The question is: why? Here are a few reasons that might answer the question for you.

• You aren’t giving them anything worth reading. The number one way to gain a following on a social media network is by providing useful content. That means you need to do a few things. First, you need to write blog posts that readers find useful and worth sharing. Second, you need to find content from other blogs and news outlets that your friends would want to see. This could include anything from photos to articles to videos. Mix it up to keep things interesting for your followers.
• You aren’t asking questions. Sometimes people simply need an invitation to speak to you. Are you asking them to? Ask them questions about their likes and dislikes. Ask them about your company and what you’re doing. Give them something to converse with you over and you’ll likely start getting responses.
• You aren’t talking back. Social media is not a one-way street. Your job is not done when people start commenting. Quite the contrary. Your job has just begun. That said, make sure you always respond to comments to keep the conversation moving.
• You aren’t speaking their language. Corporate speak. No one except the higher ups in your company like it. So if you are posting corporate speak to your blog or social media account, chances are your audience tuned out long ago. Keep in mind who you’re talking to—not who you are.
• You’re trying to reach too many. Any marketing expert will tell you that you need to define your target audience. And once you’ve done this, you need to speak directly to them. If that means 30 year old housewives, make sure you aren’t posting content that connects more to 15 year old males. If you try and reach too wide of a market, your message will get diluted and fail to reach anyone.

Are people not talking about your company? Make sure you aren’t making these mistakes!

This article is written by Mickie Kennedy, founder of eReleases, the online leader in affordable press release distribution. Download your free copy of the Beginner’s Guide to Writing Powerful Press Releases here: http://www.ereleases.com/insider/beginnersguide.html

But what happens when this disdain for you or your product makes it online? What happens when someone posts negatively about you on their blog? How can you avoid a complete PR nightmare?

Here are a few things you can do to minimize the damage:

• Use Google Ads – Say someone writes an article entitled, “(Your company name) Sucks.” If it catches any buzz, people may search Google trying to find out what the hype is about, using the article title as their key phrase. What you could do is take out a Google Ad using that key phrase that links to your own article that you’ve posted which explains your side of the argument. This may work particularly well in the instance that the negative press you’re getting is due to misinformation. This may allow people to click on your link that sets the record straight before they get the other side of the story.
• Comment on the negative post – This can be tricky. What you don’t want to do is go onto the offending blog with “guns a’ blazing” crushing the blogger. All that will do is make you look like a jerk and give them (and their readers) more reason to hate you. Be polite and make a professional attempt at addressing the bloggers comments. And do not, under any circumstances, engage in a back and forth argument.
• Contact the blogger directly – Sometimes, dealing with the issue in public is simply not appropriate. In this case, attempt to contact the blogger directly by email or social media. More often than not, the blogger will appreciate your olive branch and work with you to make amends.
• Move on – As frustrating as it can be, sometimes you just can’t do anything about what was said. So know when it’s time to cut your losses and move on. If you truly offer a product of value, customers will see this and the affect of these negative comments will be minimal. Keep things in perspective. One negative blog post is unlikely to kill your company.

Has anyone ever trashed your company online? What did you do in response?

This article is written by Mickie Kennedy, founder of eReleases, the online leader in affordable press release distribution. Grab three ebooks, including My Facebook Formula, a free report on Facebook and why you should be using the largest social network for your business, here: http://www.ereleases.com/insider/freebooks.html

The secret is in transitional expressions. See, what typically happens with inexperienced writers is that nearly every sentence begins in the same way. Don’t believe me? Take a look at the last release you wrote.

But when you learn different sorts of transitional phrases, and how to use them correctly, you’ll find your blah writing turning rhythmical and interesting.

Look for Relationships

Where are you going next in your release? What sort of point do you want to make? The key is to look at what sort of relationship this next point will have with the preceding. For example, are you about to say something in contrast to the aforementioned? Are you about to give an example? Or maybe you are working through a cause and effect relationship…Let’s take a look at some of the most common relationships and how you can make the transition.

Time

Are your points in sequential order? If so, you could make use of words such as:

• Before
• Currently
• During
• Afterwards
• Subsequently
• Meanwhile

More Evidence

If you have more supporting details to provide for your story, make use of terms like:

• In addition
• Furthermore
• Moreover
• Equally important
• Besides

Contrast

Sometimes it is useful to explain an opposing point. For these instances you might say:

• Nonetheless
• Notwithstanding
• In contrast
• In spite of
• On the other hand

Similar Points

Drawing a logical similarity? Do so more effectively with:

• Just as…so
• Likewise
• Similarly
• In the same way that

Placing Extra Importance

Finally, sometimes you just want to drive a point home. Add emphasis with these transitions:

• In fact
• Of course
• Truly
• Even
• Indeed

Avoid Repetition

Sometimes in prose, repetition is used to create a certain feeling. This is not the case in press release writing. To avoid sounding clunky and garbled, your release needs to flow well. You can achieve this by correctly using the above transitions.

