to decide what is going to be the focus of this release. Some people write news releases so infrequently that they think that once they do sit down to write one, they have to stick everything in it. That really doesn't work, because what that does is, it just disperses your creative energy and your writing energy so that you're trying to go in too many directions. You're trying to stuff unrelated things into the release, rather than choose the one thing that you want to make most prominent in the headline and develop in the release, and then people are going to get one message from this release.

Now, it's OK to mention other things. But you want to tuck them in casually toward the end of the release and not try and feature too many things up front. I'm going to make a general rule that there should be one main theme to a press release and you should know what that is before you sit down. If you have just one point that you want to make in the release, like any good news writer, you could stick it in one paragraph-the who, what, when, where and why-and everything else is elaboration. You have to choose how much elaboration are you going to put in that press release, and there's really no reason why a press release cannot be limited to one page, or one page and a half, at the very most. For more tips on how to write fantastic press releases, read "The Do-It-Yourself Press Release Makeover."

Posted by Dan at 01:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Generally speaking, you shouldn't use canned quotes. But can you ever use an actual quote in your publicity material? It depends on how high-level the person is. But generally speaking, if they're doing a feature article, they do like to have the actual person saying it, because they know darn well that PR people write the press releases and make up the quotes. One of the things I've noticed about any of the high-tech industries is that they definitely prefer their press releases by email, moreso than any other industry does.

Depending on the expertise of your organization, you may want to work on an article placement rather than a press release because a lot of the trade magazines just don't have the reporting staff to create that many brand new stories. So the idea you pitch is, "We'll have this expert write up a very interesting story that will interest your clientele." And then, of course, at the beginning or the end, you put the credentials and your company. Then you get them to run the article. So that's one of the things that you do. The metro newspapers generally won't touch that. The small weeklies want something that's pretty, not too technical. But the trade publications-the trade magazines-that's a wonderful way to go.

For more information on media kits and free publicity, read "Electronic Media Kits: How to Create Them, Deliver Them, and See Instant Results."

Posted by Dan at 07:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

How long should a press release be? I'm going to give you some rules that should never, ever, ever be violated. I don't care what your story is, there are no exceptions to these rules. And rule Number One is, "A press release is one page, and one page only." I don't care what your story is. You've got to get it into one page. And you're doing that for several reasons.

Remember what I said about the reporters getting hundreds of press releases a day? If they're all two, three and four pages, this reporter never gets anything done. But more importantly than that, the reporter wants a one-page press release because if you can get this enormous story--this great, exciting story-down to one page, what you're really saying to the reporter is, "I can get to the point." And that's what the reporter is looking for. Anybody can tell a story in 30 minutes. The reporter wants somebody who can tell that story in 30 seconds. Especially radio and TV talk show people, because they want to keep these shows moving.

Now, if you're talking to a magazine or newspaper reporter, they're a little more flexible, but they'll probably poke you along if you're getting too wordy. But on the radio, and on TV, they want you to get to the point. So when you send out that one-page press release, you've said, "Here's an exciting story. I can be concise, and I know how to write this press release to get your attention." So one page, and one page only. For more fantastic tips on how to write great press releases, read How to Write a Killer Press Release That Stops Reporters in Their Tracks
http://101publicrelations.com/killer.html?utm_source=prideas&utm_content=killer_press_releases

Posted by Dan at 07:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

How should you pitch a satellite tour to local stations? Then I wouldn't actually spend that much time pitching the local media, unless they're actually going to be there, because I think it's a lot of time and energy on your part that's not well spent, truthfully. I would focus in on where that person lives, and get him or her there. Or you can go in on a local level and say, "OK, listen. On this one day, we're going to have the feed. Will you pick it up? And here's why you should pick it up, and here's what's great about it." That would be the call I'd make.

I just really would stay focused on why would a local television station.if he's not going to be a live studio guest, my guess is they'll only pick it up as a broader interest story, and that that's really the storyline you have to stay with. For more publicity and follow-up tips, read ""Failproof Ways to Follow Up After Sending a News Release or Pitch Letter."
http://101publicrelations.com/failprooffollowup.html?utm_source=prideas&utm_content=fail-proof_follow-up

Posted by Dan at 07:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Functional crisis communication plans start with effective internal communication.

Sadly, during crises, the internal communications piece is often overlooked. When that happens, employees often feel betrayed by management. If your leader is reticent about communicating internally, you can sell him or her on the idea by illustrating how it is another chance to gain political capital and earn allies throughout the organization.

