David Unleashed

As the political season heats up, I have consulted with PRWeb’s NewsCrafters and offer up:

10 Tips for Exercising Your Right to Free Speech via a Press Release

About Politics, Legal Matters and Other Sensitive Issues

1. Review your press release sentence by sentence, including the headline and summary, to ensure all statements about someone else’s wrongdoing and derogatory material about someone else are completely accurate, non-libelous and attributed to the primary source. You are responsible for the accuracy of your content on PRWeb. Attribution includes citing a court case number (or link to primary source) before naming someone in connection with an indictment, conviction, criminal investigation or criminal charge such as fraud or corruption, etc. Remember, a charge is an allegation, not a conviction. Accusing or implying that someone has committed a crime is not fair criticism in our democracy if the person has not been found guilty in a court of law, and inaccurately implying commission of a crime is not protected free speech.

2. Include an explicit explanation of why you have authority to release information (facts, data, etc.) on behalf of or about another organization or person or why you are an expert with credentials that make your opinion on these matters newsworthy. Personal opinions and attacks, anonymous rumors and speculation are not newsworthy and not appropriate for distribution via a press release. PRWeb does not accept press releases from anonymous sources and has a policy of rejecting press releases whose primary or only intent is to exact harm on another person or organization.

3. Use the third person and active voice. Refer to yourself by name on first reference rather than “I” or “we.” On second reference, use he, she, it or they. Refer to your audience and readers as voters, the public, viewers, citizens, the jury, etc., rather than “you.” Use active voice rather than passive voice for attribution. Example: “Campaign XYZ announced the receipt of a donation from ABC” is better than “A donation from ABC was received” — assuming, of course, that you have the authority to release information on behalf of Campaign XYZ. (See Tip No. 2 above.)

4. Do explicitly state your expert status or authority to “report” political shenanigans or criminal behavior or to link to a Web site that is not your own. PRWeb generally does not approve press releases linking to Web resources that are not under your control. Nor can you use PRWeb to announce or discuss criminal conduct unless you are a member of the criminal justice system and/or have a case number. (See Tip No. 6.)

5. Avoid specific allegations of wrongdoing by others in your press release or the use of legal terms such as “evidence” and “complaint” in a general sense. It is better to summarize and generalize in a press release and leave specific charges and accusations to copy on your Web site or blog. For instance, your press release can say you and your organization are critical of certain actions or statements by political foes and that a full statement about the criticism or commentary is available elsewhere.

6. Please don’t refer to specific criminal charges or other types of legal claims unless you have the case number or unless you are a member of the criminal justice system. This guideline is put in place to ensure that these matters are accurately described and drawn from legal documents.

7. Don’t say a “complaint was filed” unless it is a legal or administrative complaint with an organization or entity with an indexing system (case numbers). Letters of complaint, letters to the editor and the like generally do not rise to the level of newsworthiness. If the court or administrative agency is not widely known, a brief explanation about the entity’s jurisdiction and its capacity for investigations and remedies would be appreciated.

8. Do explicitly attribute to a primary source “facts” about someone other than yourself or your organization, especially those that are derogatory, imply commission of a crime, etc. Note that the passive “It was reported that …” is not primary or explicit attribution.

9. Keep it short and simple. Don’t go on about several different points in a press release. Focus on one or two newsworthy points and your expert status. Then direct your reader to a Web site where all the gory details are published.

10. Consider paying for a professional writing service from a PRWeb NewsCrafters editor if you are an individual, blogger or small organization without professional training in press release or news writing. Before an editor can be assigned to a revision, however, please supply all missing information (primary source attribution, case numbers, expert standing, news angle, etc.) and/or remove all inappropriate content.

Magic. Quixotic. Rock-n-Roll.

Do those conjure images of straight from Disney, or are you more The Matrix?

Here’s why I ask: I just returned from the Wizard Academy, in blazing hot-wet Austin Texas.

They grow the ribs big down there. But Roy Williams, Chief Wizard, blew our brains up to planetary proportions. Pictures. Words. Rock-n-Roll.

