Can PR ghostwrite client blogs?

Executive Summary:

As marketing departments turn corporate collateral into blog posts, they find the task more time-consuming and difficult than imagined. Should you hire ghost writers? Yes and no. It depends on your audience's expectations. This article tells you how to decide and suggests effective small tweaks to the options you've probably already considered.

Key Points:

1. Social media experts generally caution against ghostwriting blogs. They say the medium and audience expectations make blogs unlike speeches and contributed articles.
2. Analyze your audience and ask key questions about your company's goals and resources before deciding which blogs to ghostwrite or whether to write a particular post at all.

Sound Bite:

"The smartest and most trusted people say, 'Don't ghostwrite company blogs.' But if you absolutely must do it, disclose the contributor's real names or only ghostwrite content the company created previously and is simply re-purposing for easy digestibility."

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Read the whole article:

Should your PR team ghostwrite your company's blog posts?

The short answer is "no." The long answer is "sometimes."

Let's do the long answer first. If you absolutely insist on having your PR team write some of your company blog posts, proceed with caution. Give ample thought to:

• your company's goal
• the degree of expertise/attitude/thought leadership required from the author
• originality of content

Questions you can ask yourself while making decisions:

(1) Is the content company-created and is the PR team merely re-purposing it for social media digestibility?

If so, fine. Go for it. But avoid packaging overly canned material in a business-neutral voice. If you must include posts like this, consider interspersing it with more personal and authentic pieces by individuals. Otherwise, your audience is likely to tune out, justifiably so.

(2) What are the audience's expectations?

Consider the degree of skepticism and ethical rigidity of a particular audience. What does the audience value most highly? How will they use the information? Are they likely to be forgiving of sterile business content as long as it includes a tip or resource they can use? Are they expecting a CEO blog with business acumen or an app developer blog with technical depth? If you walk a safe middle line, you may turn off the very people you hope to influence.

(3) Is the time and money worth it if the blog isn't influential?

It's safe to say that a CEO blog carries more weight when it shows incisive thinking and passion, even if not necessarily "good writing." In the world of blogs, "good writing" can be icing, since most posts are produced rapidly in response to an ongoing conversation by a person who isn't a full-time professional writer.

Do application developers carry more weight when they are irreverent and independent? Probably. In some scenarios, it's possible that this level of integrity and authenticity is almost more important to the audience than the content. A rough-around-the-edges post that's spirited and technically well grounded might be better than a smooth vanilla offering.

Writing is time-consuming. That's why people quit blogs after a while or try to hire ghostwriters. But what matters most is substantive content that will influence people. If you don't have that, should you be blogging at all?

(4) Can you manage expectations by disclosing who sometimes contributes?

This is the best practice if the author's credentials aren't the main draw. Avoid leaving a post unsigned or just using the company's name. Commonly, companies-in-the-know say something like "Contributors to this blog include Sam Smith, Jessie Jones and Betty Buttons."

But even so, better to sign each post with "Sam S. for Acme" or "S.S." or "B. Buttons" or "Jessie Jones." If you feel like you don't want the audience to see the "man behind the curtain," then you've got a problem, especially since "transparency is the new black," as they say. At any rate, hiding fake wizards behind curtains is bad -- period.

It's OK to say that your PR team creates some of the blog posts. It's better to do it and say it than to do it and not say it. Otherwise, you risk losing trust down the road. Audiences may think you are hiding something other than a writer's name ("What *else* is this company keeping from me?").

Bottom-line as I see it, the smartest and most trusted people say, "Don't ghostwrite company blogs." But if you absolutely must do it, disclose the contributor's real names or only ghostwrite content the company created previously and is simply re-purposing for easy digestibility.

It's not like a speech. Some people argue that a blog post is like a speech. Presidents of companies and nations hire speech writers, right? Yes, but we all know they do that.

Our *expectation* is that a really talented speech writer did the leg work, the president absorbed the content in full, made substantive changes as he saw fit, then practiced for hours, with coaching.

In contrast, a blog post is perceived as a more informal and less well measured opinion, often formulated quickly, as part of an ongoing social conversation.

In 2004, social media purists said, "No ghostwriting."

In 2010, I see a lot of softening in expert opinion.

People now admit there are gray areas where careful consideration can make a ghostwritten blog OK. For more on that, see an excellent discussion led by Toby Blomberg and John Cass. Thirty-nine contributors weigh in. My favorite comments were those by Lynn Anne Miller, who looked at social media from the corporate perspective.

Edelman's Steve Rubel foresaw the debate in 2004 and said, "What we need to do, however, is separate what works from what doesn't and what level of transparency and input is required. Time will tell."

I agree that we are still determining best practices and that they are likely to change as the blog-reading public itself continues to mature and evolve.

Hyphens: when to use them

When people ask about hyphens, I talk about Frankenstein, rhythm and glue. This is what makes me an unusual teacher: I make up more resonant ways to remember correct usage.

Examples are often easier to understand than rules, so let's start with a few of those. These hyphens are all correct:

-A do-it-yourself kit
-A technology-based solution
-A lily-lined basket
-A wish-you-were-here postcard
-A 6-year-old boy
-A 20-percent discount
-The end-user experience

These are all examples of compound modifiers. In other words, multiple words together ("compound") modify (or describe) a final word. You can usually hear the rhythm: BLAH-BLAH-BLAH blah, DA-DA-DA da. They feel like they go together. So if you write by instinct or ear and feel fuzzy on grammar and punctuation, I suggest listening for this rhythm as your first guidepost. Then clarify your thinking with a few easy principles, which I'll explain in a bit.

Also correct but confusing:

-I will make a follow-up call.
-I will call to follow up with him.
-I will handle the follow-up.

Same words, different hyphen usage. Bummer, huh? Why the inconsistency? Here's where we talk about Frankenstein. I'll warn you now: It's a little gory.

