Nine Steps to Improved Mentoring and PR Team Results


Get the PR Ball Rolling

Posted by Tom Gable

In the previous post, I introduced the concept of PR as a team sport.  How to organize to deliver consistent, quality results for clients? How can you achieve your goals with the minimum possible resources?  How to leverage time, so one hour of senior management can turn into ten hours or more of productive work by others on multiple fronts?

I covered the two big traps: do it yourself; and throw everything at the issue (full-court press, hair on fire, etc.). Now, what positive, pro-active thought processes and check lists can help in leveraging your talent?  As noted before, Michael Gerber, in the classic e-Myth Revisited, advises building the team from the bottom up. Create checks and balances and systems so average people can achieve extraordinary results.  Here are nine steps that have worked over time to leverage talent for improved mentoring and team results, not just in PR but in almost every type of business:

1. Spread the Wealth – Analyze what needs to be accomplished and plan to achieve it with the fewest resources possible. Start at the lowest level and work upward.

2. Communicate Clearly – Set your lever in motion with the power of clear, precise communication. Provide specific direction, timetables, expectations and creative guidance.  Then ask if the person understands the mission. Reach agreement on the details. This two-way communication is essential in keeping junior people, in particular, from struggling with ambiguous assignments.

3. Leverage – Once you’ve given good direction, think about how far others can advance the work before you need to get involved. The goal: have others accomplish 70 to 80 percent of the most time-consuming work.

4. Orchestrate – This starts with clear directions. Then, the good manager has check points along the way. Five to ten minutes of quality time at critical junctures adds more leverage. The manager keeps the parts moving forward together toward the desired goal, making adjustments as needed and communicating appropriately.

5. Respond – Managers need to respond to requests for more direction or clarity as soon as possible. Your job is to help other people do their job better than they would have otherwise. The reverse lever starts working when you don’t, building up negative pressure throughout the organization. Positive reinforcement and encouragement will improve the ultimate product. Harsh criticism or condescending approaches, like the old professor in journalism school, can be demoralizing and counter-productive.

6. Monitor, Course Correct, Critique, Delegate Again – Don’t get stuck in the do-it-yourself trap. Send poor or mediocre work back for another round. Provide specific feedback and point them to other resources if needed. The basic process: pre-brief and discuss, provide adequate background and resources, monitor progress, QC, critique, and evolve to demand increasingly higher levels of results. The process ensures that each person soon understands what is expected of them and what needs to be done to generate the right result. People want to learn and grow. Send it back until it’s 80 to 90 percent of the desired level, then step in and guide them the rest of the way.

7. Look for Inefficiencies in Your Approach – Analyze if you are following the above steps with precision. What do you need to do better?  What will it take?  Are you helping people do their job better or are you an obstacle?

8. Don’t Get Stuck in Minutiae – To ensure you have time to put your best energies and brainpower into things with the highest payoff, deal with all the nagging, short-term issues with alacrity. Don’t put it off. If it can be moved forward or a need satisfied in less than five minutes, do it!  The trap is to keep setting aside these little things until you have a big pile of garbage projects or tasks. Then, instead of having dealt with something once and been done with it, you touched it again and again, wasting more time and brainpower and perhaps causing frustration among your team.

9. Promote and Praise – With ongoing delegation and smart management, you will help your team members graduate to increasingly higher levels of competence. As people improve, give them new challenges. Take a few chances. Test people at one level, then advance them higher as they improve. Praise good behavior right away. Harvard calls this the “Pygmalion Effect.”  Praise and good guidance can help people achieve levels of competence they never before imagined. Unduly harsh criticism and negativity can have the opposite effect.

Final Words

The best managers play an ongoing game inside their head of figuring out how to do more with less. They look at each goal, then strategies and tactics within, as potential opportunities to magnify their power through others. As Archimedes said, the lever works both ways. So the most successful managers do everything in their power to eliminate inefficiencies, redundancies, duplications, bad processes and systems or other obstacles to performance. Turning one into ten – it’s the alchemy of good management.

