PR: The Good, The Bad, and the just plain irrelevant

The first example of good PR I found was a piece done about Georgia-Pacific joining an environmental web site (http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/georgia-pacific-joins-mother-nature-network-to-tell-its-sustainability-story-83340692.html). I found the piece to be effective simply from the opening line which talks about the long-running company moving to a more online presence. The release was written well enough that I wanted to continue reading to see why Georgia-Pacific was getting involved with the environmental web site.

I found an example of exceedingly bad PR (http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/over-200-business-leaders-from-20-targeted-states-come-to-dc-to-participate-in-business-advocacy-day-for-jobs-climate-and-new-energy-leadership-on-capitol-hill-on-february-2nd-and-3rd-83343157.html) that almost prevented me from reading it just from the headline on it. Also, the first paragraph of the release was an exceedingly dense block of text that had too much information related to different topics, all in one place.

The next piece of PR that I found that I thought was effective (http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/parkmobile-usa-inc-introduces-pay-by-phone-parking-in-atlanta-83351732.html) once again began the press release with a very interesting, simple sentence that grabbed my attention. The press release itself dealt with the idea of being able to pay for parking using your cell phone, which is an interesting idea on its own, but the person who wrote the release did an excellent job of hooking me with the very first line of the release.

Finally, the last piece of PR that I found to be ineffective (http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/health-latest-news/statement-from-the-american-health-care-association-and-national-center-for-assisted-living-in-anticipation-of-president-obamas-state-of-the-union-address-82715222.html) had similar problems as the first poorly written piece of PR that I found. The beginning of the release throws a lot of information at you that isn't that accessible to people who aren't familiar with the topic. Also, the title of the press release is ridiculously long and if I saw the press release as a journalist, I would most likely throw it away after just glancing at the title.