Is this post headline making you irritant? If the answer is a resounding yes - that is what your press releases loaded with unnecessary and uncalled for jargon do to the media.
Its a different debate if the press releases of yore are dead and gone. Fact is, most of yet keep churning out one or two a week, sometimes for the sake of content, and many times for the sake of the client compulsion.
The mantra for a great press release is that it should communicate a unique angle to the media about the product or service, give a very different perspective on issues of importance, flag some concern in the industry - things which have not been said much about, or an angle that is seldom looked at.
The cardinal rule must be to make sure that you must NOT gobbledygook the release - well, to keep it simple, make the language simple, to the point and free of jargon.
If you did not know, a whole lot of those people in the media-room have kept spam alerts for press releases that may contain too much of jargon. Yes, its a fact, and you must know.
Courtesy of newsjacking pioneer David Meerman Scott, sampled below are some of the words which were widely used in the US way back in 2008 - surely, many of us use all this and even more even in circa 2013.
Pick up any of those press release which you mailed out last week, and read through now. How many of these words, or similar ones are there? Try and replace them wherever, and just knock some of them which may sound plain crap. Does it make sense?
No wonder, as all of the synonyms for gobbledygook mean something equal to bull****
No wonder, releases made with so much effort and mailed frantically end up where they should - the junk or spam box - not to be even clicked open once!!
So, no wrong in continuing to use the press release - just that keep them free of irritating jargon.
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