Think of "parts of speech" as body parts -- arms, legs, nose, etc., rather than nouns, verbs and prepositions.

Notice the "body parts" in the examples above:

• follow up -- verb + preposition
• follow-up call -- as above but "follow-up" is glued together with a hyphen and used as an adjective modifying call
• follow-up -- verb + preposition used to make a noun

Why this matters: You don't need a hyphen when the words are being used as their natural selves -- as in, a verb used as a verb rather than forced into service as an adjective.

The Frankenstein analogy refers to putting together disparate "body parts" to create a new whole. It's unnatural. When you do something unnatural, you need glue to hold it all together. (This sounds goofy in the real world, I know, but it's a good memory tip, so ...)

Hyphens are glue. They hold together Frankenstein words, which are words forced into unnatural service as something other than their natural parts of speech.

So if you "call to follow up," you are using "follow" as a verb, which it is, and "up" as a preposition, which it is. Nothing unnatural. No hyphen.

But if you "make a follow-up call," you are forcing the verb and preposition into an unnatural new role as an adjective modifying call. This is a Frankenstein word. You need glue (a hyphen).

Let's look again at the first set of examples. To get rid of the hyphens, you need to use words as their natural parts of speech:

• a kit that lets you do it yourself
• a solution based on technology
• a basket lined with lilies
• the boy is 6 years old
• the experience of the end user

There are two exceptions to the compound-modifier rule, but I will save those until the very end of this post.

Now you know most of what you need to know about compound modifiers. And now you realize that your "hyphen" question is really a "compound modifier" question. But there's another situation where hyphens turn up, and luckily the Frankenstein and glue metaphors apply there, too.

Here's Part 2: hyphenated nouns. When you put two words together to make a new noun, they become a Frankenstein word, so you need glue (a hyphen). In "I will handle the follow-up," we've turned "follow" and "up" into a noun, even though -- when taken separately -- the parts are actually a verb and a preposition.

Eventually over time, some hyphens go away. It's hard to keep up with which words have gone over to the other side. So I suggest checking http://www.m-w.com/ whenever you wonder if a word is one word, two words or hyphenated. The AP Stylebook is usually in agreement.

Examples of words people often think are hyphenated but aren't:

• pickup
• firsthand
• nonprofit
• end user (two words)

That last one is tricky, though, right? Now you know that it's not hyphenated as a noun but that would be if you turned it into a compound modifier: end-user experience.

Got it?

Hyphens are glue. You need them for Frankenstein words. Your first clue that you might be looking at a compound modifier may be the rhythm: two things modifying a third, three things modifying a fourth, DA-DA-DA da.

Now for the exceptions to the compound-modifier rule:

(1) Ly-adverbs never take a hyphen (which makes sense because the adverb remains an adverb) -- centrally located knob, specially designed interface, wholly owned subsidiary.

(2) Proper nouns never take a hyphen -- Jordan branded handheld, Web hosted application, Cincinnati based headquarters

A final word: A dash is not a hyphen, and a hyphen is not a dash. They are not interchangeable. A dash -- the long version of a hyphen or two hyphens together -- is scissors. Scissors cut things apart. Dashes can sometimes replace commas, as I've done two sentences above this one in blue. Dashes, as scissors, cut apart the parenthetical explanation from the rest of the sentence.

I could say more about the dash, but let's leave that for another post.

For now, just remember:

(1) Compound modifiers take hyphens unless they involve a proper noun or an "-ly" adverb.

(2) To find out if a noun is hyphenated, look it up in the AP Stylebook first and, if it's not there, look in up at http://www.m-w.com/.

e-Commerce, E-Commerce or ... ?? Not so easy to answer

We know that AP style says it's correct to write e-commerce with a hyphen and little "e." But what about in the headline of a press release?

My vote is for E-Commerce or e-commerce, but not e-Commerce or E-commerce, though I could be talked into any of the four, given the right argument.

If you are a PR person on deadline and want an answer without an explanation, I recommend that you go with E-Commerce. You can come back to read the rest of this later.

Here's what makes this a tough call: There are no AP rules on headlines.

The Associated Press, in its pre-Internet existence, didn't use headlines at all, and newspapers across the U.S. differ in their headline styles. If we look at actual practice on Web sites, we find that The AP now capitalizes *only* the first letter of a headline and that BusinessWire -- a distributor of press releases and a respected industry standard-setter -- usually capitalizes all the words in a headline, with the exception of articles (a, an, the), prepositions (from, under, with, to, by, in) and conjunctions (and).

Capitalize prepositions of four letters or more?

The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal take it a step further. They use mostly caps but lowercase articles, conjunctions and prepositions of three words or fewer. So they capitalize the prepositions from, with and across but lowercase for, to and in.

Press releases usually don't apply the three-words-or-less rule. Most appear to do it the way BusinessWire does it. Scanning the news section of Business Wire's Web site, I found more incidences of E-Commerce than e-commerce or e-Commerce, but I did find all three. Not surprisingly, I didn't find E-commerce.

Building a "right-brained" case for e-Commerce

Although I said earlier in this post that I don't prefer e-Commerce, the right-brained part of me likes it best because it *feels* like it carries the intended flavor of the little "e," which I think of as Silicon Valley's casual tossing aside of convention as it reinvents all of our lives for the better. For me, the little "e" means electronic everything, bleeps of light -- as I envision it -- slicing through the physical clutter that used to cordon people off from one another.

But that's subjective, and no one pays me to be subjective.

Apply the AP rule on "titles" to "headlines"

The more complicated NYT/WSJ rule does in fact match AP style if you decide to interpolate. If you treat "headlines" as "titles," you'll find that the rule is to capitalize prepositions and conjunctions of four or more letters.

