Are you in Media Relations? Do you write news releases on behalf of your company? Recently, we spoke to your peers to discuss two major changes to the external environment in which we operate, and what those changes mean for how we write the traditional news release:

1. Traditional media (journalists/reporters) are busier than ever before. Their teams are smaller, their jobs are broader, and they have less time to recraft corporate stories.
2. The visibility of news means that journalists are no longer the sole audience for our releases.

Although I highly doubt that these facts will be news to many people, based on my conversations, it seems that very few media relations folks have substantially changed how they write news releases, or adapted them to reflect these changes.

Doesn’t this seem strange to you? Read More »

I spent a little time recently looking back at some old news releases, to see what has changed over the years and how they’ve adapted. I stumbled across one from the 1950s that covered the launch of four new products which must have been very cool in their day – one of which was the first ever electronic typewriter! It’s fascinating to look back on. I wonder if anyone in the mid-1950s could have guessed at how the typewriter would one day be outstripped by computers, tablets, and smartphones, and most of all, by the notion of linking those devices together via the World Wide Web?

Starting Strongly

What really struck me, though, was its opening line:

“Four revolutionary new products to accelerate the trend towards office and plant automation…”.

It’s true – with the benefit of hindsight, products like the typewriter were revolutionary. Interestingly, this is still a commonly used opener in press releases today – the only problem is, these days every company claims their latest product is revolutionary/spectacular/groundbreaking/earth-shattering… from a journalist/stakeholder perspective, I wonder how often they’ve heard those lines and simply zoned out?

Look at the difference between that opening line from 1956 “we’ve just created four revolutionary products”, and this present-day example from HSBC, in which they announce results from recent consumer surveys looking at “The Future of Retirement”. HSBC’s opening line is this: Read More »

You may have seen us write about crisis communications lately and the importance of building a preventative culture  – that is, being prepared to respond to a crisis situation without harming company reputation and thus avoid the risk of becoming another NewsCorp. One important (although seemingly small) step of being well-prepared is knowing how to communicate well during breaking news that affects your company and subsequent handling of enquiries from the media. This post brings to you some key steps to think about when creating news/press releases and more generally handling questions from the media.

Many communicators’ tendency will be to immediately think about the channels through which to release the news, but there are some pre-steps to consider before distributing the information.

Firstly, before even thinking through how to write the release, decide if the event is worthy of a news release or if you should communicate about it in some other way. Consider these questions:

• Would my company’s brand/reputation suffer if I don’t put out a news release?
• Would there be legal implications? (i.e. might we be accused of a cover up if there is no official statement?)
• Can we stay ahead of the story and limit damage by being proactive in offering information?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, it is best to issue a formal news release.

Secondly, once you have determined that issuing a release is the way to go (and odds are in most cases, the answer will be yes), think through what it should contain. Aside from the more obvious tips of having a catchy title or avoiding typos and grammar mistakes, there are three key steps you always need to consider and think through before you even begin to write your news release: context, format, and content.

Read More »

Traditionally, printed newsletters, bulletins, and corporate magazines have been the main vehicles for internal communications outreach.  However, with shrinking budgets and increasing demands on the communicator’s role, as well as greater IT reliance, many CEC members are rethinking their newsletter’s frequency and content and questioning its overall usefulness.  Some companies are going as far as phasing out their physical publications completely and relying on intranet and email to achieve the traditional newsletter’s role of engaging employees and keeping them atop latest news and company strategies.

A recent question regarding the newsletter’s role sparked a lively debate on our CEC Employee Communications Forum.  Here are some interesting points made by our members regarding the frequency and optimal distribution channels for corporate newsletters.

1. Let the content determine its own frequency.

While it makes sense to share long-term, strategy focused company-wide announcements in quarterly publications, distributing news, event details, and other time-sensitive content on a quarterly (or even bi-monthly) basis often makes the content irrelevant  by the time it reaches your audience.  A longer publishing timeframe also makes it a struggle to get employees to share their own news and stories – by the time they get published, the information stops being relevant.  Some members address this issue by publishing corporate and local news items on the intranet, and retain their quarterly newsletter for the sole purpose of sharing company-wide, longer term, strategy-focused information. Read More »

By Kirsten Robinson

As the holiday season wraps up (no pun intended), we find ourselves sending off a multitude of “Thank You” notes to relatives, friends, whomever—for gifts they’ve so generously given us. Because, hey, who doesn’t enjoy being appreciated for a kind thought or gesture?

