Tag Archives: agile PR

4 Essential Tips for Writing Effective Press Release Headlines

Posted on November 17, 2011 by | 5 Comments

The headline of the press release (or, arguably, any other content you will publish online) is some of the most important real estate on the page.  The headline is what journalists see first in news room wires, RSS feeds, and their email in-boxes. Search engines place extra weight upon the text at the top of the page, and it’s the first thing your reader sees.

And when someone shares your press release in social networks, again, it’s the headline that is front and center – attracting more potential readers to your message.  For these reasons, I’m prepared to argue the headline is, unquestionably, the very most important piece of the press release, bar none, period, end of story.

Given the importance of the headline in attracting readers, search engines and social interaction for the press releases PR Newswire issues, I think it’s worth sifting through the current data to identify the tactics that will make press releases and other online content most effective.  In a nutshell, these are:

  • Length – Headlines should be between 90-120 characters.  (Characters, including spaces. Not words.)
  • Keywords – Put your most important keyword at the beginning of the headline – within the first 65 characters.
  • Include numerals in the headline.  Readers like data points.
  • Utilize a subhead to add more detail.

Length matters.

Our findings suggest that headline length plays in important role in both attracting readers and encouraging social sharing of press releases.   The ideal length is right in the neighborhood of 90 – 120 characters.

Why is length important?  First and foremost, the optimum headline length also happens to be perfect for sharing via Twitter.  We’ve long advised clients to write “tweetable” headlines. I’m pretty sure the fact average length of the most effective press releases happens to correspond with the ideal length of a Tweet (remember, you need to leave some room for handles and short links) is no coincidence.   Other research PR Newswire has done with Crowdfactory indicates that each social share triggers two more views of a press release.  Ensuring press releases are Twitter-friendly should be a no-brainer for everyone.

Headline SEO: the first 65 characters are key.

Headlines play an important role in informing search engines about on-page content, and as mentioned earlier, the engines put more weight on the content that appears at the top of the page.  Additionally, many web masters (PR Newswire’s included) use the headline in the title tag on the web page hosting the press release. The title tag is another important piece of SEO real estate.  Optimizing your headline for search engines can give the press release a nice visibility boost.

Headline optimization isn’t too difficult; however, it may require some organizations to re-think how they structure headlines, because search engines only index the first 65 characters of the headline.   To capitalize on the important real estate the headline occupies, it’s vital to put the most important keyword for phrase in the headline – and right the beginning – well within that first 65 character space.

One important note regarding headlines – it is not necessary to pack your headline with keywords. Search engines are good at recognizing natural language, and they are quick to bury keyword spam.  So don’t go overboard.  When it comes to keywords, you can definitely have too much of a good thing.  SEO tactics work best when you focus your press release on just one or two keywords.

Use numerals in the headline (when it makes sense.)

One of the most surprising facts to emerge from this research was the finding that press releases with numerals in the headline performed better than releases that were digit-deficient.  If your press release cites numeric facts such as survey results or performance data, or if it (like this blog post) offers the reader X immutable truths in [insert subject], tell your readers about that in the headline. Numbers in the headline convey either immediacy (such as  date) or facts, boosting your message’s credibility.

Use subheads to add more detail

Given what I see cross the wire each day, many organizations (my own included!) might find the recommended 90-120 character headline length pretty restrictive.  The solution?  Use a subhead to supply the additional but-not-quite-as-important details that you’d normally stuff into a long headline.  You’ll find that doing so makes your press release visually more appealing, and splitting long headlines into shorter headlines and subheads makes it easier for readers to scan the copy, giving them incentive to read on.

Rethinking the press release

We’ve talked a bit lately on this blog about the need to rethink some long-standing PR tactics, and the press release is no exception.  Today’s audiences – including the journalists and bloggers at the top of your pitch lists – consume content digitally.  They find it, share it and interact with it differently than they did just a few years ago. Social networks enable people to find and share content, opening up new opportunities for brands to communicate directly with their audiences.  And search engines are using social signals in their ranking algorithms, meaning that social sharing can have a lasting effect on the online visibility of a message.  In order to fully capitalize on these opportunities, we need to rethink how we write press releases – starting with the headline.

Related reading:

Rethinking Press Release Tactics to Meet Evolving Audience Preferences

Press Releases Shared More on Facebook, But Twitter Drives 30 Percent More Views

Author Sarah Skerik is PR Newswire’s vice president of social media, and is the author of the free ebook Unlocking Social Media for PR.

