by Jim Sweeney | May 14, 2025 | Blog
The first blog was created in 1994 by a Swarthmore College student who posted his own writing as well as links to websites he liked and thought his readers would enjoy.
Incredibly, that formula still holds up after more than 30 years of the internet. What other aspect of the online world can that be said about? Of course, a lot has changed about blogging (SEO, the addition of video and audio, different platforms, AI), but the objective of expressing your thoughts and sharing interesting things remains fundamental to successful blogging.
That’s true for businesses that blog as well as college students. Blogs have been around so long that they can be viewed as internet relics, like MySpace and Napster, but there is a reason they persist. They’re effective – as long as they’re done right.
There is some interesting research on the tactics of blogging: how to use SEO, how long to write, formats, how frequently to publish, even when to publish. Here’s an earlier Amendola post with some interesting research about blogs. That is helpful for the experienced blogger who wants to become expert, but I find the rules for a successful corporate blog are similar to those for being a good guest at a party:
Have something to say
Corporate blogs that simply recycle company press releases and other internal announcements are dull, like party guests who can’t carry on a conversation. No one, least of all a client or customer, feels obligated to read a dull blog. The content should be either interesting, educational, entertaining or some combination of the above.
It’s not about you
The first rule of successful socializing is expressing an interest in others (even if it’s feigned). The party guest who talks only about himself is a boor. It’s the same for companies that blog only about themselves. No one – not even their employees – is that interested in them. Blogs should take a more expansive view of the universe. I don’t mean medical device companies should be commenting on sports and Oscar nominations necessarily, but dealing with tangential topics add variety, demonstrate a wider world view and make it easier to draw in readers.
While there is no exact formula, a good rule of thumb is roughly a 50/50 mix between company content and other material.
Mingle with others
Blogging alone in your corner of the internet while ignoring all the other content out there is like refusing to interact with other party guests.
Acknowledging and making use of other companies’ relevant content is a great way to gain an audience and show off your insights.
This doesn’t mean promoting the competition, just recognizing that you don’t have a monopoly on interesting things to say. If a media outlet writes a compelling article about your industry, you can link to it and offer your thoughts. You can even invite guest bloggers. It’s a great way to build an audience.
Don’t overstay your welcome
No one likes a guest who shows up early, insists on being the center of attention at all times and lingers after the hosts have started cleaning up. In other words, don’t blog too often. It’s only large B2C brands that might need to be out with new material every day. For B2B brands, once or twice a week is fine. That also makes it less likely that you’ll have to post weak content. Just like at a party, you want to leave them wanting more.
There is nothing sadder than hosting a party which no one attends. It’s the same with writing blogs that no one reads. If you’re going to go to the effort of creating and maintaining a blog, be sure to follow the rules for making it interesting. Otherwise, you’ll be eating the cake all by yourself.
by Jim Sweeney | Dec 18, 2024 | Blog
In the days following the Nov. 5 election, former X users flocked to the new social media platform Bluesky. Their descriptions upon arrival made them sound like refugees who’d fled a war-torn country and found sanctuary.
Bluesky, they said, is everything Twitter used to be before Elon Musk changed it to X and turned it into a platform for right-wing disinformation. Bluesky, they rhapsodized, is safe, informative, educational and, well, nice.
The internet could certainly use more niceness, but is Bluesky a place for brands? It depends.
Certainly not if their intent is to advertise because Bluesky does not accept ads and its owners say they intend to keep it that way. Of course, that was Reddit’s policy once, too. According to the company, it plans to charge fees for users who create custom domains on the site and will eventually sell subscriptions for higher-quality video uploads or profile customizations like colors and avatar frames.
But it’s hard to just ignore Bluesky. Its growth has been phenomenal. Since opening to the public in February, it has grown to over 25 million users. Post-election, it has been attracting nearly 1 million new users a day. It has been the most downloaded free app. Naturally, those numbers have drawn the attention of brands.
Its vigorous policing of content and blocking of racist, hateful and offensive material also makes it attractive to brands. Of course, that degree of control will become harder to achieve as the number of users rises.
Some brands (Duolingo, Hulu, Netflix) are posting organically while others like Red Bull and Xbox seem to have secured handles, but haven’t begun posting. Bluesky does not yet have a verification process, so trolls also are snatching up some brand handles, which is an argument for consumer-facing brands to, at minimum, control their names. For now, though, the platform is mostly user-generated content.
Besides the advertising ban, brands face another challenge on Bluesky. The platform lets users design and control their own feeds, which means they can filter out anything they don’t want to see. For users, it means a cleaner experience; for brands, it means fewer eyeballs. They will have to work to earn engagement with users who might not welcome their presence on the platform.
Politics aside, Bluesky differs from rivals X, Threads and Mastodon in another significant way. It’s an open platform with an API that is accessible to developers, which means any decent programmer can use the same architecture to build new interconnected sites, across which they can share content.
There is also a possibility that Bluesky becomes a de facto platform for liberals and progressives while X continues its conservative MAGA trend under Trump buddy Musk. If that happens, brands and thought leaders would have to decide whether it’s the audience they want to reach and whether joining Bluesky would tag them as progressive, which could cause a backlash (see Bud Light).
Brands and thought leaders that left X over unhappiness with its new direction and objectionable content shouldn’t feel compelled to join Bluesky right away. They can rely on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and, of course, LinkedIn for messaging (see some best practice tips here.) Exceptions might be those who want specifically to reach a progressive audience or to signal their displeasure with the direction of X.
Marketers should, however, keep an eye on Bluesky to see if it continues its growth and makes any changes to be more accommodating to brands.
Below is a quick rundown of some Bluesky features. Keep in mind that the platform is still evolving, and these can change:
- Text posts have a 300-character limit.