Most people don't do this. Most people don't even know where in the stylebook to look up titles. (Look under "composition titles," not "titles." The former lists treatment of plays, songs, lectures and television shows. The latter deals with job titles, mostly.)

Orgs that capitalize only the first word in a headline, thereby avoiding the question altogether:

• San Jose Mercury News
• Boston Herald
• San Francisco Chronicle
• The Associated Press online

Orgs that use all caps or mostly caps for headlines, with varying exceptions:

• The New York Times
• The Wall Street Journal
• Chicago Tribune
• Wired
• InfoWeek
• CIO
• BusinessWire

The question of E-C, e-c, E-c or e-C is a toss-up, in my opinion. It depends on the other style choices your company has made.

For example, if you have a company name or product division that drops the hyphen (eBay or eBusiness Solutions), you may want to go that route for eBook and eCommerce as well, though I bet you'll balk at eMail.

If E-Commerce is a proper noun in your company's case (like Spain, Sally and Kleenex), then I'd suggest E-C.

The easy way out: Only capitalize the first letter in headlines

To make life easiest of all, I suggest companies go the way of The AP and capitalize only the first letter of a headline. Then you can use e-commerce with nary a second thought.

The PR industry adopted AP style as its own standard for good reason -- 98 percent of U.S. newspapers follow AP style. This means most people either know it or have easy access to it. So a freelance writer in Pennsylvania can turn in easy-to-edit copy on deadline to a corporation in Arizona, without a lot of wasted conversation about nit-picky style details.

Stop quibbling and get back to work

Why quibble about capitalization and hyphens when you could be doing something that actually advances your company's business objectives? Why insist on a unique corporate style that you will have to re-visit, defend and teach time and time again forever into the future?

Do more important things instead.

Even as print declines in favor of digital reading, the AP standard is still a good one. It's voice-neutral -- that is, it works for any kind of tone or aesthetic. It's neither formal nor informal. And no other single organization has the momentum, reputation or reach to efficiently replace it.

The Yoda of Journalism Speaks

My all-time fave book on writing has been displaced. Sorry, Associated Press, I still love you and “The Word” by Rene J. Cappon, but you’re going to have to step aside for the Poynter Institute’s Roy Peter Clark, the Yoda of journalism.

This Jedi grandmaster’s book was published in 2006, six years after I left journalism to become a full-time writing coach in the corporate world. I didn’t know about it until last week when the Poynter Institute tweeted Clark’s article on J.D. Salinger, who died last week.

I now have a borrowed copy of “Writing Tools: 50 Essential Strategies for Every Writer.” My colleague, also a former AP reporter who now works for A&R Edelman, pulled it off his cubicle shelf for me.

Here’s an excerpt, taken from Tool 21: “Know when to back off and when to show off.”

In “Why I Write,” George Orwell explains that “good prose is like a window pane.” The best work calls the reader’s attention to the world being described, not to the writer’s flourishes. When we peer out a window onto the horizon, we don’t notice the pane, yet the pane frames our vision just as the writer frames our view of the story.

Most writers have at least two modes. One says, “Pay no attention to the writer behind the curtain. Look only at the world.” The other says, without inhibition, “Watch me dance. Aren’t I a clever fellow?” In rhetoric, these two modes have names. The first is called understatement. The second is called overstatement or hyperbole.

Here’s a rule of thumb that works for me: The more serious or dramatic the subject, the more the writer backs off, creating the effect that the story tells itself. The more playful or inconsequential the topic, the more the writer can show off. Back off or show off.

That’s most of one page. The next page and a half gives examples and commentary. The chapter (all 3 1/5 pages of it) ends with a section called Workshop, which lists four activities and more examples.

How I love this man! Like all grandmasters, he’s humble and keeps a low-profile. If you read his bio, you might nod off even before you tune out.

Clark’s accomplishments are in fact immeasurable because they are living things. His uncommonly nuanced wisdom and impeccable judgment guide and transform countless journalists whose growth and contributions in turn spark more growth and contributions by untold others. (Whew! I need to rest. Writing that sentence made me tired! ... OK, here I go again:)

He’s like the Olympic torch, always being carried forward, or a venture capitalist, creating wealth by investing wealth. Or Barbara Streisand, whose perfectionism and perfect pitch let her occupy a different perceptual world than the rest of us. He thinks, feels and sees better than we regular people do, and – most importantly – articulates his vision in a way that propels the rest of us forward.

I never met the man or even so much as exchanged an e-mail. My respect grew slowly over years. I used to read the annual “America’s Best Newspaper Writing” anthologies, which Clark edited for a while. Other editors were Don Fry, Karen F. Brown and Christopher Scanlan, also stars in journalism’s coaching pantheon.

The “America’s Best …” books are compilations of award-winning journalism from each year since 1979. The editors offer insights and raise questions intended to help the reader become a better writer. If you want a snapshot of journalism’s glory days, the "America's Best ..." series is it.

Like Yoda and The Force, Clark's work offers timeless lessons.

Put pretty tops on contributed articles

PR people are lousy at contributed articles. I have noticed this time and time again. I often find that – for contributed articles – most of a first-timer’s first draft must be deleted. This is seldom true of a first pitch, press release, speaker abstract, award submission or coverage report.

Contributed articles are by far the worst.

I’m saying this very bluntly because I need you to completely clear your head of what worked for you in the past when undertaking a contributed article.

I’ll break this topic into several mini-topics over multiple blog posts, but for now let me give you some structural concepts that will change your approach from the outset.

You need three parts:

1. A pretty top – a first paragraph (or as many as five paragraphs) that really sing
2. A mundane list – your content broken up into three to seven mini-categories, none of which has to be riveting, colorful or remarkably well-written
3. A kicker – a visual and/or memorable catch phrase that makes use of the imagery and tone of the pretty top, preferably something from the very first paragraph (or within the first three)

Imagine your Word document is now a bucket with three compartments. Begin tossing content into each of the three compartments, starting with the middle one – the mundane list.

