Why they don’t write about you in the media: a detailed guide for PRonline press services
Dmitry Trepolsky gives PR managers and representatives of press services detailed instructions on how to compose press releases for the media, explains how to interest journalists and not be mistaken in writing the text
Have you ever wondered why articles, press releases, and interviews of competitors constantly appear in top media, and even the most neutral local media did not publish your information – and this is not about money at all?
Let’s see why even the most “ingenious” and unique materials that you prepared all week did not interest anyone and what journalists really want to see.
The vast majority of Russian press services, when interacting with the media, make a number of mistakes that completely ruin normal relations with them. What is the challenge facing any press service or PR specialists of companies? Bring your information to as many audiences as possible. But many can’t do this, and here the reason lies in a number of gross errors. It would seem – well, what’s so complicated: I wrote a news article or an article and sent it to all the media that are in your database. Not so simple!
There are a number of mistakes that can not only negatively affect a particular news item (or article), but also completely ruin all subsequent relations with media representatives (from local to federal).
Mistake No. 1. Design of information material
It consists in a disregard and a very “rough” design of the material itself (after which the media representatives need to “clean” this material for a very long time before posting it on their website). As you know, such material (if it is, of course, not paid) is easier to simply “not notice” than to spend 15-20 minutes on it.
Usually, at the first “acquaintance” with the press service, journalists / editors make corrections manually, but with 2-3-4 such “arrivals” this annoys the journalist and causes a persistent allergy to both the press service and the company itself ( you can understand the consequences yourself, as the community of journalists is very close and the bad “glory” about this press service spreads at the speed of sound).
Mistake No. 2. Texts are sent in an “unreadable” format
Very often, press services send information in PDF format. Undoubtedly, it is very convenient for printing and subsequent reading, but the task before us is not to read it by the media editors themselves, but to post this information on their website and read it!
You will be surprised, but not all media professionals have the opportunity to copy the “letters” from this format and then bring them into a form acceptable for the “admin panel” of their site.
What we get as a result – such news will not be needed and will go to the “basket”.
To avoid such an error: be sure to send the texts also in the “Word” format with the extension .rtf, since it will be readable by absolutely any software.
Error No. 3. The problem with the images
There are no thematic images / or they do not correspond to the format of the site “in size” / or they do not have extensions generally accepted for sites (such as .pdf).
What we get as a result: such news will not be needed and will go to the “basket”.
To avoid such an error: be sure to select at least 2-3 images of the “landscape” arrangement (horizontal) and the “weight” of not more than 1.5 MB and a size of at least 450 x 300 pixels. It is desirable that these images are duplicated in .png and .jpeg formats.
Mistake No. 4. THE TITLE IS WRITTEN HERE AS HERE !!!
A number of press services believe that the heading written in capital letters should literally “shout” about the event being sent. But this is completely wrong!
The headline of the news written in capital letters by search engines is perceived extremely negatively (these are the rules).
What we get as a result: such news will not be needed and will go to the “basket”, since no one will rewrite the title during heavy load.
To avoid such an error: do not write the title in capital letters. It (of course) is usually redone, but there is a very rather big chance that it will simply be copied (like the news itself) and inserted quickly into the news feed.
Mistake number 5. Each paragraph is put purely with spaces (and not with the help of the line itself)
Very often, press services send information with neat paragraphs that are made using spaces. When posting such news on the site they have to be removed manually. With a small number of paragraphs, this is not difficult to do, but what if it is Longrid?
The task, after all, is not for us to read the editors of the media themselves, but for them to post this information on their website and read it.
What we get as a result: such news will not be needed and will go to the “basket”, since nobody will “align” the paragraphs with a large load.
To avoid such an error: put paragraphs in the normal way, since editors will need to remove all this manually, and this is unnecessary time – it is easier to pay attention to other news, where formatting will be in order.