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It’s Fryday! (Lessons learned from #frenchfries)

Posted on November 11, 2011 by | 1 Comment

Today is Fryday - a national promotion from McDonald's, derived from social media intel.

Social media monitoring is something we all know we should be doing, but winnowing out the signals from the noise can be difficult, and beyond that, figuring out what to do with the resulting data can also be a challenge.   To be successful, an organization needs to be agile – its business processes need to be able to ingest the data and recalibrate communications on the fly.

Erm.

That last sentence in can sound pretty daunting.  Business processes, ingesting data, recalibrating communications … at this point many folks are inclined to think “that’s for other companies, we simply can’t do that…” and turn quietly away. Fact is,  listening isn’t so hard, it can be done by any organization for little to no money, the changes can be incremental, and in order to be successfull, all you really need to do is pay attention, and use what you learn.

I heard a great example of this from Heather Oldani of McDonald’s earlier this week at PR Newswire’s Social Content Leadership Forum in Chicago.   McDonald’s has real traction in social networks, and they’re paying attention to online conversations and building relationships with different communities and constituents.  Conversations encompass everything from environmental, parenting and nutritional topics to tracking national availability of the McRib to discussions around menu innovations, such as Fruit & Maple Oatmeal and apple slices in Happy Meals.   Conversations ebb and flow, but the McD’s team has noticed a constant.

In less than an hour, McDonald's Facebook post had garnered thousands of likes, shares and comments.

“French fries are social,” Heather noted.   Topics and issues may come and go, but people love McDonald’s fries, and they talk about that devotion online.

Now, in the grand scheme of McDonald’s menus, the fries are certainly a lynchpin, but they aren’t the headliner.  New sandwiches, salads and coffee drinks steal the headlines and are the focus of the company’s menu-oriented promotions.

But because McDonald’s was paying attention, they realized that there was more lasting, ongoing enthusiasm for fries than for pretty much any other menu item, unless you’re this guy:

Bet he likes fries, too. #fryday

But I digress.

McDonald’s realized it had a unique opportunity with the approach of Friday, 11/11/11 – an aesthetically very French-fry appropriate date.  Using the palindrome as a hook , McDonald’s developed the Fryday promotion, offering fries for $.50 today.

In the Chicago area, McDonald’s is using billboards to promote Fryday, but true to the roots of the promotion, a lot of activity is happening on social networks, too.  The company’s Twitter team (follow them @McDonalds) is chatting up the deal online, and several franchisors are also getting into the game.   The Twitter hashtag #fryday is busy and the McDonalds New York Tri-State Area Restaurants have created a check in for the promotion on Four Square.  Is the suggestion of hot, crispy, salty fries powerful enough to get people in the door?

My guess is the answer is yes.   Not bad for a little promotion derived from simply paying attention to what people are talking about online.

Author Sarah Skerik is PR Newswire’s vice president of social media, and is the author of the free ebook Unlocking Social Media for PR.

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Brand Streaming: A New Approach to Agile Communications

Posted on October 31, 2011 by | 7 Comments

Social networks + owned media = an opportunity to generate potent earned media.

We can probably agree that public relations tactics have changed pretty dramatically over the last several years, responding to sea changes in information consumption, the role of professional media and the continuing impact of social networks.  Personally, I think one of the most useful ways to get our heads around what all this means to public relations is to envision a communications in the form of streams.

Tom Stein, the president and chief creative officer of Stein+Partners Brand Activation, an interactive digital agency, offered a good definition on the webinar he and I co-hosted last week.  Brand streaming, according to Tom, represents an agile approach to communications, shifting from episodic, campaign-based planning to an adaptive, always-on presence, and has the following attributes:

  • Content flowing from brand to constituent has become a real-time, always-on stream: and that content flows across channels to media influencers, social influencers, consumers, policy makers and decision makers
  • Content is streaming right back to the brand from the audience – full of insight and opportunity
  • Brands have the ability to effectively and proactively manage this brand stream with the ability to lead conversations, ensure brand coherence, protect reputation and drive results

One key aspect that’s at the heart of brand streaming is the opportunity for owned media published by a brand – press releases, white papers, articles, case studies, fact sheets, photos, infographics, etc. – to evolve into earned media, through social interactions.

