This document discusses writing for public relations. It covers key learning outcomes such as analyzing news and feature storytelling styles. It also discusses writing tactics for different intermediaries like news media, social media, and search engines. The document provides tips for writing in different styles for business writing and social media. It emphasizes the importance of expertise in writing and ethics for public relations.

1. Public Relations
Writing
Chapter 9

2. Key learning outcomes
• List five key purposes of good writing in public relations.
• Analyze news and feature styles of storytelling.
• Discuss the role of news media, social media, and search engines
as intermediaries between public relations writers and publics.
• Apply writing tactics for news media, social media, and search
engines.
• Compare and contrast styles for social media writing and business
writing.
• Explain how expertise in public relations writing relates to public
relations ethics.
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3. To click or not to click
Listicles & Clickbait
The term listicle is a
portmanteau word,
combining “list” and
“article.”
The debate over listicles
draws attention to the
challenges of public
relations writing in a digital
age.
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4. Five reasons to write well
in public relations
• Relationships
• Influence and persuasion
• Goals and objectives
• Reputation management
• Impression management
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5. Storytelling
• Writing compelling stories candidly and credibly is tricky in any
context, but doing so as part of a deliberate communication
strategy may be one of the toughest jobs in public relations.
• Writing trainer Ann Wylie advises public relations
professionals to drop the corporate “ ‘At XX, we . . . ’
construction.”
• Use more you’s and fewer we’s, which tell readers what’s in it for
them.
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6. Telling a story
Telling a story is one of the best ways to get attention and
engage others.
William Zinsser wrote:
“It’s such a simple solution, so obvious and
unsophisticated, that we often forget it’s available to us.”
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7. Case Study
Telling the NCAA’s story—
one athlete at a time.
Excellence in social media requires good
storytelling—understanding your
organization’s stories and why those
stories matter to your publics.
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8. Features
Feature stories like those published in NCAA’s Champion have long
been a primary tactic in public relations writing.
Features provide deeper focus on the following:
• an event
• a person’s life
• an organization
• a place
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9. Case Study
Godzilla earns citizenship;
Shinjuku earns publicity
• The delayed lead is common in feature writing.
• The first sentence’s job in a story like this is to make
the reader want to read the second sentence.
• Then, every sentence should do the same, “each
tugging the reader along until he is hooked,”
according to Zinsser.
• Transmedia storytelling is an important context for
public relations writing.
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10. A multimedia approach
Meta Carstarphen and Richard Wells list the following as feature
types that public relations writers may produce:
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 How-to features
 Personal profiles
 First-person accounts
 Opinion and editorial
 Humor or satire
 Historical writing
 Round-up stories with
perspectives from multiple
sources
 Photo essays
 Stories about products or
services
 Trend articles

11. News
A feature writer may delay the most important points while
appealing to human interest and emotion.
Straight news stories get right to the business of reporting the
news with a direct lead. Even if readers never read past the first
paragraph, they can get the gist of the content from direct leads,
including who, what, when, where, and why.
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12. Direct lead
This news style of writing is often
called the inverted pyramid.
All of the most important
information in the story is
presented at the broad top of the
story.
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13. News features
As with features, sometimes the public relations person’s role in
telling news stories resides in the following:
• Researching background
• Setting up the press conference or interview
• Compiling the fact sheet
• Drafting the entire news story with a direct lead and supporting
details
In media relations, your job is to help others tell your
organization’s story (or your organization’s side of the story) in
their outlets.
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14. Writing for intermediaries
Public relations writers can earn attention online beyond their
direct networks through three main intermediaries:
• Traditional news media gatekeepers (i.e., earned
media)
• Social media (i.e., shared media)
• Search engines
The three overlap considerably, but public relations writers
must use different writing strategies and tactics for success
in each.
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15. Writing for news media
• News releases: news stories, written in news style, by a public
relations practitioner writing on behalf of an organization or client
• Video news releases (VNRs)
• Social media releases (SMRs)
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16. Key characteristics
In addition to newsworthiness, format is important in a PR news
release.
• Start with a good headline and dateline.
• Use inverted pyramid style.
• Include important factual information that journalists
need to support the main points of their story.
• Write in AP style.
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17. Writing for news media
• Fact sheets: factual information about an organization or its
events, people, products, or services
• They can accompany news releases or be presented on their
own.
• They may be presented as frequently asked questions (FAQs), advice
sheets, infographics, or even listicles.
• Backgrounders: stories behind the straight news stories
• Bios: a biographical profile, or bio; essentially a backgrounder for
a person
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18. Writing for social media
Tips for successful corporate blogging:
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1. Establish a content theme and
editorial guidelines.
2. Choose a blogging team and
process.
3. Humanize your company.
4. Avoid PR and marketing.
5. Welcome criticism.
6. Outline a comments policy.
7. Get social.
8. Promote your blog.
9. Monitor mentions and feedback.
10. Track everything.

19. Writing for search engines
• Keywords
• Headlines, page titles, and descriptions
• Meta tags and URLs
• Links
• Anchor texts
• Back links
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To get their stories out via news media, PR writers must
understand newsworthiness and newswriting conventions.
Robots may look for the following:

20. Business writing
• Being able to code switch from the syntax of text messaging
and Instagram to the formalities of an interoffice email or
client status report is a critical career skill.
• Write for clarity.
• Be concise.
• Remember your
reader.
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21. Ethics
Expertiseand writing
for mutual understanding
• Public relations writing, in particular, depends on expertise in
fostering mutual understanding.
• Media ethics scholars Jay Black and Chris Roberts note that almost
every major world religion, political culture, and philosophical
system includes some version of the ethic of reciprocity, or the
golden rule.
• In public relations, you have an ethical responsibility to work hard
to understand publics.
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22. Case Study
Words matter:
A strange choice for an agency name
Even a single word or phrase needs to be as carefully conceived as
any you may ever write.
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23. Summary
• List five key purposes of good writing in public relations.
• Analyze news and feature styles of storytelling.
• Discuss the role of news media, social media, and search engines
as intermediaries between public relations writers and publics.
• Apply writing tactics for news media, social media, and search
engines.
• Compare and contrast styles for social media writing and business
writing.
• Explain how expertise in public relations writing relates to public
relations ethics.
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OxfordUniversityPress
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