Start in the middle. The middle compartment is the easiest. Everything your client gave you goes here.

The first compartment is next – the pretty top. This requires your own particular brand of genius. You need to locate or do your own research about your client’s customers, understand their problems from their perspective, and begin collecting words they actually use when talking with one another. You also need “scenery,” a backdrop or set of props that accurately captures their world.

To begin writing the first compartment, you should not write. Yes, you read that correctly. No writing allowed. Instead, you need to search. Online searches generally work really well. But if you have firsthand observations about customers or more detailed research about their problems, that can be better still, though not necessarily essential. It depends on the content and circumstances.

One of my workshops is on what to look for, but for now I’ll give these quick tips:

1. Humans – Look for specific categories of humans among your client’s prospective customers.

Not: users, customers or even “health care providers.”

Instead: specifics like auditors, nurses, network architects, golfers, mechanics, photographers, executives, party-goers, IT managers and piano teachers.

2. Verbs – Look for verbs of your humans in action. They don’t have to be jazzy, but they should be specific to the industry. Like: design, restore, configure, spend, recruit, survey, draw, add, shoot, sound, read, play, send, talk, broil, scoop, swim, march, show, collate, refute, verify, record, persuade, manage, enlist.

After you collect data, detail and imagery for the first compartment, then look again at your middle compartment. Cross-compare the two sets of information and find commonalities. Circle or highlight the commonalities. These are the words you will use in your first draft of your first paragraph. Literally copy and paste them at the top of your Word document. Don’t write yet. Just move the words into the first compartment, helter-skelter. Let this jell. Ruminate for 15 minutes or take a walk. If possible, ruminate overnight.

Come up with an angle that makes sense for both client and prospective customer. Be helpful to readers. Don’t sell. Don’t describe your client or its products. There’s more to this part, but we’ll do it another day.

Now that you have an angle, look at the middle compartment again. Find advice, actions or insights that you can give to readers. Sometimes it works to suggest criteria they can use in making an imminent decision. Organize accordingly.

Now write your pretty top. It sets up the reason for reading the middle. It gives context while hooking readers with info that is truly relevant and helpful from their perspective (not the client’s perspective).

Finally, write your kicker, summing things up in a memorable way that comes full circle with the beginning of your article.

Then comb through the entire piece, fixing and finessing the three parts into a cohesive whole. If possible, let it sit overnight and return to it with fresh eyes the next day.

Advice menu: Which situation is yours?

What kind of writing and editing help do you need? Check out this menu of constructive tips to see if any of these situations apply:

(1) You're distraught over a supervisor's consistently voracious re-writing of your work. This post suggests alternatives that he/she might go for.

(2) You need to evaluate team members' writing and hold them accountable for improvement. This post includes a chart and recounts our success using it.

(3) You want to give feedback that supports writing growth. This real-life example demonstrates an alternative to tracking changes. (Also see No. 1 above and No. 6 below.)

(4) You're a solitary, introverted writer or editor coping with grief and could use a little understanding and even a bit of advice on managing the winter holidays.

(5) You get dinged for grammar, usage and style errors. This post describes how we trained a super-star proofreading team that finds mistakes most people miss.

(6) You want to step back from overly reactive small edits and keep the big picture in mind. This post lists eight questions that help you keep your eye on the ball.

(7) You want to start off a new account on a good writing foot or need to find out why a client appears to be irrationally unhappy with your team's writing. This post helps you begin creating a cheat sheet on your client's unconscious writing preferences.

(8) Your press release approval process takes too long and results in jargony mush. This post offers guidelines for assigning roles and responsibilities. Or check out Ragan.com's nicely abridged version, minus questions for writes/mediators.

(9) You sometimes freeze and can't get get anything good onto a blank page. This post suggests that you break a rule to break through the gridlock.

(10) You wonder why I agreed to blog, even though for years I said, "Nooooo."

News releases: Fix your broken approval process

The worst thing about news releases is the approval process. Too many cooks, as the saying goes, right? After too many iterations, what comes out in the end often looks like something that's been through a trash compactor.

Does it have to be so painful and unproductive? Can we fix the broken process?

The solution, my friends, is discipline. Or baseball, if you prefer. By that I mean each player needs to play his assigned position in accordance with his strengths -- and no one else's. You can't have the shortstop sprinting to first base or the pitcher standing in center field.

Here are some guidelines to help each approver play to his strengths:

(1) Choose one person to write. Everyone else should be hands-off. Hands-off people should comment and give direction but not write, re-write or edit.

(2) Set parameters for each approver's contribution. Here are the roles I suggest for marketing managers, product managers and lawyers.

Marketing managers should ask, "Does it support the brand and long-term business objectives?" They should comment on messaging and emphasis.

Common overstep by marketing managers: Reciting messaging verbatim in the headline, subhead, lead or quotes. Instead, consider messaging an indirect takeaway.

Some explicit recitation of messaging may be OK, but only if blended with vocabulary and scenarios that are familiar and compelling to the audience. Try to balance messaging with empathy and authenticity, as seen through the audience's eyes. Otherwise, you lose credibility and induce the MEGO effect (My Eyes Glaze Over).

Product managers should ask, "Is it accurate?" They should comment on the technology, features and benefits.

Common overstep by marketing managers: Deleting or moving down social context. Instead, let the top half of the press release answer "why" and the bottom half answer "how." In other words, first establish relevance in the lives of the audience, then explain how it works.

Lawyers should ask, "Could we be sued or penalized?" They should comment on potentially negative consequences related to the SEC and other regulators, intellectual property (trademarks, patents, copyrights) and whether the company can deliver on promises.

