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Archives for March 2010

Dilution of the Press Release

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Don’t get me wrong. Press releases are the number-one best way to deliver a company’s message. The confusion surrounding this vehicle lies with its distribution.

When vendors seize opportunity to tout free online press release distributions, fraction-of-the-cost news delivery, and optimized content with high search engine rankings, I cringe with angst. My pure profession is being obliterated by suppliers touting the ability to do what I do better, faster, cheaper (well, maybe not better). Quality of product rarely comes in to play; it’s the faster, cheaper thing I can’t get around.

Strategy and message are top rungs on the ladder. The distribution offerings now a dime a dozen confuse even me, a seasoned public relations practitioner, from discerning the high-quality real deal from the low-ball, churn. When I look at content, however, it’s clear there’s no comparison. Here’s a sample headline and descriptor off a free distribution service:

(Headline) Enter The Wow With Accounts From Us (Meta description) “Wow is an exclamatory expression as per the dictionary. The expression denotes surprise. And you would sure be taken by surprise when you enter…”

Are you kidding me? And, who’s reading this garbage anyway?

I’ve almost stopped being offended about others’ business opportunities. Anyone can issue “news” to their heart’s content (and I don’t hold the patent on that). What they can’t do is:

  • Align communications strategy with business objectives.
  • Develop a tactical plan to attain communications objectives via well-thought strategies.
  • Deliver on-target messages that resonate with brand position.
  • Write the dang press release.

Here’s the “ah-hah.” Anyone interested in saving a buck with free, cheap and faster online news release distribution services, save yourself the embarrassment of DIY. Hire the guns to strategize, deliver on-target messaging and make a press release part of the greater plan. Frankly, put a highly qualified and strategic public relations practitioner on your team.

This Complementizer That

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There’s nary a word that I see that peeves me like “that.” Let’s do that over…There’s nary a word that peeves me like “that.”

See my point? My opinion, based on reading others’ writings littered with “that” is “that” is seriously overrated and over-utilized. It’s constantly inserted in sentences, yet adds no meaning. I’ve had Twitter grammarians agree.

When you write “that” read the sentence again and delete the offender. Nine times out of 10, nothing changes. “That” is a waste. In support of my belief, I turn to the ever-resourceful Wikipedia to learn more. (Not until I read this entry did this post title come to mind.)

Says Wikipedia:

The word that is used in the English language for several grammatical purposes:

  • to introduce a restrictive clause
  • as a demonstrative pronoun
  • as a complementizer.

(Ah-hah! A “complementizer!”  Now we’re getting somewhere fast and upon further digging, this said complementizer becomes an EMPTY one!)

Empty complementizers

Some analyses allow for the possibility of invisible or “empty” complementizers. An empty complementizer is a hypothetical phonologically null category with a function parallel to that of visible complementizers such as that and for. Its existence in English has been proposed based on the following type of alternation:

  • He hopes you go ahead with the speech
  • He hopes that you go ahead with the speech
  • Because that can be inserted between the verb and the embedded clause, the original sentence without a visible complementizer would be reanalyzed as
  • He hopes øC you go ahead with the speech
  • This suggests another interpretation of the earlier “how” sentence:
  • I read in the paper <how> øC [it’s going to be cold today]
  • where “how” serves as a specifier to the empty complementizer.

OK, Wikipedia, perhaps I interpreted my own understanding (empty v. visible) from that, but I still think that I’m right…I mean, I still think I’m right.

That Blogging Quest

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Today’s post ought to be short and sweet. When it comes to the blogging quest (read nightmare), that’s not a guarantee.

Thought of titling this as “Along came a spider…” but then would SEO put my blog in touch with arachnophobics (I coin words)? The spider in this case is Gregg Morris. My dear Tweep @greggvm yesterday took my blog effort and turned it upside down.

I no longer am using Headway on WordPress, I’m now on Thesis, and what a relief. I see light at the end of the tunnel, thanks to Gregg (I must remember to use 3 Gs). He took his valuable time and spent it with me yesterday to re-launch the blog theme into something without the kinked-up sutures in which Headway had captured me.

