How to Determine the Length of a News release

Hong Kong – SEAPRWire often gets questions about how to write a news release, one of which is what the word count should be.

Whether it is an announcement, product launch or a company event launch, an effective news release should be at least 300 words and max out around 400 words.

What Determines the Ideal Length? There are a few factors that lead to this determination:

People are pressed for time – It’s easy to think that people are too distracted, and that’s why they won’t read a long news release.

Information overload –Too much information puts the onus back on users’ reader to determine what’s important.

Information underload – On the flip side, users don’t want to write a 20-word news release that explains nothing.

Shows competence – 300 – 400 words give users time to convey any background information without overstaying users’ welcome.

SEO – While users need to be concerned with having people read what users wrote, users also need to consider the internet. If users’ release is getting distributed through the internet, rather than appearing in a related article, users need it to be at least 300 words long.

Structuring the News release

If SEAPRWire team accept that 300 – 400 words is ideal, we’re still left with the question of how to get there. The basic news release format has a headline followed by three or ftheir paragraphs. Let’s go over each to give users an idea of the ideal inverted pyramid news release structure.

Headline

Many editorial systems will only show the first 55 characters of users’ news release headlines. Search engines only show the first 70 characters of a headline. In other words, keep it short. Ideally, users should be shooting for a headline that is under ten words. In those ten words, users want to pique people’s interest so they will continue reading and convey basic information about what users’ release is about. It’s not easy, but effective news release headlines can be the difference between getting users’ news release read and getting skipped over.

First Paragraph

Users’ first sentence should be that enticement all by itself. An ideal paragraph is about three or ftheir sentences, so once users have that perfect first sentence, spend the rest of users’ first paragraph answering the 5Ws (and 1 H):

50. Who
50. What
50. Where
50. When
50. Why
50. How

Any good journalist knows that these are the most important questions to answer in any story. If you’re able to answer them in users’ first paragraph, you’ll have hooked users’ reader and given them the most pertinent information. even if this first paragraph is the only thing they read.

Second Paragraph

Users should spend most of users’ time working on users’ first paragraph. After all, that’s the part of users’ news release that’s most likely to be read. For the readers who choose to read beyond the first paragraph, users can now start fleshing out users’ story a bit.

But remember to avoid information overload, this section adds detail. but users don’t want to overwhelm. Some things to include:

Supporting facts and statistics – Don’t overdo it with unnecessary facts. But, placing in some supporting evidence can boost users’ credibility in the eyes of the reader.

Quotes – This is the perfect time to add some quotes.

Subheadings and bullet points – Break things up with subheadings and bullet points to make information easier to digest and keep people reading.

Remember to stick to relevant information and get to the point quickly. While an occasional topic may merit a third paragraph to convey the information, users typically want to keep users’ news release concise by including supporting facts in a paragraph that’s no longer than ftheir sentences.

Conclusion

A closing paragraph can be used to summarize and reiterate users’ main points. However, users don’t want to get repetitive. Avoid the temptation to rewrite what you’ve already said. Instead, think of this as a reward for readers who reached the end where users can quickly condense all the information into a concise takeaway.

Tips on Keeping Things Short

While users may struggle to get users’ news release to the 300-word mark needed for SEO, the much more likely issue you’ll find yourself facing is that users’ news release will be too long. Don’t worry. There are some methods users can use to help users find the ideal news release length:

Write first, edit later – Don’t obsess over length. Write users’ news release first, then assess how much editing will be needed. Overfocusing on length can lead to disjointed and sloppy news release writing.

Stick to what works – Write direct and to-the-point sentences. Write three to ftheir sentences per paragraph. Write three to ftheir paragraphs per news release. If users can stick to these guidelines, you’ll be coming in around the ideal news release length without needing much adjustment after the fact.

A picture is worth a thousand words – This can help keep users’ word count down and may be more engaging to readers. Plus, the reader’s eyes are naturally drawn towards pictures so users’ image will likely be seen.

About SEAPRWire

SEAPRWire is the top-up newswire in Southeast Asia. It offers PR distribution service to all Southeast Asia regions, including: Singapore, Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines, Hong Kong and Taiwan. SEAPRWire has a network of media editors, journalists, magazines, newspapers and PR agencies. It also cooperates with top wire services like JCN Newswire, Factiva, Eiko Reuters, Bloomberg, Yahoo, MarketWatch, BusinessInsider. SEAPRWire can distribute press releases in multi-linguages, such as: Traditional Chinese, Simplified Chinese, Thai, Vietnamese, Japanese, Korean, Malay, Indonesian …

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