There are thousands of different PR blogs that talk about anything and everything, but when looking up other PR blogs for inspiration I saw a lot of things that should be avoided. Here we will go over the top 5 things that should be avoided when writing a PR blog.

  1. Selecting Topics That Everyone Else Is Writing About

I know about the Royal Engagement, the Victoria Secret Fashion Show, or the fact that Kinder Eggs are actually coming back to the USA. I basically live under a rock, all my friends joke about how I am always the last one to know something. My point being that if even I know about it then that means everyone else knows about it because the PR world is already jumping all over it. Use this to your advantage by being creative and coming up with something that will be a breath of fresh air to people looking for something ‘different’ to read.

     2. Using Pictures That Every Other Blogger Or Magazine Has/Is Using

Not only should you avoid writing about the same topics, but another thing to avoid is using the same pictures that everyone else is using. After a while the grab affect they have on the audience starts to gradually wear off. A blog has about 8 seconds to grab and keep the attention of the reader or else they’re off to the next thing that catches their eye. Grab their attention and make them stay by using unique pictures to stand out against their roaming eye. People are going to look at pictures over reading headlines to see what catches their attention, so if they keep seeing the same few pictures repeatedly then the reader is just going to continue to skip down till they find something new and fresh. Have that picture that makes you stand out amongst the crowd with a headline that continues to keep their attention.

     3. Overwriting – Be Direct & To The Point

Again people nowadays have short attention spans, so make sure in your writing that you get directly to the point. Nobody wants to read something that they think is wordy or like the author is overcompensating with their vocabulary for a poor topic.

Write like you speak. This way the audience can build a connection to you and what you are writing about.

    4. Being Scared To Go Against The Crowd Or Popular Opinion

Don’t be afraid that if you write something that nobody else is talking about or is the unpopular opinion that your blog won’t have any success. More than likely, the result will be the complete opposite. People want to read something new, they want to be what they think is ‘ahead of the game’ or to see what else is going on in the world outside the few limited things that have been talked about over and over again. Also in this day and age with the politics especially in the USA, people want to read what both sides have to say about issues and to see where people are coming from. They’re not always going to agree with you, but at least you’re getting your blog out there and will cause a stir to get people talking.

5. Discussing Broad Topics

Broad topics are so easy to write because you can literally talk about anything in the world. However, being able to talk about anything in the world can definitely have huge negative affects. It’s so easy to be on a role and start to get distracted within your topic because you can take it in so many different ways. If you don’t brainstorm and really map out your topic, to have your writing go all over this place which will make it hard for the reader to follow to try to understand where you are coming from. Take a broad topic, but when you’re brainstorming, map out exactly where you are going to take your blog so that way you or the reader won’t get lost in it.

 

Emily Williard is an exchange student at Ulster University, as part of her degree in Public Relations at Appalachian State University in the US. She can be contacted on Instagram at emilee_5 or LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/emily-williard-0196a4151.