PR is a Team Sport; Organizing to Win


Leading the Surge

Posted by Tom Gable

The key to a manager’s success in a PR firm or otherwise is how well he or she can organize other people and direct them toward achieving specific goals in the most effective and efficient manner. The process needs to have an outward, multidirectional focus. What needs to be accomplished on multiple fronts? How can you achieve your goals with the minimum possible resources?  How to leverage time, so one hour of senior management can turn into ten hours or more of productive work by others on multiple fronts?  Go for a ten-fold leverage; if you achieve five-fold you will still be WAY ahead of the game.

Speaking of game, management works best as a team sport. In working on the Fifth Edition of my PR Client Service Manual, I came across guidance from an early mentor, a former dean of the College of Business at San Diego State University and a Vistage chair. He had a growth model showing how a company goes from a one-man shop (the long-distance runner, competitive swimmer, archer, gymnast, etc.), to the race car driver (one person supported by a team of mechanics), to basketball, to football and soccer (multiple players, different tasks, focused on results according to a game plan). Some liken it to a philharmonic orchestra. Whatever the model, the direction is clear: the better you can do in assembling, training, organizing, coaching and improving your talent as you move your game plan forward, the more impressive the results.

Michael Gerber, in the classic e-Myth Revisited, advises building the team from the bottom up.  Who does the tactical work?  How do you build checks and balances into your system so average people can achieve extraordinary results? Not unlike a university setting, how do you keep your talent learning and advancing, which both improves overall organizational results and gives management more time for strategic thinking or marketing? Discipline is key, particularly when it involves creative teams.

Two Big Traps

Do It Yourself – The argument: the initial work was so poor that I’ll just do it myself and save a bunch of time. The problem: you just reverse-delegated to yourself and did nothing to improve your talent for the future. Take the time to set expectations, educate, delegate and provide rapid feedback – candid and brutal if needed. The first effort may take more time than you would like, but it will pay off. If the latent talent is there, the next assignment will improve. Momentum will build. Your 15 minutes of future counsel will turn into two or three hours of useful work by someone else – the ten-fold payoff.

Throw Everything at the Issue – In this case, the manager sends a small army to do battle, wasting huge amounts of time and energy, instead of getting strategic with his team and achieving more with less. This is the dark side of leverage. Instead of going for a ten-fold increase in your ability to generate results, you have cut it by whatever your over-kill factor might be. Five people working in a room on one issue have gone from the Power of Five to the Power of One – an 80 percent reduction in efficiency!

Next: Nine Steps to Improved Mentoring and Team Results

The Best PR Plans and Results: Insights from PRSA Silver Anvil Judging


In Search of Brilliance

Posted by Tom Gable

Judges from throughout the U.S. convened in New York City on March 22 to review a record number of entries (923) in the annual Silver Anvil competition of the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA).  The most popular categories in this most coveted of PR awards contests were integrated marketing in both consumer products and non-profit/associations/government, events and observances (seven or fewer days), business/products and marketing consumer products (food and non-alcoholic beverages).

Having judged in many different categories over the years, I continued to see consistent patterns in the most brilliant PR programs and, of course, the less than brilliant, no matter what the category.  In hopes of providing ideas for future planning and programming, the following offers a few insights found this year in my personal experience plus in talking to veteran judges in other categories.

The scoring system is fairly straightforward and awards 10 points each maximum in the categories of research, planning, execution and evaluation for a total of 40 possible points.  Those that get considered for awards have scores typically ranging from 36 to 40, although some judges are hyper critical and never give a score of 10. Thus, their top scores can fall in the 30 to 36 range.

As with brilliant PR plans, the judging categories follow an integrated and strategic continuum.  The biggest shortcomings tended to arise where entrants failed to develop solid research that led to measurable objectives, which were validated in the evaluation. A program could have scored 10s in planning and execution, but came up short on total scores because of weakness in research and the evaluation. I judged several that had solid 8, 9 and 10 scores in the planning and execution, but came up around 30 or lower in total because of poor research and evaluation. This leads to the following quick overview on the differences between successful and unsuccessful approaches in each category.

