Web 2.0 is Us

A friend of mine sent me a link to a YouTube video about Web. 2.0.

It was created by a cultural anthropologist from Kansas, and it’s a 4.5-minute visual explanation of what Web 2.0 is all about.

Simply stated: The original Web linked up information, and the new Web links people.

PRWeb’s NewsCrafters Get 5-Star Review

Kevin Taylor of a new consumer review site, 5 Star Review, has given PRWeb’s NewsCrafters team a top rating.

Specifically, Kevin complimented PRWeb editors Dan Hiestand and Taune Sweet for their excellent work with his recent search engine optimized press release. Hiestand and Sweet were among two of a handful of editors who stood watch over PRWeb’s 24/7 operation during the long Memorial Day Weekend.

“I am very impressed with Taune and Dan at PRWeb and I highly recommend PRWeb for press releases,” the rating says.

Woohoo! I am, too! Great job Taune, Dan, Gerald, Tom and Lauren.

5 Things to Avoid in an Online Press Release

Here are five tips on things to avoid in an online press release:

1. I-We-You: It’s tempting to use the first- or second-person voice, also known as “Direct Address” to the reader, but it’s not professional sounding and it provides no help to the search engines who would otherwise index your press release under your company name, organization executive or product. The proper tone for a press release is the “third person” voice, which uses proper names, nouns and pronouns like “the company,” “customers,” “they” and “it.” Casual sounding direct address is better suited for ad copy or an opinion column than a professional and objective press release. Online, it makes no sense at all to use “you” and “we” outside of a quotation; while people may be searching online for your company name, service or industry, they will not be searching for “you” and “we.”
2. Spam Words and Phrases: Another temptation to avoid, especially in your headline or lead paragraph. Words and phrases that are frequently found in the subject line of unwanted e-mail scream out to everyone: delete me, not read me. Think about it: what do you do when you get an e-mail with offers for health supplements, pharmaceuticals for sexual enhancement or with words like girls, amazing, FREE, sex, naked, “make money” and “don’t miss this opportunity” in the subject line?
3. Personal Opinion: Use a blog for your personal opinions and a press release to promote your expert opinion on a topic in your industry. Personal opinions, endorsements and attacks are not newsworthy and not appropriate for distribution via a press release. Who cares? But if you or someone from your organization is a bona fide expert on a topical subject, blaze away with a press release touting that expert opinion and why that opinion is newsworthy. If someone else in your industry endorses your product or otherwise gives an opinion about you or your services, you can issue a news release announcing that as well. When you include a quote from an expert or endorser outside your company, be sure to get permission.
4. Holiday Hype: Announcing a seasonal promotion such as a ski and hotel package in December, a hot gift for Mother’s Day or the availability of a new lice treatment at the start of the school year is a good way to generate online buzz and to get the news out to travel writers, tourism bloggers and education reporters as well as parents, vacationers and other consumers. When writing your press release, go easy on your claims, however. The easiest way to destroy your credibility or have your news release flagged as an advertisement is to hype your vacation package as “unique,” “amazing,”or “incredible” or to use an abundance of exclamation points because the holiday is only a few days away!!!! The use of upper case characters (FREE!) to create emphasis is also bad form. There can sometimes be a fine line between advertising and promotional copy and news copy. Make sure you truly have newsworthy material in your press release and present it in a neutral, objective tone that doesn’t scream BUY ME! Your reader ought to know that your ski package is fabulous and your lice treatment for the first day of school REALLY REALLY WORKS without the hype.
5. Link Spam: Using an excessive number of Web site links in your press release turns off both readers and search engines and is considered link spam. Including links to all 17 sponsors of your event distracts journalists and other readers from your message. Inserting a link to your Web site at the end of every paragraph can also trip content filters and tell search engine spiders that your press release shouldn’t be indexed. Instead, use links judiciously to help journalists, bloggers, investors and consumers easily find you in a search engine. A good rule of thumb to follow is to include three links to your Web site: in your lead paragraph, somewhere in the middle and in your boilerplate, at the end. PRWeb recommends no more than one link per 100 words.

