A Class Act

Every semester when it’s time to look at writing effective news releases, I relaunch my search for good examples. It’s not an easy task. Well-written releases seem to be a rarity, even though the World Wide Web gives me access to thousands of them.

Why is that? The chasm between the content of most releases and the information actually used by journalists is usually very wide. Year after year, nothing seems to change; news releases continue to be unclear, wordy, hyped-up missives littered with phony quotes.

It’s worth remembering that the move towards social media releases was not initially prompted by the allure of all the new multimedia tools in the digital world. It was prompted by the sad quality of most current releases. Check out Tom Foremski’s original diatribe that sparked the debate, and a great conversation by Brian Solis and Shel Holtz on the IABC Cafe2Go podcast for more about that.

Ultimately, tools and formats won’t help a poorly written release. Although I realize many releases suffer from endless rewrites and approvals that turn them into semantic mush, we need to do better.

Here are five reasons I think many releases stink:

1. Lengthy, tedious leads. The first paragraphs of most news releases are insufferably long. If published that way, they’d form daunting blocks of text designed to thwart eyeball-appeal. Which, of course, is why most publications have to rework them. In my introductory writing classes, students are not allowed to write lead paragraphs that exceed 30 words. I’ve seen nothing over the years to convince me to stop using that guideline.

2. Phony quotes. The use of quotations can add so much credibility to a news release. Journalists are hungry to have them. We punt this opportunity by inserting quotes that simply aren’t natural. They read like laboriously crafted written statements (that’s because they actually are laboriously crafted written statements). To literally quote from a recent release:

“… we have provided in these documents for a solid long-term framework for the further benefit of consumers, in which we will control rate increases; maintain reliability; introduce competition in generation; require performance standards; strongly encourage renewables; ensure proper regulatory oversight; enhance environmental protection; and encourage efficiency.”

People don’t talk this way (at least, they shouldn’t). Can’t we cut the journalists some slack here and give them something they might be able to use in a story?

3. Unsubstantiated hype. Somehow, we think that if our release says the event was a success (or the new product is the best on the market, or the revised service represents a dramatic improvement), the public and the media will accept these generalizations without any evidence to support the claim. Give your readers some credit; tell them the what and why of your story and let them decide if it’s a success, the best, or dramatically improved. For every newspaper that runs your promotional hyperbole, there are inevitably several others who wonder why you think they’ll run your thinly disguised advertisement for free.

4. Preoccupation with announcements. So many releases kick off with the fact that an announcement is being made, instead of telling readers what was announced. “Convoluted International announced yesterday that it has acquired Baffling Canada.” Why, exactly, are words three through six in this sentence? I’d wager announced is the most common first verb found in news releases. I’d wager that in most of those releases, making an announcement is not the actual story.

5. Gobbledygook. Sure, every field of endeavour has its terminology and jargon. It’s a not-so-subtle demonstration of expertise. But do we really have to lace our releases with it? Can’t we just tell the reader what a renewable is? Can’t we find a nice English translation for “The company will fully commercialize the intrinsic value of its intellectual property.”?

This is starting to sound uncomfortably like a lecture. That wasn’t my intent. I’m simply looking for some examples of well written news releases. Can you steer me in the right direction?

Opened my blog today to find it had a new look. Can’t say I was particularly keen on it. Can’t say I know how it got there. Did I accidently hit a new theme button? Was I asleep at the Dashboard? Don’t know.

Restoring my year-old insipid lacy theme did remind me that it’s time for a different look. That will happen, but I’d like to be at the controls when it does.

Temporary Class Act look: streetscape inspired by Mondrian?

UPDATE: Mar. 13 - I’m test driving a new visual theme for A Class Act, with an image of our campus courtyard at The Centre for Creative Communications. Ultimately, I agree with Judy Gombita’s comment below: these kinds of redesigns are often jarring at first, but before long we can’t really remember the old look.