Common overstep by lawyers: Changing punctuation and capitalization to meet style standards for legal contracts, and deleting social context for the announcement. Instead, let internal experts use AP style, the industry standard for news media and PR. Look for compromises that prevent legal problems while allowing social context.

The best way to avoid problems is to pay more attention to the pre-writing process. There should be substantive input before creating a first rough draft.

Don't even bother to write a "shell." It's a futile time-waster that creates needless frustration for all.

Instead, ask the approvers to do these tasks in advance:

Marketing managers should:
-prioritize target audiences and messaging
-weigh in on correct emphasis
-explicitly state what long-term business objectives are being served

Product managers should:
-demo the technology for the writer
-provide detail on specs, features and benefits
-weigh in on correct emphasis

A VP- or higher-level PR person on the agency side should "frontload" the writer. By that I mean provide context for the assignment. This should take less than 10 minutes and cover:

-news release's role in overall strategy
-detailed description of intended audiences and problems the product or service solves
-intended effect on audience (including actions to be invoked)
-competitive differentiators and indirect takeaways about the industry or audience, not just the product/service or company
-desired emphasis

Who writes? Usually a mid-level PR person, often an AE or SAE, who understands the task is to balance competing interests while appealing to external audiences. This person is more of a relationship broker than a writer because he won't be using his own voice or acting on his own priorities. The writer is really a mediator.

The writer/mediator does the following:
-receives content and other inputs
-looks for holes and asks questions
-consults with PR team members for frontloading, to find out what's been done in the past and for a mid-point check-in on content and structure (but not wordsmithing)

Ideally, the writer/mediator has access to:
-the sales department’s internal PowerPoints on customers and competitors to better understand the overall business and how to dovetail with parallel campaigns
-internal company and agency research, including Search Engine Optimization, aka SEO, and key initial findings that informed the PR plan in the first place

In many cases, the writer/mediator must develop the context that hooks the immediate announcement into the ongoing conversations of key influencers (while remaining within the parameters of branding and business objectives). A good way to do this is an audience analysis technique I call PDAs (Problems, Decisions and Actions). More on that in a future post.

Why add context? That's what makes it a "news" release. News is info that surprises people or helps them make decisions.

News = announcement + context

If you want to write solely about your product, that's OK, too, but -- technically speaking -- that's more of a backgrounder or fact sheet. Journalists do appreciate those and the SEC may require them, so have at it. You don't have to include context if you are talking primarily to beat reporters who already know your company well.

Throw out 95%

Now the writer has a big pile of inputs and must select the most compelling and relevant 5%, looking for intersections between disparate topics and resources.

Notice I said 5%. Writing is really a matter of deciding what to leave out. The writer should plan on deleting 95% or more of his source material.

Sometimes people ask me if it isn't more efficient to just collect only what matters in the first place. The answer is no because your final product will be shallow if you do. It will lack resonance. It won't have a shelf-life. And it will falter in the approval process.

Good writing comes from good content. First get the best ideas, then simplify and package them for easy absorption by strangers.

OK, getting back to process ...

The writer's unique contribution (separate from that of the others who gave early input) includes appropriate vocabulary and scenarios that will be familiar to audiences.

This last part -- audience vocabulary and scenarios -- is extraneous to what the marketing and product team may have had in mind. It also might feel superfluous and imprecise to lawyers.

However, it's the link to the audience, so please let the PR person proceed with this small contribution. When approving these few phrases, keep in mind your position and expertise. If you're the first baseman, stick to playing first base. Comment and compromise, but don't delete and re-write.

Ideal situation: Get PR, marketing, product and legal to agree in advance on appropriate vocabulary and scenarios. Key point: Look for language your audience really uses and delve into problems they actually talk about among themselves.

This is the same logic behind search engine optimization. But it has always been true, even before there were search engines. Know your audience and speak their language. Be useful to them, from their perspective.

Does the writer have to work alone? No, preferably not. Others on the PR team can help by providing:

-a speedy midpoint check-in to approve content and structure (not wordsmithing, which can still be rough and wrong at this stage) Time: 5 minutes
-a hands-off look by someone who didn’t draft the release and can provide outside eyes as to whether the information is clear to outsiders and mechanically sound (grammar, etc.), and to say what indirect takeaways they picked up on
-a hands-on look by a senior person who can finesse the small stuff while keeping in mind the big stuff (but please read my other blog posts for advice on this)
-proofreading
-submission to the person who will oversee the approval process, perhaps with a note explaining reasons for certain decisions and listing possible alternatives

Questions the writer should ask:
1. What are my client’s hot buttons, preferred vocabulary and customs?
2. What approved language from previous releases should be included to provide continuity and help beat reporters and analysts distinguish new info from background?
3. Have I added context that connects the client to the outside world without becoming distracting or irrelevant (and while remaining within parameters of brand and business objectives)?
4. Is the “why” at the top and the “how” at the bottom of the release?
5. Will the first paragraph appeal to relevant outsiders and make them lean in to listen?
6. Have I blended messaging with news value?
7. Have I met both the client’s and audience’s needs?
8. Are customer types specifically named in the release and generally in the fronts rather than middles or backs of sentences? (not users; instead educators, physicians, Web designers, network architects, business professionals, families …)
9. If I delete the quote, will I have to rewrite the release to fill in the missing content? (If not, then rewrite the quote. The speaker should add substance or remain silent.)
10. Have I added white space through effective use of subheads, bullets and short paragraphs? (White space is inviting.)
11. Do my subheads have verbs in them? (If not, consider rewriting. Drill down deeper. Be more specific.)
12. What is my gut saying that I’m ignoring? (Don’t ignore it. Honor your instincts.)

Discipline and self-restraint are make-or-break factors in fixing your broken approval process. Everyone needs to know their position and respect their teammates.