RESEARCH

Winners – Those in the top 20 percent conducted primary research (hiring outside research firms, conducting their own telephone surveys, using online polls and surveys, competitive research, social media metrics, etc.) and often enhanced it with secondary research (media coverage, academic surveys, trade association research, census and other public demographic data, trend information from economists and futurists, government projections and industry reports).  A few with big budgets would hire outside research firms to delve into the demographics, motivations and other details that would help in the positioning and planning. The research became the foundation for developing specific goals and objectives in the planning phase and established benchmarks for measuring results at the end.

Losers – Most relied on limited secondary research for setting vague objectives.  One of the funnier research tactics used in an official submission: “reviewing old PR plans.” The same entrant didn’t take it to the next step of even identifying new media targets, raising awareness by specific metrics in different categories or other basic elements. Another used an on-line survey of agency employees and relatives to identify attitudes toward a brand.

PLANNING

Winners – The best had well-defined and measurable objectives, often in multiple categories. A couple of the best in my category had programs aimed at reaching every link in entire distribution chains. The programs connected with the target customer wherever he or she turned (print, broadcast, social media, local events, direct mail, advertising, contests, guerrilla marketing and cause marketing). The winners set specific measurable objectives, such as helping increase sales and market share, which they did. For launching new products or repositioning old products, some of the best programs had a combination of media relations, an educational component, advertising, Facebook, cause marketing, contests and an aggressive Twitter campaign to support all. One company used research to identify which types of celebrities and television shows to tie in with.  This led to an integrated program involving special events, a contest, media relations, blogging, Facebook, YouTube and other integrated social media activities.  You could hear an occasional muted “wow” from the judging chambers when one of these programs surfaced from the piles of three-ring binders containing the entries.

Losers – Those in the bottom quartile had one-dimensional plans, vague objectives or plans that didn’t flow out of the research. Strategies and tactics weren’t aligned.  Shortcomings in the planning category where typically: no clear objectives; no metrics to be measured; one-dimensional categories such as “impressions”; creating increased buzz; increasing the number of “likes” on Facebook but without a baseline to move from; and very few tied into sales growth. One of the funnier planning references talked about how they were going to “set up regular all-agency calls.”  Several of the entries were related to one-off events and had limited objectives.  The programs were like Fourth of July pyrotechnics: there is a huge explosion in a short amount of time but nothing worth watching thereafter but puffs of smoke fading into the night sky.

EXECUTION

Winners – The top programs rolled out with precision and gained momentum toward achieving their objectives. As a metaphor, think about building a spectacular new office building in Manhattan (image and reputation).  What is it going to look like when done (a brilliant vision and objectives)?  What are the elements needed to achieve the finished product and how are they orchestrated and managed for maximum efficiency and effectiveness  (strategies, tactics)? Start with a solid foundation (positioning), then build the program with a solid core structure, the finest materials and distinctive design elements (differentiation that ties into the positioning).

Losers – The lowest-ranking entries executed against vague plans and objectives or had ordinary programs out of the PR 101 playbook, generating occasional audible sighs, rather than wows.

EVALUATIUON

Winners – We loved the aforementioned programs aimed at driving results in every category: meetings and special events held, attendance, better product reviews, distribution, social media likes and followers, winning design awards, expanding promotional program results by a certain percentage, improving share of voice versus the competition, improving overall perception of the brand (based on follow up research that tied back to brand image measured in the baseline research), driving different website metrics, reducing calls to the 800 number in favor of website conversations and increasing sales and market share.

Losers – It’s not clips and impressions!  Those at the bottom of the pack tended to provide abundant clips but never tied the results back into the research and planning.  Most lacked any qualitative analysis. Did the coverage move the needle in the right direction?  Was there a benchmark for different social media metrics and objectives for increasing numbers? What were sales trends and did the program change the trends for the better?  A few in my category had no evaluations, just copies of favorable clips, blogs, Facebook posts and Tweets.

