Writing for PR
When thinking about public relations, one can see many mistakes and misleading information around the web and on real life activities. Most of these mistakes, however, are easy to fix and to learn the proper way. I will through this post explain the top ten basic information a public relations officer should know in order to do their job in a extraordinary way.
1. Before start writing for your company
Before you even think about writing a press release, news release, feature piece or any other possible writing you will have to do for your company, think of these things: what is the mission of your company, who is your audience, what are the key messages and what is the best way to reach your audience.
There are several mistakes someone can make at this stage. Wrongly identify your audience, send the wrong massage, send the message through the wrong channel, and depict a wrong image for your company. All of these mistakes are easy to fix, but if made, they can be very serious.
Think carefully and research with the company members what is the company’s mission or motto. You will have to depict precisely what your company is and offers, and this will shape your massage. The audience you want to reach is another important aspect. If you are launching a new video game, you probably won’t want to focus your campaign on adults, but will want to focus on teens and children. The audience will also shape the language you will use because each audience demands a different language. Then, also together with your team members, you will define the key messages and word them accordingly with your audience.
The last but not least is the channel. While many people think that an important news channel is the way to go, that might not be the case. If you want to reach teens, the best way is the web. It is more likely for teenagers to find your product online than listening to the radio. If it helps, make a survey. Go on the street and do a survey asking what is the channel most used by certain audiences. This is the most important part of the process because if you use the wrong channel, you won’t reach the right people.
One last important thing you have to do before start writing is to pitch your story. Call that journalist friend you have or that news company you know well and tell them what you are planning on writing. It is very helpful to know you will be published and where before you start writing.
2. Writing for your company
You will want to know who will be publishing your piece. Is it a huge TV station or small weblog? This will highly influence the way you will write, as I mentioned before. You will also want to be concise. Journalists very often don’t have time or space to read and publish huge pieces. Try to concise it into a one-page release. If you absolutely must be longer, then fine. But try your best to be sharp and fast. When writing, make sure you are giving all the important details about your product or company, leave the least important details for last because you don’t want to make the journalist bored.
Keep in mind all the time the things you thought before starting to write: why are you writing this, whom are you writing this for and what do you want to tell them.
When you finish writing, make sure you left all contact information to you or your company so the journalist will be able to contact you for more information or to request more pieces. Don’t be mysterious! Journalists love mysteries, but not when they are on deadline to contact and publish something.
3. Once you are done, then what?
So you are finally done with the writing part and your bosses are complaining this piece isn’t done and sent yet. Don’t get desperate because this is the easy part. Very likely, your company have written and published several pieces. All you have to do is get the contacts your company already has and call them. So call up that journalist you called when you were thinking about writing this piece and tell him, or her, you are done. Call new people as well, you want to cover your basis and publish it in more than one place.
Insist! But don’t be annoying. Journalists hate annoying. They don’t want to be called at 3 in the morning to be asked if they liked the story and published it. Be persistent, but please know your limits. Don’t do to others what you wouldn’t want them to do to you.
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