Your PR Architect

PR.com houses a wealth of executive-written news releases. If you're a CEO with a do-it-yourself gene, you'll find plenty of friends here. Their writing's not brilliant, but someone at PR.com appears to edit them. The weakest element of the writing? Most rely on passive voice, or over-dependence on “to be” verb phrases. Unless you're auditioning for Hamlet, I'd excise any use of the "to be" verb phrase. A simple example: By Stephan Czuratis (Jazz-face) (Own work), via Wikimedia Commons Passive Voice:  “It was announced today that a new ergonomic drum stick is being launched by Chicken Percussion, Inc.” Active Voice:  “Chicken Percussion today launched a new line of ergonomic drum sticks.” A reliance on weak to-be verbs kills any energy in your news story. “It was announced…” and “is being launched” sounds as if everything’s after-the-fact. Remember, news releases should deliver  news – and in today’s 24/7 news cycle, immediacy (or conveying ...

This started out as some informal recommendations I shared with a colleague at a large not-for-profit institution. As with many large enterprises, not all areas within the organization get the online visibility they desire. My friend's area wants to earn some visibility with prospective customers -- but the "mother ship" organization's social media strategy doesn't provide the ability to promote individual departments or divisions. Here's what I shared with my colleague: Facebook would be an OK place to purchase ads, if that's where your target audience is looking -- and if they will take action based on your ads. When I visited (your department's) Facebook page, I saw 430 views, but just 24 "likes". You want the 'likes' to grow, because they show up on other people's Facebook feeds. For comparison, a small local non-profit's Facebook page has 64 likes. It's much smaller than your organization, so word of that pag...