It’s the Headline Stupid…or How I Learned to Stop Pontificating and Love Twitter

Posted by Jennifer on July 27, 2009

Mashable recently covered Muck Rack, a company that charges by the word to tweet releases to journalists on Twitter. The story and concept elicited plenty of negative responses from PR and journalists alike - from indignation to charges of ripping off another business entirely.

From a PR perspective the responses missed the point entirely. Twitter is all headlines and any good tweeter will tell you, 140 characters doesn’t leave much room for verbosity on the brilliance of a new hire. Write a good headline and they will come. Even better, write a brilliant headline and they will share.

Does your release pass the Twitter test? Is your news interesting, clear, compelling in 140 characters? If not, perhaps you don’t know what your point is or, better do you need that release at all?

If you need inspiration just grab a few copies of the NY Post or Variety.

Your job is to make the reader WANT to know your news.