PR Software

I got a sneak preview last month of “Vocus Spring ’07,” the latest version of Vocus’ updated public relations management software. It has some awesome capabilities when it comes to targeting a public relations campaign to a customized list of news media.

The enhanced media database module gives Vocus users in-depth profiles of top bloggers and journalists. Vocus Spring ’07 goes beyond journalist profiles and contact information. The “Rich Media Profiles” include journalists’ preferred contact methods and their work schedules, a list of the stories they’ve written recently and even podcast interviews of journalists talking about the best ways to pitch a story to them.

Now that’s rich. This is every PR person’s dream: an insider’s access to TV, radio and newspaper newsrooms.

Vocus, the parent organization to PRWeb, announced the launch the official version of the software today in a press release.

Search Engine Strategies

Everyone’s heading to the Search Engine Strategies Conference in NYC this week: PRWeb’s Joe Beaulaurier and Matt DeVeau; Jiyan Wei from Vocus; Lee Odden, from TopRank Online Marketing; and hundreds of others. Wish I could be there ….

The PRWeb and Vocus team will be manning the PRWeb booth at the Hilton. Odden will be leading a session on the marketing and social bookmarking communities.

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Social Bookmarking

Help Wanted!

PRWeb is looking for a NewsCrafters editor/writer/PR consultant to join our editorial team in Ferndale, Wash., and to work closely with current and prospective customers.

All PRWeb editors are PR consultants and have other customer service responsibilities for our innovative service distributing press releases directly to consumers and the media. Our new editorial team member will have a greater role in this area.

In addition to editing and uploading press releases submitted to our system, we want our new NewsCrafters editor to assist in outreach efforts to new and current users of PRWeb services and to play a bigger role with customer questions and complaints (rare!) about distribution and/or editorial matters.

A person with experience and/or training in sales, marketing, customer service, public relations, communications, editing and/or news writing would be a good candidate for this newly created position.

Press release writing and editing skills as well as good communication skills are essential, as this person will essentially “float” between customer service and editorial roles.

See the “Best of NewsCrafters” to get an idea about what kind of press releases and companies our editors work with.

Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s degree in journalism, public relations, communications, English or related field or equivalent experience writing or editing for a news, publishing or public relations organization
• Strong writing, editing, researching, proofreading, organizational and problem-solving skills
• Experience researching and writing news stories, features stories and/or news releases
• Experience copy editing for format, grammar, clarity, etc.
• Ability to coordinate, organize and prioritize multiple tasks
• Experience or demonstrated ability working with the public in a customer-service, sales or consulting role; helping phone callers navigate a complex Web site; problem-solving various customer service issues related to press releases and our online system; helping customers choose which service to buy
• Proficiency with multi-tasking on a computer, using Microsoft Word, Web browsers and e-mail
• Proficiency in Internet research
• Sense of humor

Apply with cover letter, resume and work samples to

PRWeb Scholars at WWU

On Wednesday (Feb. 28, 2007), Western Washington University held a luncheon to thank PRWeb and other donors for their support of scholarships. Joel Baker, PRWeb’s president and COO, and I attended on behalf of PRWeb’s founder and CEO, David McInnis, who was out of town.

Joel and I had the pleasure of meeting the two recipients of the David McInnis/PRWeb Scholarship in Online News & Public Relations for the current academic year (2006-2007).

Alyse Clacy is a junior from Spokane, Wash., who’s majoring in journalism/public relations with a minor in psychology. Alyse, who is also a ballerina and a ballet teacher in Bellingham, gave an engaging speech articulating what the scholarship meant to her and what scholarship support means to all WWU students.

The second recipient of the PRWeb scholarship was Sean McGrorey, a senior from the Seattle area who is pursuing a chemistry minor along with his journalism/PR major.

Joel never used the word “Communist” once while on campus. To reward him for good behavior, I took a print-quality photo of McGrorey, Baker and Clacey on PRWebPhotoWire.

Valentine Tips for PRWeb customers

I think there has been a slight increase in the submission of PRWeb press releases that include or link to “adult” content. I suspect this trend because the refrain of “I hate Valentine’s Day” has been heard from more than one area of the PRWeb newsroom this week. Plus, there was a stunning full moon setting in the sky this morning, and I can just see our work queue overflowing with press releases announcing all kinds of adult gifts for Valentine’s Day.