I trusted him although we had never spoken prior to yesterday. How? We tweet. Why? We tweet. (More on that later.)

Another blogger I respect, too, is Nicky Jameson. She is also a Thesis user, and she has a boatload of WordPress tutorials on her Web site which I purchased for a more-than-reasonable fee and downloaded (took an hour). Watched the first one on Feedburner and tinkered as I watched…it worked!

So, thanks, thanks to my extraordinary new/old friend Gregg, who without concern for his valued time, inserted himself into mine to come to the aid of a damsel in distress (who didn’t, is that “wouldn’t?” ask for help).

Koodles!

Objective or Strategy?

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I so love a challenge. Tweeps @jennwhinnem and @greggvm suggested I wax poetic on the confusion between an objective and a strategy in a public relations proposal.

In trying to explain, it’s a bit of a challenge. So, please reference Effective Public Relations by Cutlip and Center  (the same, hopefully updated text book I used in college) for their professorial approach to teaching this distinction. @Greggvm (he’s a 3-G kind of guy) suggests strategies drive tactics, and I agree.

When writing a public relations proposal, spend the longest time developing objectives and strategies. Once you nail these, the tactics cascade in support of strategies. Back in the not-too-distant day when I worked in Chicago at Ketchum/Corporate Technology Communications under the tutelage of Paul Rand, current president of Zocalo Group in Chicago and also president of Word of Mouth Marketing Association, our account team sat for hours arguing the difference between objectives and strategies.

Here are simple guidelines from my professional point of view…if you have another approach, please share!

  • Business goals are required in a proposal to align communications strategy.
  • Program objectives are broadly stated i.e. “Increase market position 20 percent by 2012,” or “Decrease negative online reputation by 10 percent for product X.” Include three to four objectives, not more.
  • Strategies support objectives, and remain somewhat vague, for example,  “Launch proactive integrated communications campaign.”  Strategies complement objectives; feature five to six strategies to support the larger goal.
  • Program elements (or tactics) follow; strategies drive tactics. Highlight tactics after providing a list of target audiences.

Once a proposal is approved, a more tactical plan with timeline follows. It’s easy to forget there ever was a plan, but re-visit the original plan and stay the course. This also helps reduce scope creep, and you agency practitioners will know exactly what is meant by that!

Blogging 101– More Perspire to Inspire

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I’ve thought long and hard about whether to share my pain getting to this point. No matter. If I can inspire and perspire and help someone else lessen that experience, that’s the goal.

The blogging quest has been arduous. Is it me? As @GrantGriffiths points out “@Soulati, you’re making this too hard.” Grant is the maker of the WordPress Headway theme; of course, he’s wayyyy beyond any 101 of installation and design. Tutorials on Lynda.com were fabulous, especially for the how-to-self-install WordPress on your own Web site, which I did. The WordPress documentation (instructions), when read in tandem with the Lynda tutorial, were helpful, but still daunting.

Once the WordPress foundation went live, the Headway install took two minutes, exactly as was suggested by the gurus.

Then the design fun began. It’s been cool using the visual editor and seeing colors and fonts immediately; it’s so simple. Where I failed is how to get those darn widgets and sidebars to work; it is NOT intuitive, I don’t care what you say. They’re all here now, although you scroll to infinity to get there. I’m working on it!

What about these bold colors, I asked my colleague yesterday? And, she so politely said, “when I see these colors, I see you, Jayme.” Uh-huh. Probably need to think about the overall design one more time, then the content layout, then the header logo (not there yet).

I’m pretty excited I designed a Favicon using a JohnHaydon YouTube tutorial in about the same time he did. Would be remiss not mentioning the fab resources in @remarkablogger and Headway Hacks, along with Grant Griffiths and Clay Griffiths. And, then there are those other moral supporters i.e. @MarkWSchaefer who blogs at {grow}. Mark provided my inspiration to get here from there; he also kindly posted a first comment about inspiring and perspiring which was so fitting, I’m borrowing it.

It takes a village, you know. Koodles!