Are your press release headlines putting people to sleep? Did #AskLaneBryant turn into a #PRFail? How can you rejuvenate your PR enthusiasm for 2016? Check out the Hoffman team’s favorite PR blog posts and articles from this week:
- You could write the most interesting, thoughtful and ground-breaking press release in the world, but it won’t do anyone any good if your headline is boring. The Cision PR blog goes over how not to write a press release that will put people to sleep. First and foremost, you need to make people give a damn about what you are writing. If it’s not relevant to your readers, they will not read it. Making the connection with your intended audience is the first step toward diverting your press release train from Snoozeville.
- Thinking about starting a Twitter chat or hashtag for your brand? Take a lesson from Lane Bryant’s book and know ahead of time it might not always work out. PR Daily captured some of the not-so-nice questions of consumers who #AskedLaneBryant. They balanced the score by also adding Lane Bryant’s well-thought out responses. The big takeaway from this PR fail? Anticipate all of the negative criticism that inevitably will come when you open the floodgates of Twitter, and try to craft responses to those complaints before you even begin the conversation.
- Want to start 2016 off fresh and rejuvenated? PR Newser has got your back with this post on six ways to keep from burning out in PR. Dealing with huge workloads, crunched deadlines and filled-to-the-brim inboxes can suck the creativity out of you. One of the biggest things that you can do is manage the workload and think strategically about the best way to divide up the work among the team. Also, take joy in the little victories that happen all of the time. Things like celebrating a blog post that had no edits from a client or gaining interest from that hard-to-crack journalist can help keep you excited about your job.
- Let’s face it, planning next year’s editorial calendar can seem like a huge undertaking. But never fear, PR Newswire has published a step-by-step guide for planning your strategy. Researching what worked in the past will be a huge help in planning for the future. Studying the waxing and waning of top news coverage and search volume can help you decide which topics should go where in the calendar. And don’t think that just because you’ve scheduled something on a particular date means that it is written in stone. Regularly look at the editorial calendar you have made, and make sure that it still makes as much sense as it did when you originally planned it.
- Do you: a.) have a long commute, b.) learn best by listening, and/or c.) like to multitask while becoming better at your job? If any of those three choices described you, then take a gander at Spin Sucks’ four PR podcasts to add to your list. These entertaining and educational tools can help you become a better PR professional and stay on top of trending issues that affect the industry.
Check back every Friday for our This Week in PR round-up to discover more PR trends and news.