How to figure out your client's writing preferences

Of course, this has never happened to you, but it might have happened to someone you know:

A hard-to-please client is re-writing your team’s work in the wee hours. Team morale is sliding because new quality control measures haven't helped. Baffled junior staff wonder if they chose the wrong career, and senior staff schedule extra client meetings to get to the bottom of things, to no effect.

In case you ever land in this situation -- or better still, if you want to pre-empt it -- here's what you can do to figure out a challenging client's writing preferences.

(1) Find out who your client admires -- Ask for writing samples from third-party or internal sources that the client likes. These may be from a company the client admires or the work of a favorite internal writer. Most people can’t articulate their preferences, but they know what they like when they see it.

(2) Study a body of tracked changes -- Gather three to five samples of this person’s tracked changes and look for patterns.

(3) Analyze in three specific categories: (a) discretionary vocabulary, (b) sentence structure and (c) content decisions. (That’s for starters. When I dive into these, I tend to find more categories specific to the client.)

(a) Discretionary vocabulary –
Does your client prefer international, global or worldwide? They all mean the same thing, right? Does he like meet, need and look better than assemble, require and appear? Again, same meaning, different words.

But to him, one set sounds right and the other doesn't. He can't tell you why. For most of us, it's a natural inclination to want writing that we are editing to sound similar to the syntax and connotation that matches the voice we hear in our head when we read. Most of us don't realize that we have these personal biases.

Does your client choose customer retention over customer loyalty, dramatically over highly, and stimulate over fuel?

Make a list of words that potentially could have been interchangeable with other words of similar meaning. Analyze them.

Some people have biases for particular sounds – like the “uhl” sounds in loyal, highly and fuel. I can't tell you why, just that I've observed it.

Some insist on generic college words (Latinate) like establish, initiate, consolidate and examine, while others prefer plain words (Anglo-Saxon) like set up, start, join and find. I know of one individual who likes Latinate verbs but poetic Anglo-Saxon kicks at the ends of sentences: “….consolidate ….initiate… cash in on the car’s cachet.”

If you detect an underlying core image, it may be easier to guess which discretionary words will be the best fit. Your client won’t realize how deliberately you made your choice; he’ll just feel comfortable reading what you wrote and won’t know why.

One company’s preferred vocabulary reminds me of music from the 1968 sci-fi classic “2001: A Space Odyssey.” It’s transcendent and expansive – freed from the limitations of, future generations, legendary.

Another emphasizes comparison (double the capacity, aggressive development milestones, outperform, minimal) and perspective (in a roundup of five, range from, longstanding, latest).

One reminds me of a race car: speed, accelerate, perform, grab, win, spin, stop.

(b) Sentence structure –
I know of at least one individual who systematically deletes all introductory clauses without fail. Meanwhile, others insist on them: “At a time when people are traveling more than ever (comma)” or “Demonstrating the popularity of mobile devices (comma).”

One company likes a rhythm of fours instead of the usual rhythm of threes, as in “apples, oranges, bananas and pears” versus “apples, oranges and bananas.”

I know of a company that deletes adjectives, except for certain ones immediately in front of product names – and nowhere else. This company mostly writes with strong verbs highly recommended). Many people do just the opposite. They mostly write with jazzy nouns (and quiet verbs like is, has, do), and love adjectives everywhere.

I know of a veteran professional communicator with an engineer’s love for efficiency but none for colloquialisms. So it’s “enables remote PC access” not “so users can connect to their PC while away from the office.” Another company with similar products prefers just the opposite.

(c) Content choices –
Some companies like to make explicit statements about business strategy in product announcements. Others stick to specs and features. A few (the ones that win awards and get talked about) emphasize social context. (Everyone agrees on emphasizing benefits.)

Once you’ve got these kinds of lists in front of you, the problem is no longer mysterious. You can create a cheat sheet for everyone on the team to use.

Don't channel your inner Henry Higgins while editing business documents

Skilled editors and mentors recognize individuality, respect deadlines, and know where a document lives in the big picture of the organization's reasons for being.

Arbitrary editors impose their own syntax and biases onto others, turning dashes into semicolons, replacing "seems" with "resembles," replacing "stemmed" with "originated," inserting a comma where they want to hear a pause, adding "transitions," and committing other crimes against nature.

Unfortunately, we are all arbitrary editors at heart. It takes professional restraint to keep oneself from transforming other people's writing into what "sounds right" to us.

But remember: What they told you in kindergarten is schmaltzy but true. People are like snowflakes, each one beautiful and like no other.

Yes, even if your team aims to write in a particular client's voice, you still need to give writers some elbow room.

Here are ways you can become a more productive editor.

On your first read, use the blue highlighter in Word to mark any phrasing, punctuation or content that hits you funny. Don't stop to fix it. Just highlight it.

On your second read, look only at the blue and ask yourself questions like these:

- Are there recurring patterns in what bothers me?

- Is a key perspective missing?

- Have the audience's needs been met?

- Are proof points missing?

- What long-term business objectives do we need to serve?

- Does this document dovetail with related efforts and campaigns?

- What indirect takeaways do we need readers to catch?

- Are the content and tone credible? Persuasive? Authentic?

- Is the hook, decision, recommendation, surprise or change at the top (where it belongs), with back story, rationale, alternatives, "the how," archival record-keeping details or chronology pulling up the rear?

Create three to five bullet points & ask for speedy tweaks

Next, compose an e-mail (that you may or may not send), articulating three to five points that can be expressed as questions or how-to suggestions.

Then, send the blue-highlighted version with your questions in an e-mail to the writer, asking for the fixes within 20 minutes. Or speak by phone or face-to-face.

When you get the document back, read it afresh, again with the blue highlighter. (You'll be delighted by the changes, believe me, and you'll have saved yourself time by doing something else on your to-do list while the writer made the improvements.)