How do you keep your press release writing interesting? Share your thoughts by leaving a comment below.

This article is written by Mickie Kennedy, founder of eReleases, the online leader in affordable press release distribution. Download a free copy of the PR Checklist – a 24 point list of Press Release Dos and Don’ts here: http://www.ereleases.com/prchecklist.html

1. Set a consistent posting schedule (and stick to it) – We all would love to post every day, but it just is not realistic for many of us. Maybe once a week makes more sense. Whatever the case, set a schedule and stick to it so your readers will know when to expect a new post.
2. Comment regularly on other blogs – When you comment on other people’s blogs, you begin building relationships. You also increase the chances that their readers will spill over to your blogs.
3. Get active with social media – And not just by posting your articles. Talk to people. Your readers as well as others in your field. And share good content that is not yours.
4. Listen to your readers – What sort of questions are your readers asking? What kind of comments are they leaving? Pick the best and address them in your future posts. They’ll love that sort of interaction and response. You could even have a survey on your blog where readers can vote on topics they’d like to see you write about.
5. Just say no to the “rehash” – It’s so easy to rehash the same drivel over and over. Don’t do it. Dedicate time to coming up with new ideas to wow your readers in 2012. Don’t provide content they could get on 10 other blogs.
6. Link to your old posts – If you’re posting evergreen content, then your old posts are still good. Keep them fresh and squeeze maximum life out of them by linking to them when it makes sense in new posts. And the internal links are good for your search rankings, too.
7. Seek out guest blogging opportunities – Not only will you get good links from guest blogging on the right blogs, but you’ll also gain more notoriety in your field of expertise. And you’ll also get your work in the eyes of a new audience.
8. Bring in guest bloggers – We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again. Bringing in guest bloggers is great for fresh content and getting new readers. The right writers will bring their fans with them.
9. Give something away to subscribers – Consider a free eBook or something similar in exchange for new subscribers. Everyone loves things for free. Everyone.
10. Invite conversation – Are you asking people to talk back at the end of your posts? Think of it like a call to action, except not salesy. Ask readers their opinions or for questions. Invite them to share their stories.
11. Work on your search engine rankings – You can do it yourself or hire a pro. Either way, you need to start building back links to your blog so it will begin to ascend the Google rankings. The higher you climb, the more readers you’ll acquire.
12. Focus on providing the best content possible – Remember, it all boils down to content. So in 2012, refocus on what matters most: providing quality blog posts. “If you build it…”

Try one. Try them all. Remember, how much you get out of your blog this year depends on how much work you put in to it! What’s your best tip for growing your blog?

This article is written by Mickie Kennedy, founder of eReleases, the online leader in affordable press release distribution. Download your free copy of 7 Cheap PR Tactics for Success in Any Economy here: http://www.ereleases.com/7cheaptactics.html

Just like knick-knacks and dust bunnies in our living room, we accumulate things in our business that we don’t necessarily need, and are sometimes even detrimental to our health. Come springtime, it’s time to sweep them out from under the couch and out the door!

But it’s not quite springtime yet, you say. And that’s true. However, you can start planning for spring cleaning now so the actual act is much easier when the weather turns.

Pinpoint Weak Spots

One of your first tasks in preparation for spring cleaning is to find exactly where you’re running a little short with your business. If there’s something you feel is holding you back, take a look if you really need it. If not, toss it out with the dust bunnies.

For instance, it’s easy to get bogged down with unnecessary paperwork or clients who aren’t really worth your time. We get stuck in rituals that make us nervous to break out of,  as if our business will fall apart without them.

Guess what? It won’t. That one client that you spend so much time on but hardly pays you? Time to dump them. The weekly reports nobody pays any attention to and doesn’t seem to help anybody with their tasks? Get rid of them. Streamlining the process can mean great things if you just give it a try.

Organize

Of course spring cleaning isn’t just about throwing stuff out the door – it’s also about organizing your life! Now that you’ve gotten rid of some stuff in your business, it’s time to get everything else in order.

You’re bound to have thought at some point over the year that parts of your company need to be more of a well-oiled machine. It can be accounting, customer service, social media, public relations, whatever – if it’s not up to par, time to get it going again.

Social media in particular can easily be reorganized to be more efficient. Are you still manually logging in to your separate accounts on Facebook and Twitter and posting from there? Download a client like Tweetdeck or get an account at CoTweet and start doing everything from one platform. This cuts down on time and energy and frees you up for other tasks.

Also, if you’re scouring the Internet looking for material every morning for your Twitter feed, take some time to get your Google Reader feed under control. Organize each blog or news feed in order of client or importance so when you need an interesting link to send out you don’t have to search for thirty minutes.