Megan Ramsay, a Centennial postgrad PR student, asks the following question in a recent blog posting: Will being a waitress help my career in public relations? She goes on to demonstrate how many of the skills and demands in her job serving food at a Toronto East Side Mario’s have helped prepare her for the PR world.

Students in our Career Management class often want to know the value in shovelling unrelated experience onto their resumes. They’ve served food and beer, sold clothing, taught English as a second language or coached minor sports. Include it? Or leave it out?

Not surprisingly, the answer is decidedly mixed. Some communication managers tell them to skip it. Others indicate it demonstrates the ability to multi-task, or handle a client’s needs, or manage a team or … you get the idea.

Ultimately, the right decision probably comes down to running each unrelated job through a checklist that doesn’t focus on duties but on transferable skills and accomplishments. Communicators are in the business of measuring their results (at least, they should be), so finding ways to express transferable skills in these terms adds to the argument of including unrelated jobs with relevant outcomes. For example, to what degree did the student’s initiative on the sales floor have an impact on improved sales?

Personally, I think well expressed transferable skills would carry more weight on a resume than generic cliche-ridden objective statements or lists of attributes without supporting examples. But, as it turns out, I’m not hiring anyone at the moment.

So, what do you think? Include the unrelated jobs or leave them out? Megan makes a good case for inclusion. Waitressing probably is helping her PR career — but it also made her too tired to make my morning class today

Just as I find myself slowing down on the posting-frequency front (I plead guilty to distractions: teaching a new course, setting up internships, interviewing applicants … work), it’s great to see our students revving up in this space.

As part of their Online PR course, Centennial students are required to set up a blog. For some that’s daunting. For others, it’s exhilarating. You can follow some of their experiences by checking out their blogs through the blogroll on the course blog.

It’s still too early to determine how helpful it is to have our students blog. Karen Russell at the University of Georgia has blogged about a blogging requirement for students and has even produced a paper about Using Weblogs in Public Relations Education, for the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication. Her experiences have been helpful to those of us delving into this area.

Similarly, Robert French of Auburn University was one of the first to require PR students to blog. His prblogs site provides a great opportunity to students looking to launch a blog. In fact, it’s great for PR educators, too. A quick look at the URL for this page will tell you that A Class Act resides on prblogs.org.

New practitioners advising their bosses and clients about social media as possible PR tactics can best do that by having some hands-on experience. You learn about blogging by blogging. And, Karen’s right; it “allows students and teachers to engage in dialogue about the field.” Not only that, in the week or two since students started launching their blogs, a growing number have been visited by seasoned practitioners and educators who have joined in the conversation.

You can too, by seeing what the students have to say, then commenting. We’ll ultimately have about 40 PR students on the blogroll at onlineprcourse.wordpress.com.

The advent of social media tools has ratcheted up the discussion about the ‘inevitable’ marriage of public relations and marketing.

In his excellent social media primer — The New Rules of Marketing & PR — author David Meerman Scott includes the new rule that “on the Web, the lines between marketing and PR have blurred.” That rule is largely driven by the fact that the book tends to restrict PR activity to one audience: buyers. He maintains that the old rule that positioned PR and marketing as separate disciplines with separate practitioners, goals, strategies and measurement techniques is no longer true.

Lending support is Kirk Hallahan, professor of journalism and technical communication at Colorado State University, who recently received the Pathfinders Award for research from the Institute for Public Relations. In accepting the award, Hallahan noted , “The disciplines truly are converging. We’re seeing that at the university level and it’s an indicator of what’s going on in the market overall.”

My dean would readily concur. We are always exploring ways in which our Advertising programs can work more closely with Corporate Communications and Public Relations (sidenote: marketing is in a different school at our college and cross-pollination rarely occurs).

Even before social media, the links between the two disciplines have usually been strong. Integrated marketing communications often ensures that there is a PR dimension in many ad agencies. Many campaigns launched by PR firms are more about marketing than PR.

Both Scott and Hallahan boast careers that have embraced not only PR, but marketing, and that certainly helps to explain some of their observations. But, although I’m happy to see that Web 2.0 has meant PR and Marketing are dating even more, I’m less excited each time I hear they’re sleeping together.