Because of all that, and since I will be celebrating two years as PRWeb’s managing editor this month, I figure this is a good time to make our adult content guidelines more widely known.

I have been gently told to “lighten up” a little on these guidelines, and some of the customers we have turned away have called me everything from prudish to fascist to being under the influence of the Vatican or the Mormon Church. But my intention here is only to strike a balance between providing a comfortable work environment for our employees and keeping PRWeb a strong and tasteful Web site that provides awesome online visibility for thousands of businesses. PRWeb is known for being on the bleeding edge of all sorts of technology, but we really don’t want to be edgy in the area of promoting adult products, Web sites and the like.

So here goes:

Kathy’s Tips for Valentine’s Day press releases
aka PRWeb’s adult content guidelines

PRWeb does not distribute press releases about adult or sexually explicit material, adult products or adults-only events. References or links to adult material, illegal material or profane language could cause your press release to be intercepted by content filters.

More importantly, this type of content degrades the quality and integrity of the PRWeb service. In addition, it is our belief that most PRWeb customers are not comfortable having their press release content associated with content that is appropriate for adults only.

Thus, PRWeb will not distribute anything above a “PG” rating.

If your press release content can be revised to remove references or links to nudity, sexually explicit material and other overtly adult themes, our NewsCrafters editors will encourage you to do so and resubmit.

If your content, links or attachments are on “the edge,” please consider revising so we can help you achieve maximum online visibility within our guidelines. PRWeb editors have the final say in determining whether your content is appropriate for distribution on our platform. If your content is about something that you wouldn’t want your child or employer to see while looking over your shoulder, then it’s probably not appropriate for our platform.

Though decisions on the appropriateness of content are often subjective, PRWeb editors consider your content in the context of our platform. Content is above a “PG” rating if:

1. One or more expletives, profanities or vulgar terms are found in the press release or in the link appearing in the iFrame preview. Depending on the nature or type of the word(s) and the context, a single use may be considered OK for distribution through PRWeb. More than a single use of an expletive, profanity or vulgar term will normally push your content above a “PG” rating.
2. The press release, its attachments or the front page of the “Visit Us” link displays more than brief nudity of any type (with exceptions made on a case-by-case basis for content from medical or scientific organizations). Note that the Motion Picture Association of America gives an “R” rating to films with any sexually oriented nudity and says nudity for a PG rating must not be considered “so intense as to require that parents be strongly cautioned beyond the suggestion of parental guidance.” PRWeb editors apply these movie guidelines to the visual, audio and textual matter associated with your press release.
3. The average PRWeb customer would not be comfortable sitting around a dinner table discussing the content of your press release with his/her mother, client, employer’s spouse, grandfather or child’s teacher.

More Awards for PRWeb?

As our CIO would say, this is “shweet.”

PRWeb, the Internet’s leading direct-to-consumer press release newswire and a Vocus (NASDAQ:VOCS) company, has been recognized as a finalist for the prestigious Software & Information Industry Association’s 2007 Codie Awards in the Best Online News Service category.

I’m not going to get too excited, but I am going to pencil in April 17, 2007, in my datebook. That’s the day the winners will be announced at the 22nd Annual Codie Awards Gala at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco.

This year’s finalists were chosen from more than 1,200 nominations submitted by more than 600 companies, and more than 219 individuals in the trade press, consulting, educators, IT specialists and other neutral specialists were judges. The Best Online News Service Category represents one of three categories in which a Vocus product or service is a Codie Award finalist.

Telecommuting, Resolutions and Relationships

A PRWeb customer had such a creative way of mixing the personal with a news announcement, that I just had to upgrade him.

Sol Levine, who runs www.tjobs.com, a site for telecommuters, wrote a press release about how he and his wife’s argument lead him to a New Year’s Resolution: all arguments with his wife will be carried on by e-mail only. So, when she starts badgering him to take out the trash, or he complains that she messed up the vacation plans, the other will say:
Hit me with an e-mail!

And the only sound the neighbors or the kids will hear is the clattering of the keyboard as they send e-mails back and forth.

I think I will try this myself when my husband is bad.