Lisa Buyer: Top Writing Secrets for Public Relations

What are the important aspects of writing for PR? How can you get reach and exposure for your article? What are PR professionals’ biggest writing pet peeves? If you’re new to the PR world or want to improve your writing, this is the podcast episode for you! In this episode of the Social PR Secrets Podcast, host Lisa Buyer discusses all things writing! From SEO to headlines, Lisa shares her tips and tricks on how to be a better writer. Lisa is the founder and CEO of The Buyer Group, where she develops Public Relations strategies for her clients. She is also the editor of Social PR Chat, your one-stop-shop to learn everything there is to know about PR. Additionally, Lisa is the author of Social PR Secrets and a professor at the University of Florida.  It’s All About the Headline How many times have you clicked on an article because the headline intrigued you? Probably multiple times a day. Your headline is what is going to grab your audience’s attention. It should be enticing, not dry. Lisa Buyer recommends you add topical, descriptive, and emotional words to it. Her PR Secret? Use the CoSchedule headline analyzer. Type in your potential headlines and pick the one with the highest score! Another way to write better headlines is to get inspiration from other publications. She suggests NewsWeek, the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, and The New York Times. Lisa on Writing for SEO Search Engine Optimization is a big part of social PR. The best way to learn about it is to buy an SEO plug-in. Lisa’s favorite is Yoast SEO Premium. It gives you a readability score and judges how well your article will do in search engines. The website is also full of educational articles to help you understand SEO better. Lisa Buyer explains that when articles show up on google, it is their meta-title and meta-descriptions that actually pop up from the search, not the actual headline. When you think about meta, you need to understand you’re writing for marketing.  Keep Your Audience Engaged With so many people consuming media on their phones, it’s easy to lose readers. To avoid that, Lisa emphasizes the importance of a good headline. She also advises dividing your article into paragraphs broken up with subheadings. Sentences and paragraphs should be short. Lisa Buyer encourages keeping paragraphs between 150 and 200 words. She also likes using bullets to make everything simpler and clearer. Lastly, try to stick to easy language. If the words or sentence structures are too complicated, you risk losing people. Lisa's Biggest Pet Peeves