What was it all about?

Read more »

There is a press release on today’s PRWeb front page that also stresses the importance of not leading your reader or customer astray.

Sigmund Freud on Web Usability? discusses the short attention span of Web users.

"They are on your site voluntarily and aren’t willing to take the time to ‘figure it out’," the folks at VKI Studios point out. "Functions must be more than self-explanatory; they must be self-evident. Frustrate your visitors with an awkward interface, and they’ll be gone in seconds. Delight them with an enjoyable experience, and you can turn those visitors into loyal customers."

Today I was reviewing press releases at PRWeb and found the following release Modera Assists Estonian Number One Popstar Become Global Internet Hit.  I followed the link the the web sites provided.  Where do I purchase her music?  It is actually pretty good stuff.  Easy to listen to while I am working.  Perhaps I just do not understand how the music stuff works; but then again, I shouldn’t be required to understand the inner workings of the music industry to be able to purchase music.  Right?

Let’s go another direction.  Perhaps I just could not find the right link when I clicked through.  Landing pages should not be Easter egg hunts for the media.  Poorly thought out landing pages are a firewall between you, the media and your consumers.  (Okay, I admit it.  I am a bit guilty here because it is easy to run short on time.  In fact I just made this error in my latest press release.)

I really like Hannah and hopefully someone can point me to a place I can purchase her music.  I cannot find it on iTunes.

Modera, you are doing a great job getting the word out about Hannah, now please tell me where I can make a purchase.

– David

I read a statistic recently that said some 80 percent of Web traffic flows through the search engines. If the target audience for your PR is online, then it makes sense to write content that appeals to everyone who surfs the Web as well as the news media – and the search engines.

The most successful online press releases are ones with clear, concise content that appeal to all three audiences.

* Online visibility will flow from good content that attracts attention from more places than just news rooms where journalists sift through dozens of press releases a day.

* Content in successful press releases is directed not just to the consumer or the bloggers who can fuel your PR fire.

* Neither is it directed solely to a search engine algorithm. (The most convoluted press releases I’ve seen have been written solely for a search engine and have a keyword or link repeated every 10 words or so.)

A successful online press release balances all three and places “content in context.”

The NewsCrafters division of PRWeb has been working on a series of tips for press release writers who get carried away with one extreme or another. One of the most common errors we see at PRWeb is content that is written exclusively for the consumer. Yes, PRWeb is the leader and pioneer in direct-to-consumer press release distribution. But sometimes people forget that the content PRWeb distributes still has to be written in a press release format.

Let me share with you one of our main tips for avoiding press release content that is solely directed at the consumer.

Don’t use the first- or second-person voice. Don’t confuse direct-to-consumer distribution with direct-to-consumer content.

Rather than using “we” or “I,” refer to your company, organization, service or product by name. No Web traffic will flow through the search engines to your site or to your press release from online copy that is written in the first or second person. No one uses a search engine looking for those terms, and search engines typically don’t index words like “you,” “I,” “the,” etc. However, people, including the news media, may be searching for your business name, the service you provide or that awesome new product that everyone is or should be talking about. Instead of “our” new product, use the name of the product as well as the acronyms and other common names it’s known by.

Take the following headline, which wastes valuable online real estate by using second-person voice and by appealing solely and directly to Web surfers interested in SEO-friendly URLs.

You Can Now Create Your Own SEO-Friendly URL With New Web Site

Or this headline, which is too specifically targeted at journalists and bloggers, as well as being way too long:

Journalists, Bloggers Invited to Sneak Preview of Web Site Offering SEO-Friendly URLs; 10% Discount Offered to Press

Now, compare that with a headline in the third-person that promotes a specific new service and Web site from a specific company and appeals to technology journalists, search engine marketers, eCommerce entrepreneurs, bloggers and search engines all at once:

PRWeb’s Online Visibility Engine Offers SEO-Friendly URL at 301URL.com

PRWeb will be sharing its online visibility tips in this space in the future.