The same goes for your company and executives. When you work hard to help and please the public and consumers, it’s nice to be recognized for doing so. But, what do you do when your business receives a “Thank You” note? Put it on your fridge? Share it in your internal newsletter? Publish it in the media?  How will stakeholders perceive the publication of a “Thank You” note? Self-serving? Inauthentic? Positive? After having widespread negative media coverage? You want to communicate to the public any positive recognition—but is it appropriate to publish such notes in the media? Read More »

By Mike Wellman

Not too long ago, I was asked a question that I had never heard before in my experience on the advisory team with the CEC.  A communications executive on the West coast told me that they didn’t think of their business as being B2B (business-to-business) or B2C (business-to-consumer), but rather as B2G.   No, in this case, they weren’t talking about government contracts, they were talking about geeks.  “Do you have any ideas on how to communicate well in a business-to-geek setting?” was the question that left me stumped.  BUT I think I have an answer:

Write your next press release in Klingon.

I consider myself something of a geek, and I happen to come from a long line of geeks – my father was an early adopter of the videophone and a HUGE Trekkie.  I still love to give him a hard time about our vast array of light-up Star Trek Christmas ornaments.  From his perspective, writing in Klingon would likely be a great way to show “geek” stakeholders that your company gets what geeks are about…and CEC research shows that the more we can get into our stakeholders living rooms and minds to understand them, the more impactful our messaging will be.  Besides the appearance of the language, though, I believe that every communicator would benefit from writing more like a Klingon too.  Let me explain… Read More »

Q: What are the 100 most boring words a communicator writes every day?

A: Your boilerplate – the stock company description appended to every press release and company announcement

It’s true.  While factual information may provide necessary context to company news, the dry, impenetrable nature of the text seems at odds with the otherwise energizing goal of most releases.  Perhaps this disconnect stems from the name “press release,” increasingly a misnomer when stakeholders can now access our announcements directly via the Web.  As we encourage this behavior through RSS options, links on Twitter feeds, and prominent positioning of news on our corporate Web sites, we must in turn place more emphasis on the “release” portion – the idea that boilerplate can serve as motivation for others to share your news – rather then the “press” portion that implies merely a specific set of facts to convey.

Let’s take a look at couple examples of releases and offer a few ideas to get a little more out of those last 100 words.  Here are examples (pseudonymed to protect the innocent): Read More »

By Rebecca Canan

Did you have a chance to attend our webinar last week on social media monitoring?  During the webinar, we invited CEC members to join a discussion with Scott Stevener from Monsanto, Linda Locke from Reputare Consulting (formerly SVP at MasterCard), and Karin Kane from evolve24.  You may have recently seen guest blog posts from Scott and Linda on the CEC Insider.  Below, get the quick scoop from our third panelist, Karin, who manages client engagements at evolve24, a reputation management and monitoring firm.  And CEC Members: if you missed the webinar, you can access the replay here!

Rebecca (CEC): In brief, can you describe how your media monitoring is different from what most communicators use/receive?

Karin: We recognize that communicators can provide tremendous value across an organization when they measure, and share, the insights they can uncover from media.  Because of that, we focus on providing those insights.  We offer the widest selection of social media content, and provide very advanced analytics that allow our clients to measure social media in very distinct ways.  Along with the standard share of voice and sentiment metrics, we measure influence, credibility, reputation, emotion, and risk. These measurements make media monitoring relevant for communications and marketing teams, customer experience and customer service teams, HR, sales, operations and risk management. Read More »

When LeBron James finally joined Twitter during his week long free agency, many predicted the announcement of his new team would come in a 140 characters, representing another blow to the role of “traditional” media in reporting the world’s events.  Instead, fans were treated to “The Decision,” an hour-long ESPN special ostensibly to raise money for the Boys and Girls Club.  The backlash to both LeBron and ESPN was swift and intense as viewers saw a media organization ceding privileged access to accommodate the figures it’s supposed to cover and the corporations that back them – all perhaps just to stay relevant in the world of Twitter.

But the immediate revulsion of the public to ESPN’s highest-ever rated softball game suggests that Americans may have seen the future of journalism and decided they don’t like it. Read More »

May was a big month here at the CEC – we wrapped up our biggest research initiative of the year and presented it for the first time at our headquarters in Arlington, Virginia.

For me, the most memorable moment in discussion came during a segment on media monitoring.  This topic can seem quite mechanical – the sort of thing you’d assign to a mid-level person on your team.  But the discussion in Arlington really brought home for me just how strategic it needs to be.

Most of the comms executives participating in the discussion described what I can only characterize as a disjointed approach: one tool for traditional media, another for blogs, another for twitter, and so on.  For a few, responsibility for each type of monitoring (traditional vs. social) even resides in separate groups or departments.  Now, a few folks did describe more integrated systems.  But even in those cases, typical reporting is channel by channel, perhaps with some overall statistics on company mentions, tonality, and/or share of voice.

Does any of this describe your department’s approach? Read More »