How do you get ink, online or traditional, on your corporate news? Dave Lieber, columnist for the Fort Worth Star Telegram, says, “make sure it’s a good story”.
Press Release writing 101 teaches us to write about the who, where, why and what of a story. Make sure your news also includes all the elements for a good short story, Mr. Lieber promotes.
Dave Lieber was our guest speaker at the Dallas/Ft. Worth Search Engine Marketing Association last night. He was certainly one of the more engaging speakers we have had over the last year; scoring high in both content and delivery.
With 30 years of experience in newspapers, Dave is a self-proclaimed member of the old school of traditional journalism, a proponent of good old fashion stair climbing to get a story. Mr. Lieber is also a pioneering adopter of online technology dating back to the early days of the Web. This gives him a relatively unique prospective on the newspaper journalism state-of-the-art.
Through all the changes in news distribution from the Gutenburg press to RSS feeds one thing has remained constant, the human heart. Write to tug at the heart and you greatly increase the chance of getting ink.
From Shakespeare to Sienfield the process of spinning a good story has been honed to a fine art, yet the basics boil down to what we learned in 11th grade English, “Stories have a beginning, middle and an end. Conflict, climax and resolution. A protagonist and antagonist.” shares Dave.
Most press releases are written from the company’s point of view. Yet like all media, online or traditional, the key is to be customer centric. Write around the interest of your readers by making a good hero with a good story. Get you message across with tales of a hero everybody can cheer for.
In addition to his column for the Fort Worth Star Telegram, Dave speaks regularly to organizations and charity groups for free. For more information visit Dave Lieber’s Bio.
. We will get them next year.