One terrific community relations program combined grants, tying in with celebrities, engage local volunteers, and events with local elected officials, supported by media relations, public affairs, advertising, social media, and other activities.  Unfortunately, the plan didn’t include clear objectives and was missing post-event analysis or other metrics, such as trying to drive sales.

IN SUMMARY

Fellow judges and PRSA staff felt the overall quality of the entries had risen along with the sheer numbers of entries. I took notes on many good ideas for use for Gable PR clients. We saw another important indicator for the PR profession in one major category I judged: the rise of the PR as the driving force within major corporations and organizations undergoing change to plan for and deliver game-changing results. You will be impressed with the results when the winners are announced on June 7 in New York City and PRSA posts the entries for all to see.

Seven Tips for Making Headlines Shine (and Getting Your PR Releases Read!)


Posted by Tom Gable

Headlines need to excite, entice and entertain. The best grab a reader’s attention in a short amount of space and lure him or her into a story. They create evocative thoughts and images. They summarize smartly and succinctly the meaning of what will follow. They don’t go on forever like an abstract for a research paper (you can’t bore people into reading your story!). Here are some quick tips for writing better headlines.

1. Read the Media You Are Trying to Reach! How Would They Write the Headline?
2. Think About Your Target Audiences and What’s Important to Them
3. What’s the News (breaking, feature, opinion)?
4. Get Creative. How Are You Going to Stand Out from the Crowd?
5. What General Approach to Take (fact-based, humorous, the ever-present pun, positioning and visionary, provocative, diplomatic)?
6. What Are the Most Important Facts and Impressions You Want to Leave with Your Audiences?
7. Be a Stickler for Style

• Brainstorm on key words and tags to use for search engine optimization
• Use a two-line headline and two-line subheadline wherever possible to make it easy for the reader and search engines to put it into context
• Have the client name in the first line wherever possible
• Use active verbs
• Have complete thoughts on each line
• Have logical line breaks and balanced lines, to mirror the standards set by the media; don’t just wrap text from line to line
• Be smart about punctuation (including commas, semicolons and dashes)
• Use the “So What, Who Cares?” test to see if you’ve got it right (or should start over)
• Read the headline and subheadline aloud and see if they flow, plus have the creative power to connect
• Edit, edit, edit!

The New Newspaper and PR: Relationships Still Crucial


Posted by Tom Gable

Jeff Light, editor of U-T San Diego (formerly The San Diego Union-Tribune), was telling a packed meeting of the local chapter of PRSA about changes at his paper and other papers around the world.

The local newspaper of record was becoming the digital multimedia content provider of record. Teams now push out news via email, text, audio and video. Papers (and magazines) cover breaking news on their websites as it happens, so in our world of always-on communications there is no need to wait for the evening news on TV to catch up, tuning to CBS News or other radio source during the commute or strolling out early tomorrow to pick up the morning daily from your doorstep or driveway (which is still a fun morning ritual for some!).

Light said the challenge all newspapers face is how to make them relevant and useful beyond the printed version while creating new revenue sources (the No. 1 revenue source of old — fat sections of classified advertising — disappeared into Craigslist). The news organizations have smaller staffs. Reporters are now “content contributors,” which can include writing for the website, recording video and audio and taking photos. Feature stories are scheduled in advance for the print edition. Daily news conferences determine what hot web stories go into the print edition.

Positive for PR

The new model can be positive for PR professionals, providing they understand the reporters and their beats, be honest, be forthright and provide facts and information that make it easier for reporters to tell their stories.

Light said the key to media coverage: it is all about relationships. Whom do the reporters know? Light said the PR professional is in a weak position trying to pitch someone they don’t know. For building successful relationships on the news side, get to know the reporter covering the beat. Build a relationship and reach a level of trust where a reporter will rely on the PR pro as a valuable source. Light was asked about the traits of a bad PR person: rigid, demanding and untruthful.

On organization, Light said the old model was undisciplined, unfocused, and inefficient and it often took a long time to develop a decent story. As people grew up in the profession and gained more skills, they usually pursued fewer, bigger stories. Small but important pieces sat on the sideline. In the new model – Website first, then figure out what might make the print edition – writers have to be more productive. The challenge: be efficient and competent.