We recommend that one of the first thing that is done in the event of a crisis, even before talking to the press, is to hold a meeting, conference call, video broadcast, or whatever is easiest and fastest with your employees. If the reporters are pounding down your door, send someone out to tell them that you are holding a meeting to discuss the issue with your employees, which should be over in approximately 30 minutes, after which time you will talk with them.

The last thing you want to have happen is for your employees to hear about a problem, plant closing, or other issue from the press. They should hear it from you first.

Explore tips and techniques for writing a functional crisis communication plan with Crisis Communication Planning: Organizing and Completing a Plan That Works.
http://101publicrelations.com/crisis-communication.html?utm_source=prideas&utm_content=crisis_communications

Posted by Dan at 07:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Functional crisis communication plans start with effective internal communication.

Sadly, during crises, the internal communications piece is often overlooked. When that happens, employees often feel betrayed by management. If your leader is reticent about communicating internally, you can sell him or her on the idea by illustrating how it is another chance to gain political capital and earn allies throughout the organization.

We recommend that one of the first thing that is done in the event of a crisis, even before talking to the press, is to hold a meeting, conference call, video broadcast, or whatever is easiest and fastest with your employees. If the reporters are pounding down your door, send someone out to tell them that you are holding a meeting to discuss the issue with your employees, which should be over in approximately 30 minutes, after which time you will talk with them.

The last thing you want to have happen is for your employees to hear about a problem, plant closing, or other issue from the press. They should hear it from you first.

Explore tips and techniques for writing a functional crisis communication plan with Crisis Communication Planning: Organizing and Completing a Plan That Works.
http://101publicrelations.com/crisis-communication.html?utm_source=prideas&utm_content=crisis_communications

Posted by Dan at 07:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

What are some media outlets to get publicity for your event? What about talk radio shows? Can you get some interesting people who are involved in your event to be guests on local talk radio shows? I'll give you a couple of ideas as we go through this teleseminar. Can you take an interesting poll or a survey several months before your event-something that ties into the topic of your event, and then announce those results a week or two before the event to generate more publicity? For example, let's say you're a hospital and you're sponsoring a bike-a-thon to support breast cancer research. Survey women on how many of them do self-breast examinations, or how many of them over the age of 40 get annual mammograms, and then release those results right before the event.

There are all kinds of fun contests that you can sponsor that lead up to the event. There's a public television station here in Milwaukee. They have those TV auctions every spring, and last year, they did something that I thought was brilliant. They sponsored a contest asking local artists to take a plain old wooden chair and paint it and come up with a fun theme. They chose the most creative chair and they gave the artist a big award. I saw these chairs in the local magazines and on television and even in the local newspapers months leading up to the event, and months leading up to the auction. And then they auctioned off the chairs. It was a really nice way to work in a fun contest to create buzz about the on-air auction.

For more great information and tips on how to create media buzz for your event, read "How to Create Media Buzz When Promoting Your Special Event."

Posted by Dan at 01:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Here are some ideas on how to write great headlines. Let's say it is a tip sheet. Count the number of tips on that tip sheet and use it in the headline. For example, "5 Tips to Make Spring Cleaning Easier," "7 Ways to Improve Your Sex Life," "8 Secrets for Not Getting the Flu," whatever. You want to put that numeral in the headline, and to try to make that headline as punchy as you possibly can.

Here's a tip on how to get punchy headlines. The next time you're in the supermarket, or you're going by a magazine rack, take a look at the headlines that are on the front of any magazine. It could be a woman's magazines. It could be business magazines. Steal those headlines that really catch your attention. And often, you can take out a couple of key words from that headline and substitute your own key words that fit in with what you are talking about, and you can have a great headline. During the last teleseminar I did, we featured Raleigh Pinskey, who was talking about new releases.

For snappy headlines, she suggests that you start buying the tabloid newspapers like the National Enquirer and the Star, because she said that their headlines are terrific. Study how they write their headlines, then copy their style. Take out the few keywords they're using that refer to the topic of the story, and substitute your own keywords. That's how you can come up with great headlines. And that doesn't mean the publication that receives your brief is going to use your headline. They may come up with their own. But heck, smaller publications that don't have big news staffs may just copy your brief word for word, and put it in.
For more great publicity ideas, read Briefs, Fillers and Quizzes: How To Write Them and Why Editors LOVE Them
http://101publicrelations.com/briefs-fillers-quizzes.html?utm_source=prideas&utm_content=briefs_fillers_and_quizzes

Posted by Dan at 07:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)