Online PR guidelines for ‘print’ people

If you’re interested in content and you’re not a member already, I’d recommend joining the Content Strategy Google group. Many well-known (in content terms, at least!) names pop up regularly on there, contributing to a range of interesting discussions.

One such person is Ginny Redish, who recently responded to a query on online media centres or press offices with some best practice guidelines for press officers ‘who come from print’. I thought this was worth sharing.

Seven guidelines for online press releases

1. Make the headline a statement that gives the key message. Think ‘bite, snack, meal’ — a concept from Marilynne Rudick and Leslie O’Flahavan. The headline is the bite.

2. Make the first few sentences the snack — just a bit of elaboration of the key message.

3. Break up the piece with informative headings. Think of headings as key message bites to the next bit of information.

4. Keep paragraphs very short. What looks fine in print is often too long for online. A one sentence paragraph is fine.

5. Add links — to whatever else on the site are good follow-up places. You want to keep people on the site.

6. Name a contact person — and include that person’s title. Many people will get to the press release who do not know the way press releases work. They may think the person who is named is the researcher and not realise it is a press office person.

7. Date the press release — and remember that whatever you put online lives forever on the site (unless your content strategy includes a plan for taking these down).

Ginny’s the author of Letting go of the words — Writing web content that works (now added to my Amazon wish list!), which contains a section with more guidance on this topic. Do you have any other tips for online media centres?

Just say what you mean

Why faff around with pompous-sounding words that don’t help the reader and probably aren’t even used correctly? The use of ‘seeking’ has popped (maybe ‘pooped’ would be more appropriate!) up again today and it seems to be a bit of a trend in business writing.

On this occasion, it’s the Guardian’s new Sustainable Business section (a fantastic idea). It describes itself like this:

Guardian Sustainable Business is a new source of news, data and intelligence for professionals seeking to make their organisation sustainable. Powering the service is the Guardian’s leading team of editors and business analysts seeking to give you the best platform to make your business sustainable.

(Have just noticed they’ve even used it twice within this short description. Gah.)

Technically, it can be used in this way; my dictionary defines ‘to seek’ as ’5. to make an effort (to do something); to try or aim (to do it)’. So why not just say ‘trying’ or ‘aiming’? Keep it simple; don’t fall into the trap of trying to be too sophisticated.

And the use of ‘seeking’ in the second sentence doesn’t seem positive enough to me. They’re only ‘trying’ to provide the best platform. How about a bit of confidence, guys? You will give the best platform.

May I humbly suggest:

Guardian Sustainable Business is a new source of news, data and intelligence for professionals working to make their organisation sustainable. The Guardian’s leading team of editors and business analysts power the service, giving you the best platform possible to make your business sustainable.

What do you think? Should we all be seeking to use ‘seeking’ in our writing? Or do you think it’s a bit too weak sounding?

Picture it: Flukle

An email popped into my inbox this morning about another social media tool, Flukle. I don’t remember signing up to receive information but that doesn’t mean a thing – there seems to be something new every week. But I digress…

With Flukle, you can ‘share where you are, and what you’re doing, in real-time, through photos’. I’m not sure if I’m missing something but this sounds a lot like Twitter with pictures to me. Hang on; that is Twitter, isn’t it?

However, I guess you don’t need to trawl through the reams of text to get to the images. This could potentially be a great tool for furthering photo journalism. Caption the photos so that people can search by a keyword and instant images of anything that’s happening in the world.

As long as, of course, someone’s added it.

I’m not going to register for this for now (after all, there are only so many photos of my home office that are worth looking at), but it’ll be interesting to see how Flukle takes off. Have you signed up? How do you use it? Let me know!

(By the way, what is it with these social media names? ‘Flukle’? Sounds like a contender to replace a certain two-word obscenity: “There’s flukle to watch on TV tonight”…)

Why hello, 2010

Happy New Year everyone! Another year done and dusted, another Christmas been and gone. I can hardly believe I’ll have been freelancing for two years in April.

So, what do you hope this year holds for you?

I’m planning to focus my efforts more on issues that matter to me – they all pretty much fall under the topic of ‘environment’. I’m on the hunt for new clients in that broad sector, building on my current experience in engineering and construction. Anything, from sustainable housing to renewable energy. If that’s you, get in touch.

And to bolster my knowledge in that area, I’m excited to be starting an MSc Architecture in Advanced Environmental and Energy Studies in March (to complement my BEng in Mechanical Engineering). It’s a distance course from the Centre for Alternative Technology (CAT) (Europe’s leader) and the University of East London (UEL).

The on-site course would be even better, but that would be a bit tricky seeing as I live in Mallorca. On the plus side, Spain is an exciting area for renewable energies, so I’ll get the best of both worlds. I’m also taking the part-time option, which means I can continue to work at the same time.

What else?

I’m going to keep improving my Spanish and work on my German. I’m also going to get more involved with my local Friends of the Earth group (for which I currently volunteer) and finally buy the camera I’ve been thinking of throughout 2009.

Oh, and so many other things but the above are all I’m going to commit to on (virtual) paper for now. What about you?