In this video, I want to drill a little deeper into writing the press release. The press release is an opportunity for you, the PR practitioner, to tell your brand story. To do that effectively, we must craft a flawless press release. Let's talk about how to do that. In a few minutes, I'm going to show you some examples of press releases that are online. I'd encourage you to read as many as you can find. Sometimes the media realm or press room of a company is not obvious and takes a little bit of time to find. Here are some mechanics to follow when writing a press release. First, think of the press release as a branded news story. It's a news story, one to be written by a PR professional. It's going to promote our brand and tell a story that accomplishes the communication and or business objectives. You see, PR is planned and strategic. If done right and done well, PR is very powerful. You want to hook the journalist with the headline and the lead paragraph. These two factors of your press release need to be perfect. That means there's actually news to tell and that the story is summarized in that first paragraph. I always think about who cares, who is going to really care about this news and why? Why should they care? Answering those questions will help you to frame your press release. You want to use single-spaced block formatting and that's the type of formatting I used here on this slide. Paragraphs are single-spaced and then double-spaced between the two paragraphs. The press release is only one page, so you need to learn to be concise, yet interesting and informative. You should alternate between content and quotes. Your press release should have one or two quotes. Don't fluff the quotes either. These should be thought leaders and brand representatives who are credible and who are experts. Press releases sometimes also include image and video. Journalists don't want these as attachments instead hyperlink them in the press release and house this type of content on your brand's website in the press room. You must remember that this is earned media and the end product may not look at all like your product and that's okay. We just need to be confident in what we are offering to journalists and ensure we are being the best PR practitioner we can be. You have news, you have identified the journalist, you've done your research, you know who cares about your news and why. Now it's time to tell the story of the news. The press release should be written in a way that tells the story the best. This is the idea of framing. In what way will you choose to tell the story? What details will you choose to highlight? Who will use source? Be strategic. Highlight the pieces of the story that connect best with your audience. That strategy to leverage a piece of the brand rationally or emotionally so as to move an audience, whether that be an attitude change or behavior change. After all, there must be a purpose to the news. Now let's again look at some press releases. Let's start with PlayStation, a mega gaming brand. PlayStation houses their press releases at the bottom of the website under the heading of press release. As an example, here is a press release. Notice the headline, notice the sub-heading, and then notice that first paragraph and that right there is the news that the company has to offer. Notice that the first quote is in the fourth paragraph. Notice also that the quote is attributed to Global Competitive Gaming vice president. Then notice the second quote is from the CEO of RTS, which is part of the news. It's the new e-sport business that PlayStation is announcing in this press release. If we scroll down, you'll notice that these are the boilerplates. Notice that there's multiple boilerplates and this is simply because this press release is about a partnership. The boilerplates of all of the brands are included here. Now let's look at Coca-Cola. This one is tricky. First, visit Company at the bottom of the website then News. You can see that Coca-Cola houses its news differently than PlayStation and Sony. We can scroll down and you'll notice that they also have listed their press releases here. I'm just going to click on one so that we can see notice the headline and the sub-heading. Then if we scroll down, we can notice the lead paragraph which again houses all of the important details. Notice the quote, this is from president and chair of the Coca-Cola Foundation, which again is what the news is about. Notice that this press release also includes bulleted information, sometimes this is a great way to get your information across to journalists. Then you'll notice that this press release also includes video. Now Hilti. Hilti is a power tool, softeners and software for construction brand. This news is under company and then we could choose from product news, company news, or even COVID news. Let's choose product news and let's check out one of their press releases. We'll just read the first one, notice that headline and the sub-head. Then as we scroll down, please notice the first paragraph. Then again, this is formatted slightly different with the first quote appearing in Paragraph 4.This paragraph is from senior vice president of marketing. Again, this quote is very relevant to what's being discussed in this press release. Lastly, I want to point out the boilerplate included at the very end of the press release. Now Whirlpool. This brand also houses their press releases in a pretty obvious way. This is their press room at Whirlpool. We will just click on the first press release and you can see here that Whirlpool works with Ketchum. Notice that the top left, we're seeing a contact for their PR agency. Notice also the headline and sub-heading. Then as we scroll through, you'll notice the hyperlinked information and this is a way to give journalists more information without including an attachment. Notice the quote from senior brand manager and then also notice the boilerplate at the end of the press release. I hope you will continue to read press releases and learn from the different ways brands tell their stories. Think about all the different components we've talked about. Try to identify those pieces, critique them. Not all press releases are good press releases. I hope this will help you to improve your own craft.