Ultimately, marketing is about selling, PR about relationships. Marketing is about buyers, PR about all audiences. Nothing should discourage either group from engaging in pieces of the other’s domain, but the joint ventures are often not wedded bliss.

A Marketing and Communications Department (note the order) usually means PR has been parked in a marketing milieu. Selling the product or service is the priority. Communication with employees, the community, the media and others is often an afterthought. The strength of PR activity in such departments usually has more to do with the forcefulness of the practitioner’s personality than with any particular appreciation of the discipline.

Social media represents new tactics each of us can use to accomplish our mandates more effectively. If that means experimenting with more collaboration, I’m all for it. If it means bumping the relationship up to a new level; sorry, I have a headache.

On January 2, 2007, A Class Act was conceived. At the time, it was my hope that this blog would be “more than the personal ramblings of an academic.” Of course, I’ve wallowed in my share of that over the past 12 months, but that may be because the blog’s primary goal has yet to be achieved.

Although A Class Act has on occasion sparked conversation about public relations education in this country, it has been less successful in providing a forum for Canadian PR academics to share information. Very few full-time PR instructors are spending much time in this space. However, that’s slowly changing, which means I see a point down the road where social media networks and blogs will start to play a stronger role in the sharing of information.

Don’t get me wrong. I haven’t for a moment felt that A Class Act has been an exercise in futility. Blogging has been time well spent for me, and here’s why:

1. The best way to learn about blogging is to blog. The simple exercise of feeding this blog (albeit a little less often in the past few months) has paid rich dividends. My grasp of the concept as a communication tactic is stronger; something I’m happy to share with students who need to know that the potential of social media tools can’t easily be ignored these days.
2. Growing opportunities to chat about communication and teaching issues with teachers who impress me. Even though the PR academic dialogue online may not be pervasive, it does exist. Sharing information with folks like Les Potter, Karen Russell and Robert French Their links and others can be found in the blogroll to the right) is something that wouldn’t have happened without A Class Act. The fact that we’re exploring some sharing of learning with communications students in Paris wouldn’t have happened, either. Seeing new blogs turn up, like Christine Smith’s impressive posts about classroom experiences teaching PR, is always a welcome discovery. Those dialogues don’t easily happen once a busy semester is underway — even though Christine’s office is right beside mine!
3. It’s not just a virtual world. It turns out that active participants in the social media space are even keener to parlay that enthusiasm in face-to-face situations. There’s not enough room on my calendar for all the opportunities to meet up with others exploring the potential of interactive tools. Third Tuesdays, geek dinners, podcamps, barcamps, case camps — each provides a forum to meet interesting practitioners who are passionate, articulate and savvy. There’s lots of fresh air in the room when these groups get together. Social media is a great leveler. It readily brings senior executives and students, and everyone in between, together to talk. The early adopters in the blogging and podcasting communities have always been willing to share what they’ve learned.
4. I like to write. I spend a good deal of time looking at the writing of others; primarily students. That doesn’t always leave as much time to actually do it as I’d like. A Class Act has been helpful in prodding me to set aside some time to write — random though the topics might be. Now, if I can just find the time to devote to the other three three blogs I have on the go!
5. Talk Is Cheap. A Class Act was the original springboard, along with events like Podcamp Toronto, to nudge me into proposing the Talk Is Cheap social media conference last November. The evening brought together 160 communicators to hear tight presentations about social media practices in PR. Although I didn’t have an opportunity that night to sit in on any of the sessions, it was marvellous to see the event take form online. After all, the best way to learn about wikis is to host a wiki!
6. Conversation is good. I realize that there is already some backlash to the ‘c-word’ when it comes to social media. But the fact is, I’ve always been a fan of two-way communication (or nine-way, for that matter). Public Relations in its best two-way symmetrical form is about building relationships. Social media is about building communities. There’s a symmetry here that needs to be taken seriously by PR practitioners who like to have their PR professionalism taken seriously.
7. It enhances the profile of our Centennial program. My own experience with social media, along with others on our campus, has helped ensure the currency of our curriculum. Next week, our revised Online PR course makes room for lots of Web 2.0 material. We already have a growing reputation for preparing students to include social media tactics in their PR toolkit. The curriculum changes help to enshrine it more deliberately.