Finding Good Stories

Light said the U-T has cut down on the number of things it covers and built a more focused approach to finding good stories across the different news beats. He provided a quick litany of how to build a beat. What is the big story? What really matters? Whom do you have to know to develop the relationships that can lead to the story? Reporters need understanding and access. Big pieces grow from small pieces. PR pros can help.

With fewer editing layers, the U-T does suffer from an increased number of errors, Light acknowledged. He said he was not sure additional layers improve quality. The Street.com, for example, has no copy editors and is wildly successful. He wants his teams to “do it once and do it right.”

When asked about the new look of the paper, Light said the rebranding to U-T San Diego had been brewing for some time. Research showed the brand image suffered from many negative perceptions and misconceptions. The executive teams and advisors felt they needed to send a big signal that this was not the old San Diego Union Tribune.

Bye-Bye Local-Local News?

For competition, the hyper-local Patch phenomenon will fail sooner rather than later, Light said. The timing is wrong. The challenge of local-local news is that it is hard to make its scale. A publisher can’t succeed with a big staff and small audiences. You want big audiences with a small staff, he said. The more local you are and the more content creation you do, the smaller the audience.

Bottom line: Papers are being rebranded, refocused, dressed up in new clothes and sent out digitally to connect with readers and, now, viewers. For news junkies, the content is imminently searchable but I wondered if I would ever be comfortable reading my news on a smart phone, clicking on links to get more detail, scrolling to find other links to supporting sidebars or just browsing page to page for fun.

Next: The Copyboy Chronicles (where cut-and-paste came from)

 

 

The Power of PR (or lack of PR) to Move Opinion, Drive Change


Posted by Tom Gable

The head of a large information technology company forwarded a link to a CNN Money story on “Millions of SOPA lobbying bucks gone to waste” and provided a pithy editorial comment:

“The power of PR!”

Definitely. Smart PR strategists can mobilize public opinion through social and traditional media to make statements, move public opinion and change behaviors. In the case of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), CNN reported that “The controversial anti-piracy bills that attracted tens of millions of dollars of lobbying for and against the proposed laws ironically were killed by free publicity.”

The story noted:

“Old media companies spent huge sums of money in support of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA). Those opposed — Internet and “new media” companies — lobbied hard and spent gobs too, though far less than their more organized rivals. But Silicon Valley had a trick up its sleeve that trumped the millions of dollars more in lobbying muscle and the more established Washington presence of the old media guard: They reached out directly to their users for free.”

The story goes on to cover how Wikipedia shut down for 24 hours and Google blacked out its logo in protest of the bill. The public upheaval forced Congress to drop the bills, at least for now.

On the flip, side, corporations can be overwhelmed by a lack of PR strategic thinking when they launch a new business initiative with properly considering the consequences of their actions. Two recent examples: Bank of America and its $5 ATM charge and Netflix changing its business model.

NPR nailed the issue the day BofA made its announcement:

“JEFFREY BROWN: Big banks and the question of their profits have been the source of plenty of public anger since the beginning of the financial crisis. Now new fees for consumers are putting them in the spotlight again.”

The Los Angeles Times covered local protests, including the occupation of a branch by protesters. Its story offered a keen observation:

“This frankly is just an incredible marketing and PR debacle,” said Bert Ely, an independent banking analyst. “They roll this thing out with no testing, make it nationwide, it’s higher than anybody else. What kind of reaction do they expect?”

Huffington Post and others covered BofA rolling back the fees, with recalcitrant quotes.

For Netflix, as covered by Gable PR earlier, it started by raising prices by 60 percent and came back two months later to apologize while announcing the split of the company into two. They failed from a strategic planning and PR perspective to think about image as a part of corporate strategy, especially when one has built such a strong brand. They need to do things right and also do the right things.

Bottom line: The power of PR and its flip side – lack of strategic PR thinking – are essential for consideration in any action that can impact brand image and reputation.

