Public Relations & Social Marketing Insight

Your headlines suck. Here are a few ways to keep your headlines fresh and compelling, and to catch your readers' attention. And none of them involve SEO and Google bots.

Sometimes it’s just better to get back to the basics and do headlines the way journalists are taught. I don’t mean the Buzzfeed-style headlines either — “The Five Absolute Worst Headlines of 2013,” “You Won’t Believe What These Journalists Are Wearing,” “Seven Lies We Tell Our Parents About Being Buzzfeed Headline Writers.” I mean informative, interesting headlines that make people want to read your articles and posts....

Few things will cause consumers to click the back button on a website faster than bad copywriting. Long-winded history and purpose statements, bland paragraphs on product description, and boring lists of statistics are just some of the culprits that fail to inspire interest in potential customers and clients.

The good news is that there is a slew of sites out there that know exactly how to draw attention from the customer’s first glimpse of their home page. They know that people who visit their sites want to see engaging, creative language. They know that customers want to see their comments and suggestions taken to heart in a personable way. Companies who struggle with web copy can learn a lot from these geniuses of copywriting. Here are seven companies who win customers’ hearts and business through clever web copy....

Inspired by Twitter's character-limited posts, students practice writing concisely.

Overview | How can online media like Twitter posts, Facebook status updates and text messages be harnessed to inspire and guide concise writing? In this lesson, students read, respond to and write brief fiction and nonfiction stories, and reflect on the benefits and drawbacks of “writing short.”

Materials | Slips of paper with brief stories (see below; one per student), computers with Internet access...

No matter what kind of a website you have, the one thing that is always true is that your headlines are really important. Headlines affect things like user engagement, readability, conversions, SEO, social sharing, and even click-throughs.

80% of people will read a headline, but only 20% of people will read the article. Whether or not you snag that extra 80% depends on the magnetism of your headline.A really good headline can spike your traffic by 500%....

Be quotable. Make your point. It’s kind of like a tag line. Sum it up in eight words or less.

Sound bites have typically been associated with political speeches and the subsequent ‘confusion’ (allegedly) created by reporters who have irresponsibly taken things out of context

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A sound bite or quote is the short tight combination of words that hits your message home....

Today, we depend on sound bites because of the dwindling attention span of our society. Too often, 140 characters are too many.

Below are five ways to recognize valuable snippets and sound bites so your communication pops:...