In my last post I bemoaned the lack of authenticity in so many PR reponses. Our preoccupation with key messages and watered-down, over-approved phrasing continues to suck the human element out of what we do.

Case in point. I subscribe to Rogers Hi-Speed Internet. I’m generally pleased with the service, but — as is often the situation in any transactions — I feel I’m primarily viewed by the company as an already ripe consumer target to bombard with more opportunities to spend more money.

As a subscriber, I was understandably disturbed to see that Rogers is flirting with the idea of burying Rogers notices and ads into the web pages I visit. If I head over to your blog, it may very well include a ‘message’ from Rogers that you know nothing about. So, I sent them a digital note to express my concern.

I heard back immediately:

Thank you. Your inquiry has been received and is currently being
processed by one of our Rogers Online Customer Service Representatives.

If your request requires a response, you will receive a reply within 24
hours. Your reference number is (–). Please keep this number for
future reference.

Okay, okay. I didn’t hear back from a human being, and I know it’s the generic response sent to everybody (after all, I wasn’t making an inquiry). I appreciated the follow-up, and they did indicate a further response was coming. Three hours later it arrived:

Dear Gary Schlee,

Thank you for taking the time to write to us, we appreciate your use of
online customer service.

In your recent email, you have informed us that you are concerned about
the possible insertion of Rogers ads and notices right into web pages.

Please accept our apologies for any difficulties that you may have
experienced while using Rogers services. At Rogers we are dedicated to
premium customer service and as such have taken your regrettable
experience into consideration. Please be assured that we take your
concerns very seriously, and appreciate the feedback that you have
provided and this has been sent to the appropriate group for their
review.

We do appreciate your feedback because this is very important for Rogers
to hear comments, opinions and suggestions from our Valued Customers.
This feedback is used to create ideas for new products, services,
policies and procedures in the future.

We hope you will remain loyal to Rogers to allow us to provide you with
superior customer service in the future. If you have any additional
comments or suggestions, please do not hesitate to contact us again. You
may also find additional information on our website at www.rogers.com.
You may also call our Customer Service anytime, 24/7; toll free from a
landline at (–) or by dialing (–) from your wireless phone
for any service you may need and we will provide you with the premium
customer service that is expected from Rogers.

We appreciate your continuing patronage. .

For future email correspondence with respect to this e-mail, please
quote reference number (–).

So, it appears my ‘difficulty’ or ‘regrettable experience’ regarding their proposed initiative doesn’t merit a human response. They appreciate my feedback and don’t want me to hesitate to do it again. Uh-huh.

Chip Griffin, the Custom Scoop exec who recently launched his impressive Media Bullseye site for practitioners, has written a wonderful, if occasionally provocative, post that seriously questions some of the rules (actually, conventional wisdom) that have adhered to social media in its short life.

Most of his myth-busters make convincing sense — blogs DON’T HAVE TO have RSS feed or comments, the new tools DON’T HAVE TO be just about conversation, social media news releases HAVE NOT usurped the role of traditional releases — you get the picture.

It’s his seventh point that is cause for concern. He maintains social media’s emphasis on authenticity and transparency as immutable truths is just plain “Wrong-o!” He suggests “There’s a big difference between being fraudulent and getting help behind the scenes.”

A big difference indeed. It’s all those shades of grey in the middle that are worrisome. If organizations truly want to build trust, they’re not going to accomplish it by hiring ghostwriters to churn out blogs for CEOs. If the top exec can’t write, forget about writing a blog. Pass that task on to someone in the organization who can write; don’t slap the CEO’s name on it and pretend he or she is suddenly articulate.