Then read the blue and begin editing, consciously treading lightly, trying to make as few marks as possible on the page.

Better still, call the writer over and have him sit beside you at the keyboard. This results in a dialog that makes the edits go faster. When you voice a concern, the writer will probably have an idea for addressing it.

Avoid changing something for a vague reason such as "it sounds/flows better that way." Don't impose your values, standards or prejudices on the document, even if yours are better than the writer's, even if you are the mentor and he is the mentee. Let other people's work be different from yours.

Focus on business outcomes and decisions.

Try it. You'll be pleasantly surprised.

Or continue as you are, Arbitrary Editor, so that you can alienate your team members, keep working into the wee hours, and feeling as frustrated as the pompous Henry Higgins of "My Fair Lady," who asked, "Why can't ________ be more like me?"

QT No. 1 -- Don't Write in Full Sentences

Quick Tip No. 1: If you tend to become paralyzed in front of a blank screen, write lists rather than full sentences.

By lists I mean things like this:

- 238.8 miles in 48 hrs on road
- how far she's gone, w/ peaks & valleys
- started small, but it was a start

Key point: Keep typing. Don't worry about structure, tone, vocabulary, spelling or audience. Just get your content down. Fragments? Good! Mispellings? Great. Typos? Bring 'em on! It's all good. In fact, the messier the better.

Only let yourself write lists. Don't slip into full sentences. Go, go, go, as if the higher crime is letting your fingers stop, not writing poorly.

Once your ideas are there, you can move them around. And later, after moving them around, you can begin to finesse the structure and vocabulary. Make corrections afterward. Don't start with "good writing."

This is called "free-writing." If you've done a good job of pre-writing, then your free-writing will be productive.

Some people become mentally constipated because (1) they haven't asked enough questions from the audience's perspective, which is part of pre-writing, or (2) because they jumped too fast into the mental mode associated with the final phase, which is re-writing.

Pre-writing means brainstorming, research, analysis, collecting questions and jotting down gut instincts. You can also call it critical thinking. In tech PR, we mine from three specific categories for effective pre-writing: (1) news value, (2) business value, (3) secret sauce. (I teach this in my workshops.)

Re-writing means editing for grammar, voice, impact on reader, etc. It's inherently judgmental. But if you *start* in this judgmental mode, you get stuck.

So, don't put the cart before the horse. First, search & find. Second, throw words at screen as fast as you can. Lastly, tidy up.

In "Bird by Bird" by Anne Lamott, you'll find explicit permission to write crap. (In my workshops I delicately spell it in make-believe French -- crappe.) In writing, crap is good. It's fertilizer for the pretty flowers that come later.

Editors, build a powerful writer through self-restraint; don't track changes

Here’s another way to help a new writer grow without resorting to tracked changes. Try highlights.

On Oct. 8, I riffed about bad editors being bad for business. For the purposes of this blog, “bad editors” means “people who re-write the work of others.” Let me say it again: Re-writing is not editing.

Today, I’ll show you an example of a new employee’s work and what I said to influence her second draft. I didn’t touch a hair on her document’s head. She wrote every word of both versions herself.

From: Edwards, Lauren

Sent: Thursday, [Month XX], 2009 11:54 AM

To: [Name Removed – I’ll call her Sarah]

Subject: suggestions here FW: Draft Pitch on Acme SmartTech

Hi again, Sarah. If you have time before we meet, try restructuring this slightly so that the yellow is the first line of the pitch and the green comes soon after that, and then the blue. (See below.)

Also consider writing as if to a blogger. Did you take the class on writing for social media? Write to a person, not so much “about” something.

Talk to you later.

Lauren

The "after" version is concise, newsy & to the point

Here’s the first line of her original:

For years, families with autistic children lived with frustration, despair, and little chance of any substantial treatment.

Here’s the first line of her second (and much improved) draft:

Non-verbal autistic children no longer have to suffer in silence.

I like Draft 2 better because it’s shorter, shows a break in the normal flow of events (“news”), and gets right to the point without wasting words on setting up what she’ll say before she says it.

Here’s her second sentence:

Original: New technology from Acme is offering hope for these families and empowering autistic kids to communicate in ways once never thought possible.

You don’t care, right? I mean, you’d like to think you are a caring person and all, but really …do you care while reading that sentence? Her writing mechanics are fine, but this is not compelling.

Here’s her second draft’s second sentence: For the first time, they can tell their teachers, “My head hurts,” or communicate that they are hungry or tired, thanks to technology from Acme being used at the Ryde Technology School in San Francisco.

I’d include video links to the broadcast hits that resulted from this pitch, but in this blog I’m deliberately masking identities to preserve confidentiality. In these excerpts, I’ve changed the names of the city, school, client, technology and writer. I’ve also left out the exact date.

Aside: [I can't resist, however, sharing one line of a particular broadcast story about an autistic teen who had never been able to speak until he began using this new technology. He said, "I'm funny, but nobody knows it." He gave a wry smile. My heart broke open and I said, "Awww."

Can you imagine these kids going through life fluent and with things to say but unable to say them!! This is why I love my job. Our clients really do make the world a better place.]

"Sarah" is now powerful, successful & motivated

From my perspective as writing coach, the best outcome is not the hits. It’s that “Sarah” is now powerful. She’s stoked, successful and knows how to do better from the start next time. She feels ownership, pride and hope -- all of which are energizing and motivating.

If her work had been re-written, or if she’d been told to “make it more compelling” or some such vague advice, she’d be some combination of confused and demoralized, whether she fully realized it or not.

If you want to see the yellow, green and blue highlights referenced in my e-mail, here they are. You’ll see that she grasps the point of my highlights, but provides her own words, pacing and content decisions for the re-write.

