Have you heard of the “nuclear option?” It’s whatever option is available to you that you hope will blow up like crazy, but you want to save until a last resort. In other words, you have a tactic you know will work on a large scale, but may have other consequences; hence your hesitation to actually use it. Read More
Do you ever feel like success is running away from you? I know I occasionally feel like true success is just out of reach. This is usually a result of setting my goals way too high and not knowing what I want at the time. When I re-evaluate what I’m actually reaching for suddenly I realize just how well I’m really doing. Read More
Generally, when people think of public relations, at some point a newspaper will flash in their mind. That’s because for most people two things are true: newspapers are a thing that exists, and written press releases – designed for print media – are a big way in which companies spread news regarding their recent developments. Read More
Well, it finally happened. The dreaded day when you wake up and realize those 10,000 emails in your inbox means you’re going to have a very bad day…week…month. You or another member of your team posted something online or your company ran a commercial and now thousands of people are clamoring for your head. Or, at the very least, an explanation. Read More
A friend of mine is a movie aficionado, so much so that he started a movie review website. He’s one of those film buffs that can’t just tell you if a movie is “good” or “bad.” If you ask him, you better be prepared to sit down for a while and have a working idea of film theory. Read More
Newsflash—the internet is flooded with crappy content. Among that crappy content are thousands, if not millions, of worthless press releases. You know the kind. You’ve probably read a few of them when you first started writing press releases and you scoured the web looking for examples. You know—the releases that you finish reading and all you can say is, “Huh? What’s the news?” Read More
In life there are two kinds of people: those who start things only to walk away, and those who finish what they began. And when it comes to writing a press release (or any form of copy, for that matter), it’s easy to get lumped in that first group. Why? Because when you sit down to write a press release, you have a good idea of what it’s going to be about, so getting started is easy. However, once you’re a paragraph or two in, it’s also easy to hit that wall and wonder how in the world you’re going to finish things up.
Read More
It’s always upsetting when you contact someone from your favorite company or brand only to find out they’re extremely rude or uncaring. You like to think just because their product is awesome that they must be cool as well, but that’s not always the case. Whether it’s hubris or ignorance, some company reps just don’t get why they should be nice when they’re already making money. Read More
Case studies are an incredibly powerful marketing and PR tool. In fact, in the 2012 B2B Content Marketing Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends Report from the Content Marketing Institute, 70 percent of B2B marketers said that they believe case studies are an effective marketing tool. It was one of the highest rated content marketing tactics in the survey. Read More
Make no mistake—press release writing is a specialized skill. However, that doesn’t mean that the skills I’ve acquired from years of writing press release don’t carry over to other forms of writing that I do. Writing press releases has absolutely made me a better all-around writer. How? Read More