This phenomenon carries with it another important factor communicators must consider – the entirely new patterns of influence that are emerging.  A well-connected Facebook fan can be a powerful amplifier of your messages, for example.  As a result, public relations professionals are being forced to rethink old paradigms, embrace new opportunities that demand entirely new ways of thinking – and to act and react in real time.

And this brings us back to the brand stream.  The always-on, realtime opportunities and connections demand a continual presence – and communications – from brands.  It’s an entirely different role, and an entirely different mindset.

Tomorrow we’ll delve into developing the content that forms the basis of a brand stream.

Related reading:  Taking a content-centric approach to building relationships

Author Sarah Skerik is PR Newswire’s vice president of social media, and is the author of the free ebook Unlocking Social Media for PR.

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Taking a content-centric approach to building relationships

Posted on October 27, 2011 by | 6 Comments

Author Ninan Chacko is PR Newswire's CEO.

Marketing, today, is about driving closer, authentic, deep and meaningful relationships, on an individual level, between an enterprise and its constituents – customers, prospects, investors, business partners, key influencers, and more.

These constituents are far more informed; and as such, much smarter than ever before.  To that end, if an enterprise is unable to articulate its purpose, its ideals and values and how these impact the products & services it brings to market; if it is unable to offer something more than just its wares; and if it is only interested in being heard but not listening, the enterprise will never establish a true relationship with its constituents.

And without a relationship there is no basis for loyalty.

So how does an enterprise build this relationship?  By engaging its customers, its prospects, its investors and all other influencers in an interactive and iterative dialogue of which the foundation is content.

Content that tells stories, content that educates, content that informs an understanding of products & services, content that encourages participation, content that drives action – purchase, download, donate, view, share, and more – and content that builds community.

Today, enterprises are creating their own content – video, audio, multimedia, infographics, photography, etc. – and using technology platforms and content networks, such as those offered by PR Newswire, to deliver this content across multiple channels and to enable viral sharing of this content which helps shape a richer story that gets amplified over time.

The channels through which this conversation is happening are no longer limited to paid media, but rather a much broader, fragmented landscape of earned, owned, social and mobile media that complement paid media.

Importantly, each of these channels has different characteristics associated with it. As a simple example, Twitter has a message size constraint; it’s optimized for speed and for breaking information; whereas, a blog post allows a much greater amount of real estate to express a much richer and more nuanced version of a story and YouTube provides an entirely different, visual experience for the consumer.

So, content must be optimized for each particular channel – the style, the volume and the speed or the immediacy of that channel. That requires more than just a level of knowledge, individually, about these channels; it also requires a holistic, cross-media, integrated understanding of how to optimize and leverage all these varying channels to really make them work together, cohesively.

And when they work together – when quality content is delivered to the right target audience in the right formats that promote seamless consumption – it helps to coalesce interest across these fragmented mediums and drives response.

Content does not have to have a defined shelf life and should be republished, re-tweeted, mashed up, echoed, spur the creation of derivatives and as such drive continued conversation and engagement.  In fact, content that remains discoverable – a key role of owned media – grows in richness over time as more and more people engage with it.  This means the enterprise has to continue to monitor and engage to earn a continuing return from that initial content catalyst.

And lastly, the development of consistent performance metrics that measure the relevant indicators (click-throughs, registrations, downloads, etc.) of brand, reputation, demand and ultimately ROI, is key to the long term sustainability of such a content-centric approach.

Amplifying the content beyond the more obvious paid and owned media channels is a core insight.  Targeting and widely disseminating this content – via a trusted network such as PR Newswire’s – to the contextually-appropriate earned, social and mobile media publishers, gives your content even more credibility and will allow you to leverage many of the already established communities relevant to your content.

As my colleague Tony Uphoff at UBM Techweb puts it in a post titled Marketing as a Service, “Marketing as a one-way broadcast model, done in a series of campaigns simply doesn’t work anymore. Successful marketing today requires a content centric, conversational approach that engages and sustains a community of prospects, customers and vendors around mutual interest and the quality of the content exchange. In other words once a brand has engaged prospects and customers with a compelling story, this “community” needs to be sustained and nurtured. This shifts marketing from a project and campaign orientation to marketing as an ongoing service. The key is to be able to build, sustain and curate these communities and engage them on and off line.”

Author Ninan Chacko is PR Newswire’s CEO.

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