How do you usually spring clean your business?

This article is written by Mickie Kennedy, founder of eReleases, the online leader in affordable press release distribution. Download a free copy of the PR Checklist – a 24 point list of Press Release Dos and Don’ts here: http://www.ereleases.com/prchecklist.html

But you can’t talk about outsourcing without touching on the other side of the coin. The dark side, if you will. See, many professionals are wary of hiring a freelancer because the bottom line is, it can be risky. They’re worried that:

• The freelancer won’t deliver on time.
• They’ll do a poor job.
• They’ll take the money and run.
• The freelancer will overcharge them.

And to be quite frank, all of these are valid worries. So how can you hire a freelancer and ensure that you don’t get screwed in the process?

1. See samples and references – Never hire someone without getting a look at their body of work first. Let’s face it. Lots of people think they can write. And many of them can’t. How can you know that you’re hiring a good freelancer without checking his work first? Now along those same lines, make sure you check references too. You never know if they are showing you someone else’s samples.
2. Get it in writing – Before you give the go ahead, make sure you sign a contract. And before you sign the contract, read it thoroughly to confirm that you agree with all the terms. Not only that, make sure that the wording you want to see in the contract is actually there. Things to consider: timeline, word count, number of allowed edits, etc. If the freelancer won’t accommodate, use someone else.
3. Give them plenty of information – In order to make certain that the press release has all the info you want it to contain, you need to give the freelancer plenty of information. This can come in the form of a bullet-pointed email or even a conference call. Just get it to them all at once so they don’t have to keep calling you over and over.
4. Leave something for them to work towards – It’s a bad idea to pay 100% upfront. Why? Because they might just walk away with your cash. Sure you need to put a deposit down, but make sure they have a reason to deliver as promised. Having said that, to be fair, ensure that you pay on time.

Hiring a freelancer can save you time, headaches, and even money. Do you have any experience working with freelancers? Share your thoughts by leaving a comment.

This article is written by Mickie Kennedy, founder of eReleases, the online leader in affordable press release distribution. Download a free copy of the PR Checklist – a 24 point list of Press Release Dos and Don’ts here: http://www.ereleases.com/prchecklist.html

It’s about being conversational.

When you blog, you should be speaking directly to the reader. And that means writing like you’d speak. Sure you don’t want to sound like an uneducated fool, but you also don’t want to sound like each blog entry is a research paper.

With that in mind, here are a few grammar rules that it’s okay to break when you’re blogging.

1. Start sentences with conjunctions – As you likely recall, beginning a sentence with “and” or “but” was always a huge no-no. But that was then and this is now. When we speak, we use conjunctions at the beginning of sentences to help transition. So it’s okay for blogging too – as long as you don’t get too repetitive with it.
2. Fragments – A sentence fragment is nothing but an incomplete sentence. As grammar rules go, all sentences should have a subject and a verb. If they don’t, then you have yourself a fragment. However, in blogging, sometimes add to what you’re saying. You know, really help you make a point. See, I just used one there…
3. Short paragraphs – A paragraph is traditionally defined as 3-5 sentences. However, there are times when you will find yourself begging to use a one sentence (or even one word) paragraph to draw specific attention to what you’re saying. Guess what? Do it!
4. Contractions – Have you ever heard someone speak without using contractions? Me neither. Just give it a try. You end up sounding like a robot. If you want your blogging to engage others in conversation, you need to use contractions in your writing.

Sure your high school English teacher won’t like you messing with her grammar rules, but consider this: is she your target audience?

This article is written by Mickie Kennedy, founder of eReleases, the online leader in affordable press release distribution. Grab your free 160-page copy of the Big Press Release Book – Press Releases for Every Occasion and Industry here: http://www.ereleases.com/insider/bigbook.html

1. Send out too many press releases – Let’s face it, no matter how awesome your company is, you don’t have something newsworthy every single day. Yes, I’m an advocate of the leaky faucet approach to PR – sending out newsworthy press releases on a regular basis to eventually get coverage. But the keyword here is newsworthy. Save your press releases for when you truly have something worth letting the world know. That way, reporters are more likely to take notice.
2. Write a press release that’s too long – Often, writers are forced to meet certain minimum word counts. And you might be trained to think that bigger is better. But that just isn’t the case with press releases. The readers of your release don’t have the time to sift through a 4 page long release to try and get to the details. What they want are the facts – quick and easy. So get to the point, fast.
3. Not stay true to your word – Promising a reporter an exclusive is a good way to get solid coverage from a news outlet. However, after doing so you may be tempted to let others in on your little “secret.” Go for it – if you want to be blackballed! If you say “exclusive,” keep it exclusive. Integrity is key.
4. Fail to return phone calls – You know how at the end of a press release you give your contact information? This may seem obvious but…that’s so reporters can contact you. So if you put out a release, make sure you are available to give interviews. You might be shocked to hear this, but they aren’t going to keep calling you back begging for your story. They’ll just move on to the next one.
5. Make outrageous claims – As mentioned time and time again, a press release is not a time to hype up your company or product. It’s merely an avenue to convey news in hopes that someone will find it interesting enough to pass on to the general public. So if you make bold claims about what your company is doing, and how awesome you are for it, you can count on your news release getting passed over. Stick to the facts.