Yes, I know it happens all the time when it comes to letters from the CEO in the Annual Report, or in speeches by executives. Does that somehow make it a perfectly acceptable practice? Sorry, I don’t think so. One of the refreshing things about blogs was that there was an earnest attempt to be a bit more honest about whose words go with the voice.

In my naivete, I was hoping social media’s stab at candour would find its way into other PR venues where word doctors conjure up paragraphs full of slick, unnatural hooey that are unashamedly attributed to others. (When students do it, we call it plagiarism.)

In the social media space, transparency and authenticity aren’t really about living in a glass house or needing a copy editor to fix things up. They’re about being honest and being seen to be honest. It’s worth the effort, because audiences are becoming increasingly weary of PR efforts that fall pathetically short at being up-front.

Two items I’d add to Griffin’s list would be:

Once a post is published it shouldn’t be altered. Seriously, this comes down to copy editing. You made a typo? Go back in and fix it. There are enough poor grammar and typo examples out there without adding to the general sloppiness. If you need to be transparent with an update or reversal on a stand, great; do it and say so.

Commenting is most appropriate while a post is still ‘warm’. Admittedly, this is a fast medium. Social media butterflies truly do love flitting from ‘hot news kerfuffle’ to ‘ hot news kerfuffle’, but the long tail on past posts means the conversation (sorry, did I use the ‘c’ word?) can go on as long as author and readers choose to keep it going. That’s great. It also excuses why I haven’t had a chance to react to Griffin’s post for five days

In a business devoted to establishing relationships, it has always seemed rather unusual that PR folks so readily embrace military terminology to describe their craft. One wonders what our various audiences (oops, sorry, make that target audiences) must think of it all. Our messages attempt to be inviting, conversational and empathetic. Our management of them reduces it all to a campaign.

It’s a process built around strategy and tactics, the very stuff of enemy engagement. Come to think of it, we do love to talk about employee engagement these days. We also love to talk about a course of action or containment or a news embargo or a media briefing. Some of us refer to the pieces we produce as collateral. Some see their jobs as keeping their organizations under the radar. This hardly seems designed to encourage dialogue with our clients, employees, media or community.

Perhaps it’s not surprising that a common job title in the biz is public relations officer, or the derogatory flack (presumably from flak).

On another front, our terminology has also taken a direct hit thanks to marketing. Everything is about branding. Even our employees are a brand, or perhaps seen as consumers or clients. Just how long and how often employees enjoy being marketed to by their own organizations remains to be seen.

We’ve usurped marketing’s key messages.

And the key message here? PR is war, my friends.

It’s been been weeks since I’ve been here, mainly because I’ve been logging on elsewhere in the sphere: the wiki for the Talk Is Cheap event last Thursday. From my own myopic perspective it was a wonderful evening. Lots of familiar faces, lots of new ones. Lots of corporate, agency and government people, lots of students — including a carload or two from Fanshawe College in London.

Here are a few metrics from the evening:

Registrations: 200 communicators

Attendees: over 160 communicators (that’s an 80% turnout!)

Number of sessions: 14 (from seasoned communicators like Joe Thornley, Terry Fallis, Donna Papacosta, Julie Rusciolleli, Dave Jones, Martin Waxman and Michael O’Connor Clarke, and keen new communicators like Chris Clarke, Tara Wood and Will O’Neill — plus a whole lot more)

There have been quite a few gratifying comments on the wiki and much appreciated blog kudos from folks like Dave Fleet, Donna Papacosta, Melissa Shum, Michelle Chang, Jai and Joseph Wilburn. I’m sure others have posted. If you have, please let me know.

Finally, a very public thank you to the Centennial student team who helped put the event together: Cheyenne Baptiste, Rhonda Bowen, Natasha Carr, Joe Chawla, Alana DaSilva, Maricel Dicion, Jacqueline Geroche, Paul Jenkins, Rayanne Langdon, Karin Maier, Colleen Monks, Megan Ramsay, Staffeen Thompson, Shauna Turpie and Kristen Zemlak.

And shortly — back to regularly scheduled programming at this location.