Original w/ highlights (but not tracked changes!):

For years, families with autistic children lived with frustration, despair, and little chance of any substantial treatment. New technology from Acme is offering hope for these families and empowering autistic kids to communicate in ways once never thought possible.

The Ryde Technology School in San Francisco is now using the Acme SmartTech device with voice recording technology to make progress in teaching non-verbal autistic children to speak. By using the SmartTech, students who have never verbalized their thoughts are finally given a voice. For the first time, they can tell their parents “I love you” or communicate to their teachers that they are hungry or tired.

This is a testament to the amazing potential of technology to help people overcome special needs and improve lives. For years, Acme has been committed to developing products and services that are accessible to everyone, including people with disabilities and age-related impairments. …

It goes on, but that’s enough to show you what I mean about using highlights. Amazing what a great substitute they can be for tracked changes.

It’s also worth noting that her first version was an overly long 312 words; her second, 186 words. And I didn't even have to ask her to "be more concise," which is another thing bad editors often say. (If writers knew *how* to be concise, they already would have done that. Be more specific.)

Anyway, atta girl, “Sarah”!

Editors, try this yourself and please let me know how it goes.

How to Evaluate PR Writers -- Five Criteria

"Is So-and-So a good writer?"

Early on, my response to this question was a paragraph in an e-mail. But we eventually came up with a chart for evaluating everyone in the agency (director/VP and below) once a year as part of their annual review. Here it is below.

In this blog, it's a list. But in practice, it's an Excel spreadsheet with ratings on a horizontal axis: excellent, exceeds expectations, meets expectations, needs improvement. It's not a report card.

This is a business, not a school, so we don't grade on a curve or "reward" people with A's. The excellent category is reserved for "go to" people who are agency icons of that particular skill. The good place to be is "meets" and the good place to work toward is "exceeds."

Critical thinking trumps artistry

The most important category is "critical thinking." The least important is "artistry." In winning the attention of the traditional news media, truly useful insights written in crayon on the back of a crumpled napkin will always beat pretty words on pretty paper.

The chart originated from my sitting down with myself and asking, "What are the hoops that my thoughts jump through when I write these e-mails to executives? How am I assessing skill? What skills am I assessing?"

Having been a news reporter for 10 years, I had the news media part down pat. But I needed marketing insight, too. So I started the list, and agency executives added to it. What you see here is a consensus that I truly and proudly stand by, in every detail.

Emerged from downturn with profit & awards

Our CEO at the time, agency founder Bob Angus, made "writer profile charts" mandatory, and I literally shut down for business during the entire month of October so I could churn out a chart like this for nearly 50 people.

It was 2002, the dot-com bubble had burst and Bob had made an unusual decision. He allowed attrition but didn't lay anyone off; if account teams had extra time on their hands, they'd spend it in training. Our writer profile chart was integral to that process. We set standards, measured people, demanded improvement, and got it.

Thanks to Bob's counter-intuitive management style, we emerged from the economic downturn with profits and awards, even as our competitors lost half their staffs or went out of business.

Agency gained a forward-leaning ethic of improvement

After a few years of this, we reduced the number of people we evaluated. New employees or employees who needed attention were the only the ones who got them. Everyone else had clarity about their strengths and knew how to keep improving.

After a couple of years, people came to me for coaching in anticipation of having their chart done, and their first charts reflected progress from the get-go. That was the most fun.

An awesome benefit of this system was our new ability to pair people with complementary strengths. I told them, "You're good at this, and she's good at that, so when you find yourselves in disagreement, make sure you each win in the area of your strengths and acquiesce in the area of the other person's strengths."

This immediately produced high-quality work and the two people unofficially mentored each other. Organically, both became strong.

I suggest you find a writing guru in your office and ask this one person to assess staff on these criteria. Individual supervisors can't do it because they aren't necessarily good at this kind of thing -- that's why they ask me. Choosing just one person provides consistency.

In a "comments" section below the chart, I always copied examples of the writer's work and offered detailed "next steps" for improving.

In this list below, I've called out one item in blue type. It's the most common and most damaging problem among bad editors. I plan to go into more detail about it in an upcoming blog.

As a writing coach, of course, I continue to hate this question. I couldn't do my job well if I really thought there were only two kinds of writers: good and bad. To me, everyone is where they are, and my job is to help them move up.

Not what executives want to hear, I know. So here's the chart:

(1) Mechanics
-AP style
-Punctuation
-Grammar & usage
-Active voice

(2) Discipline
-Digs below surface for "meat," insights
-Terseness (no padding, brisk pace)
-Structure (gives order to chaos)
-Client-ready, carefully copyread

(3) Critical thinking
-Considers audience point of view
-Foresees audience reactions
-Drives clients' long-range objectives
-Balances media and client needs
-Asks, researches, finds what matters
-Offers context, perspective
-Sees new wrinkles in familiar situations
-Breaks rules effectively

(4) News judgment (See detail toward end of list)
-Satisfies journalistic definition of news
-Effectively uses "news elements"

(5) Artistry
-Flow
-Liveliness, flair, spark
-Engages as well as informs
-Advocacy, subtle “salesmanship”

News is…
(1) ... a break in the normal flow of events, an interruption in the expected.
and/or
(2) ... information people need to make sound decisions about their lives and businesses.

News elements: Change, timeliness, impact, names, numbers, nearness, unusualness, currency/topicality, life & death, health, human interest, conflict, biggest/smallest, animals, first/unique, sex, sports, weather, scandal, suspense, discovery, humor

For Senior Staff: Editing Skills
-Elevates messaging, objectives, strategy
-Checks/adjusts for correct emphasis
-Strengthens unity, coherence
-Troubleshoots as needed

-Refrains from arbitrary changes (ear, style)

-Avoids introducing new errors
-Cultivates writers' growth