 

Worst of Breed — PR Plans, Crisis PR, Releases and More


 

Image Meltdown

Posted by Tom Gable

In reviewing many recent roundups of PR successes and failures from 2011, including egregious abuses of the language, it appeared a new category of analysis might be tried: Worst of Breed.

The concept is to delve into corporate, institutional or other failures to communicate well and identify if their fatal or near-fatal faults are one-time occurrences or could reside in their DNA, to be passed on to future generations. It could be one bad gene, such as at Penn State, or something that may have metastasized, as with the upper echelons at Tokyo Electric Power. Beyond simply covering the big events, can we also ask for help in shining the light of journalistic verisimilitude on other WOB examples in writing, social media, news releases and other communications driving by PR?

This leads to a two minute survey created to seek broad input on WOB examples for future articles in PRSA Tactics and elsewhere and blog posts. Please click through to take the survey, which offers opportunities to provide your own candidates and links to their transgressions.  This includes nominations for the coveted WOB Lifetime Achievement Award.

Thanks, in advance, for the help, and here’s to a super 2012 for the PR profession!

 

The Essential Word List for Lazy PR Writers


Words of Wisdom

Posted by Tom Gable

Media and PR gurus, news organizations, universities, social media sites and others are honing their annual reports on words most hated by the media in PR news releases and words that should be banned in 2012. Rather than wait, Gable PR compiled the following list from many sources including Inc., David Meerman Scott, Ragan, Lake Superior State University and others.

Sadly, some of the profession needs to be put into the slow class since the same words keep showing up (and have since 1999!). The list is in alphabetical order. The words receiving the most mentions over the years are in bold for easy reference. As noted here before, some words such as solutions and leading provider get dropped into news releases unconsciously, somewhat of a verbal tic. Lazy writers tend to rely on industry jargon and hackneyed phrases rather than striving to characterize a company, organization or individual in new ways that go beyond the ordinary.

During a Media Relations Summit several years ago in New York City, a panel of editors from The Wall Street Journal, Barron’s and other publications noted that many releases from companies in the same industry have a sad sameness to the language. They suggested that they could take many news releases and pitches received and do a global search-and-replace of one company’s name with that of a competitor and no one would know the difference. Whew.

How to avoid sounding alike? Think solid differentiation and positioning and compelling ideas. Then, run a search for the following words for deletion (and please add your own as comments!):

  • best-of-breed
  • customer-centric
  • cutting edge
  • end-to-end
  • epic
  • excited
  • first mover
  • flexible
  • innovate
  • leader
  • leading
  • leading edge
  • leading provider
  • leverage
  • market leading
  • mission critical
  • new and improved
  • new paradigm
  • next generation
  • outside the box
  • robust
  • scalable
  • seamless
  • solutions
  • state-of-the-art
  • synergy
  • thrilled
  • turnkey
  • unique
  • value-add
  • well-positioned
  • world class

 

 

PR University Panel Shares Secrets of Writing Like a Journalist


Wordsmith at work

Posted by Tom Gable

How to cut through the clutter and connect with the media with powerful stories they can actually use? PR University convened a master class webinar recently to answer the question: “What kind of writer are you? Newsroom vets and PR wordsmiths share power secrets of writing like a journalist in six easy steps.”

The steps outlined by Jon Greer, moderator, were fairly straightforward. The PR pros on the panel then added extensive details to each step. Some of the highlights follow below with guidance from Nancy Brenner, senior vice president, director of media relations, MS&L Global Corporate; Jeff Crilley, president, Real News PR; Rory O’Connor, senior vice president and partner, Fleishman-Hillard; and yours truly, CEO, Gable PR.

Step one: be an internal reporter

Think like a journalist. Train your ears and eyes and find ways to rise above the competition.

Become an investigative reporter. In trying to earn our media coverage, we rely on telling a good story with facts. Can we truly differentiate against the competition? In what ways and can we provide ongoing proof of principle over the next two to three years with real stories, facts and details, not vague words.

Rory said the most important thing PR professionals can deliver is great content. How to connect with your ultimate audience, not your clients?