Are you making any of these mistakes? Have you found any other means of sabotaging your PR efforts? Let us know!

This article is written by Mickie Kennedy, founder of eReleases, the online leader in affordable press release distribution. Download your free copy of 7 Cheap PR Tactics for Success in Any Economy here: http://www.ereleases.com/7cheaptactics.html

However, sometimes people will come on your blog and join the discussion without actually wanting to add anything of value. Instead, they seek only to push their own personal agenda, whether it be pushing opinions or links.

And make no mistake: it’s annoying. In fact, in extreme cases it can run faithful readers away and effectively kill the conversation on your blog. Recurrent trolls will act as a cancer, taking what they want and destroying everything in the process.

Knowing what’s at stake, there’s no doubt that these pesky comment trolls must be dealt with. But how? Here are a few options:

• Ignore. One way parents deal with temper tantrums in young children is to simply ignore them. The idea here is that they are seeking attention – positive or negative – and will eventually stop when they realize that they won’t get what they want. In the same way, comment trolls often seek nothing more than to get under people’s skin. Equally as childish, right? So dealing with them like children just might work.
• Engage. Of course, there’s always the possibility that the troll isn’t actually trying to be a troll. Maybe they really just need to work out their opinion in conversation. So to play devil’s advocate here, you could attempt to engage them. But I’ll say this: the majority of the time this won’t work. You’ll likely find yourself in a heated debate that simply wastes your time.
• Warn. Since you are the ruler of your blog, you could do a 3 strikes sort of deal and warn the comment troll that his behavior is not allowed. Shape up or ship out. In some cases, the warning is enough to send them packing.
• Ban. The easiest way is to simply delete their comments and ban them. Of course, some see this as hindering free speech on a blog. So really it depends on how free you want things to be on your little corner of the web.

Ultimately it’s up to you. After all, you are the king of your own blog. So how do you deal with the comment trolls?

This article is written by Mickie Kennedy, founder of eReleases, the online leader in affordable press release distribution. Grab your free 160-page copy of the Big Press Release Book – Press Releases for Every Occasion and Industry here: http://www.ereleases.com/insider/bigbook.html

But then you reread it. And guess what? You notice you made all sorts of mistakes with your proofreading. Your shoulders slump and you slap your palm to your forehead, realizing that you just wasted lots of time and money.

Save yourself all the heartache by avoiding these common press release proofreading mistakes:

1. Names are misspelled – Why is this such a common mistake? Well, simply put, spell check won’t pick up mistakes with names. So you could spell someone’s name 3 different ways in your press release, hit the spell check button, and be none the wiser.
2. Mixing up homophones – Homophones are words that sound alike but are spelled differently and have different meanings. For example: to, too, and two. Each of these has very different meanings, but it would be easy to forget which is which. And again, the ever-helpful spell check will not pick up an error in homophones every time because, well, they are all real words.
3. Using an apostrophe with its – It’s one of the hardest rules to remember. When should you use an apostrophe in reference to the word its? Usually an apostrophe is used to show possession and to aid with a contraction. But it’s different in this case. Use the apostrophe to say “it is” and leave out the apostrophe for the possessive form.
4. Broken URLs – If your press release contains links, make sure you check to see the URLs are spelled correctly and they go to the right destination when you click through. What’s worse than reading something only to click on a non-working link?
5. Not fact checking – Remember, a press release is supposed to deliver news. And good news should be founded in fact. But what happens if you send out a release filled with mistruths? Or how about even just one small error that involves skewing important data? Well, you can count on it ending up in the trash can along with your credibility.
6. Misplaced keywords – In the world of SEO, you may find yourself desperately trying to get those keywords in there. As well you should. However, when you’re proofreading, make sure it sounds natural. The keywords will do you little good if your press release sounds terrible because of them.
7. Not having someone else look over it – The number one rule to proofreading is get a second set of eyes on the job. The bottom line here is that we do not catch all our own mistakes. It’s practically impossible. Get a fresh set of eyes to take a look.

Writing your press release is only half the job. Make sure it is proofread properly so you will have the best chance of being taken seriously!

This article is written by Mickie Kennedy, founder of eReleases, the online leader in affordable press release distribution. Download your free copy of the Beginner’s Guide to Writing Powerful Press Releases here: http://www.ereleases.com/insider/beginnersguide.html