The average adult Internet user claims to spend over 20 hours online per week – 20 hours! So it’s no secret that online content is more important than ever for both business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-consumer (B2C) companies. But just because everyone spends half their workweek on the Internet doesn’t mean they’re all reading the same…
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Borat and The Goodness of Bad Press
‘All PR is good PR’ is a widely touted maxim – which includes negative publicity. However, it may not always feel that way in the heat of the moment. What’s the truth in that statement? According to the recently published book called “Contagious: Why Things Catch On,” by Prof. Jonah Berger of Wharton Business School,…
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How to Write More Effective Emails — Part II: Main Content
In my last blog post I shared some tips learned during a recent presentation by Liz Danziger of Worktalk, who spoke about best practices when using email for business communications. Part I focused on how to create more compelling email subject lines. Today, in Part II, I’ll discuss how to create more effective content in…
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The Power of Branding at Xerox
Engineers and branding often times don’t mix well. The value of branding activity is not always apparent and not easily measured. When compared to spending money on a workstation, it can be hard to justify the cost of a brand-building project. But listening to Ursula Burns, CEO and Chairman of Xerox – herself an engineer…
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Tips on How to Write More Effective Emails — Part I: Email Subject Lines
I recently attended an event with a presentation by Liz Danziger of Worktalk. She spoke about best practices when using email for business communications. Liz provided some terrific guidelines on how to use email more effectively that I’d like to share with you in a series of blogs. I’ll start today by focusing on how to…
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Even Professional Writers Can Use a Refresher on Good Writing
One of my clients, Exec-Comm, a business communication skills consulting firm, recently hosted its Action Writing public program and invited me to join as a participant. The program is designed to help business people write better to achieve action from readers. As someone who has worked in PR for the past five years, I consider…
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What We’re Reading: The Science of Storytelling
A semi-regular update of our staff meeting discussions of articles on the state of the art in using PR and social media to connect with audiences. This week: The Science of Storytelling: Why Telling a Story is the Most Powerful Way to Activate Our Brains by Leo Widrich on lifehacker.com. Take away: Storytelling is emerging…
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Are You an Annoying, Pretentious and Useless Business Jargon User?
I ran across Forbes’ The Most Annoying, Pretentious and Useless Business Jargon the other day and I’m embarrassed to say I am uncomfortably familiar with quite a few of the top 45 items listed. In my defense, I never use jargon in written content meant for public consumption, and several of the worst offenders are…
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