On Thursday, the humor-parody site the Onion posted this status update on Facebook: BREAKING: Witnesses reporting screams and gunfire heard inside Capitol building And then it didn’t post anything for 10 minutes—an eternity in cyberspace after posting a headline like that. If you headed to the Onion’s website, you saw a story about a dozen
Category: Content
What can your company learn from Osama bin Laden’s death?
Regardless of how you feel about the death of Osama bin Laden earlier this month, there’s no denying that it’s the single largest news story to ever hit in the age of 24-hour cable news and social media. It may sound like an odd question, but what impact does bin Laden’s death have on how
The Perils of Self-Serving Content
Trade Press Services (TPS) recently worked with a technology client who appeared to be the only provider in the marketplace. This created a professional dilemma. When writing for business publications, our mandate is to provide educational content that will help readers solve problems or perform better on their jobs. It is not to unabashedly promote
Does the Five-Sentence E-mail Work?
Lynn Gaertner-Johnston recently posted in her Business Writing blog the following question: Does the five-sentence e-mail work? She says that a participant in a business writing program told her that he never produced e-mails longer than the magic five sentence length. To me, this sounds like Twitter, text messaging or other abbreviated, modern forms of
Five lessons from the 2010 election season
Election day is almost here, and it can’t come soon enough, can it? Democrat, Republican, independent, Whig, Tory…whatever your political preference, we’ve been bombarded by political ads on radio, TV and in print that are only slightly less annoying than they are insulting. [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lEINBjHHvHE[/youtube] What are the lessons to be learned for communicators, whether you’re
Civil Lawsuits: Newspapers’ New Revenue Stream?
A recent article in Wired magazine describes a new revenue source for at least one newspaper—legal settlements and court-awarded fines levied against websites that use copyrighted news stories illegally. The article describes how Steve Gibson, founder of Las Vegas-based “Righthaven,” is going after websites that have allegedly stolen content from his first and only client
National media companies get local
A recent posting by Mitch Winkel on the eMarketer blog discusses a new media trend: going “hyper-local” in an attempt to lure in consumers who have abandoned the traditional newspaper as a source for local news. Hyper-local news is content that covers a very specific, finite geographic area, often a single community or even a
Using humor in business communications
Why use humor in business communications? Done correctly, humor can add personality and life to an otherwise dull or routine project. Anecdotes, humorous quotations or clever observations can help to win over a reader and make them more receptive to your message. In fact, many business books contain cartoons scattered throughout them designed to reinforce
Add Video to Your Tool Belt
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xF5cDusxRlQ[/youtube]
What is good writing?
How do you know if you’re a good writer or if what you’re reading represents good writing? Most people believe that good writing is subjective. They think it is an art, not a science, which is to say that it’s imprecise, follows loose guidelines and is open to interpretation. This approach is in direct contrast
Avoiding Clichés Like the Plague
William Safire once said, “Avoid clichés like the plague.” That’s humorous yet sound advice, presuming one knows the definition of clichés. According to Weber State University, they are “old coins of language: phrases that once made a striking impression but have since been rubbed smooth by repeated handling.” There are several types of clichés, which
Advertorial content: The Frankenstein of print media
You may know what “editorial” means (that’s on the opinion page in the newspaper, right?), and you probably know what advertising is (the annoying stuff that interrupts my TV show!) But what the heck is “advertorial”? And why do you care? Advertorial content is the Frankenstein monster of journalism. Part news, part opinion, and part