Nancy said to dig deeper and probe for better stories and anecdotes. She said to track trade organizations and associations in your client’s industries to find supporting data. They often have trend stories that the PR pro can build upon. Tom suggested using government, independent research and other outside studies for validation. In some cases, the PR pro can then provide the journalist with additional sources for improving the depth of the

Jeff said to push back on client who is trying to get too much of a commercial message into the release. Go for the good story and you will get the commercial, he said. Go for the overt commercial message first and you probably won’t get a story. He noted that the media are overwhelmed with added online and social media responsibilities so “do the job of the journalist” and help them tell a good story.

Step two: organize your material

Think of each release as part of a series. He were building image for the long-term. You’re thinking also about how people search for topics. Check what news stories and press releases come up as top candidates in the Google news and other searches. Look for what is they are, and what is not there.

What rises to the top? What is important? What is less important? What is unimportant?

Step three: start writing

To get started, Jon said to start with the first thing you think of; don’t delay or try to be perfect.

Tom recommended starting with a great headline. Think about search engine optimization. Tell your story concisely and with strong words. Read the media you are trying to reach. How would they write the headline? Think about your target audiences and what is important to them. Get creative. How are you going to stand out from the crowd?

In addition the perfect headline and work toward it. Stick to three or four major points and paint big pictures. Go for the most important fact first. Think about the benefits to their readers, viewers or listeners. Think about relevancy to the journalist’s audience. Are you offering any new insights? Can you provide examples, facts, metaphors, quotable quotes and good anecdotes to bring your story to life?

Step four: continue adding useful information

What does the reader or viewer need to know? Look for facts and outside validation. Can you enhance their understanding with government or other data? Can you quote outside sources, such as noted critics, pundits and authors?

Step five: review and revise

Applied the “so what, who cares,” test first. This is a good way to read through copy and see what could be eliminated, edited or enhanced. Will anybody care?

Jon said to set the work aside if you can and reread with a fresh eye after doing something else. Is anything missing? Is everything in the right order? Would a typical reader be confused? Nancy said good editors strive to tighten every sentence. The best reference book to guide you on the way: Elements of Style, by Strunk & White.

On quotes, Tom said to read your material out loud. Are you communicating well with each sentence?  Is your work rife with empty phrases?

Also, edit for jargon. Tom said some words, such as solutions, seemingly get dropped into news releases unconsciously, somewhat of a verbal tic. Lazy writers sprinkle the releases with jargon rather than striving to develop well-crafted, creative and compelling ideas that capture the personality of the company, its points of differentiation and the defining factors what it is offering.

On complex stories, Rory said to tell the story to friends. Have a dialogue. They will often find the holes.

Step six: work with an editor

Edit for both style and content. Is the story well told? Rory shares his copy with another former journalist at this firm. If you don’t have internal talent, turn to a friend or colleague on the outside. The outside viewpoint can sometimes be very helpful. Nancy said PR pros sometimes get too close to details of a story and produce jargon or “inside baseball” types of copy.

Nancy suggested writing for readers on smart phones, which is where more people are getting their news every day. Plan for a shorter word count, including shorter headlines. Can you edit your headline into a bright subject line?

Tom said an editor from the Wall Street Journal who made his copy significantly better said to never fall in love with your prose. Don’t take editing personally. Think about the final product. Is it really going to communicate with the audience – the ultimate test of good writing.

Real values, mission, organizational culture drive crisis PR – a collection of case histories


New Road Ahead

Posted by Tom Gable

The Wall Street Journal covered the Penn State crisis and Jason Gay, who usually lights up the fun side of sports, writes that they are dealing with much deeper institutional issues than simply getting on the gridiron and starting the healing process. Questions remain. He asks for answers. But beyond that discovery process, any institution, individual or organization under fire needs to speak to evoking change, what it will look like in the future and how it will make a difference in all that it does.

This brief preamble leads to providing links to six posts in the past 18 months on different elements of crisis PR, case histories and a few recommendations on steps to take at every level – from the corporate suite to the Twittersphere and blogosphere. As noted in the headline: real values, mission, organizational culture drive crisis PR. Get it right internally, then tell the world.