- Users can self-label their posts, especially those containing sensitive content.
- “Starter Packs” are curated collections of accounts designed to help users find others with similar interests. One click allows users to follow or block all accounts within the pack.
- Users can customize their feed and viewing preferences.
- It includes an in-app music and video player.
- Bluesky offers custom domains, allowing users to personalize their handles with their domain names.
by Jim Sweeney | Aug 21, 2024 | Blog
I love the NFL draft, and not just because I’m a Cleveland Browns fan for whom the draft offers an annual opportunity to indulge in wishful thinking about next season.
I love the draft because it’s when sportswriters and analysts strain to produce synonyms for words like big, tall, fast, strong, quick, smart and aggressive. And they struggle to find alternative ways to say, “He’s a good blocker” or “He runs precise routes.”
That’s how you get player descriptions like, “positional versatility,” “rare length,” “jitterbug quicks,” “bendy,” “piano feet,” “excellent physicality,” “excels in space,” and “bounding lateral burst.” And those are just from one website.
But my favorite player description from recent draft coverage has to be: “He possesses great length in his arms.”
Think about that sentence for a moment. You know the writer initially thought, “What can I say about this player? Well, he’s got long arms, that’s for sure.” I like to think the writer even typed the sentence, “He has long arms.” But then he fell victim to a common fear among writers (not just sportswriters) and replaced it with that truly awful bit of writing: “He possesses great length in his arms.” The name of that phobia? Fear of a Simple Sentence.
Fear of a Simple Sentence (FOSS) whispers in writers’ ears that short, simple, easy-to-understand sentences will cause readers to think they’re unimaginative hacks incapable of writing sentences with multiple clauses and hard-to-understand terms. It’s the writerly compulsion to be creative when all that’s needed is to be clear.
Consider this example from an NFL draft site: “A hallmark of his game, the palpable explosiveness, permeates through his every move, asserting dominance in gap penetration and providing a perpetual disruptive presence.” Sounds like a paean to one of the lesser Nordic gods.
FOSS is the irresistible urge to embellish, to turn nouns into verbs and adjectives into nouns. It’s the impulse to forgo the clear and obvious in favor of the murky and imprecise. And it results in bad, hard-to-understand writing. It also can produce zombie sentences, which I explore in another blog post.
Here’s an example from the business world, a press release announcing a new hire: “In her new role, Judy will be responsible for connecting consumer insights with brand needs with the right product solution to optimize value of Return on Experience back to clients.”
Anyone know what Judy is going to do? It’s a fair bet even Judy doesn’t know.
This isn’t to say every sentence needs to be simple in the vein of “See Jane. See Jane run.” That would be repetitive and boring. In the hands of a good writer, long, complex sentences and similes and metaphors can be glorious. Just read some non-fiction by Tom Wolfe or Gay Talese. But they were masters, and they knew when to ramble for effect. They also used plenty of simple sentences to set up the complicated ones.
Like sports writing, business writing seldom demands long, complex sentences. Even when the subjects are complicated, the sentences should be direct, straightforward and, above all, clear and free of unnecessary jargon. There’s no need to invent new ways to describe commonly understood things; you’re not a poet.
Keeping it simple means your message will be better understood and your busy readers will be grateful for not having to decipher your writing. One good way to avoid overly complex sentences is to read them out loud. If they sound ridiculous or incomprehensible when spoken, they should be rewritten.
Like most phobias, Fear of a Simple Sentence is curable. It just takes practice and determination. So, the next time you want to point out that a lineman has long arms, just say so.
by Jim Sweeney | Jul 10, 2024 | Blog
Hey, want to hear an announcement from my company?
Or,
Hey, want to hear a story?
Which got your attention?
If you’re human, it was probably the latter.
We are hardwired to listen to and learn from stories. From the earliest days of painting on cave walls through Aesop’s Fables and TEDx Talks, stories have proven themselves to be the best way to convey information to an audience. Even business information. Write a memo reminding people to always file their TPS reports with a cover sheet and they’ll ignore it. Tell them a story about the coworker who got fired for forgetting the cover sheet and they’ll remember.
But we largely abandon the power of narrative when it comes to press releases, which tend to be dry recitations of facts fleshed out with manufactured quotes and a corporate boilerplate.
For years the standard thinking on press releases has been to cram as much of the important information as possible up top on the theory that journalists won’t read past the headline and opening paragraph. There is merit to this approach if you’re announcing something truly significant or newsworthy, like a corporate merger or a new iPhone.
But, if we’re being honest, that’s the minority of releases. In most cases, the news isn’t a big enough deal to sell itself. So we, as PR practitioners, need to sell it. And stories are the best way to do it. A compelling story wrapped around a somewhat-less compelling piece of news can make an irresistible package.
Here’s an example: A chemical company wanted to announce a new polymer that would be used to line the surfaces of artificial joints. That could have been a straightforward product announcement, but I wanted to humanize the impact of the product, so I focused on the recipients of the artificial knees and hips, not the polymer itself.
I found Senior Olympics basketball players, each of whom had at least one artificial joint, and shot a video of them playing and talking about how grateful they were for the technology that let them hoop it up into their 80s. It was a step or two removed from the actual product, but it brought home the idea that this polymer had real benefits for people.
For the most part, Amendola clients are B2B and work in healthcare IT, which doesn’t easily lend itself to narrative. However, like with the above example, it’s often possible to bring it to the level of the patients and users of the technology. What does new perioperative scheduling software accomplish? Fewer delays and cancellations in scheduling surgeries, which is good for patients and clinicians. How about a new staffing platform for nurses? It gives them greater flexibility and allows them to earn more money.
Sometimes the narrative can be built around a single illuminating fact. I wrote a press release for a company whose seals were to be used on the Mars Rover. In and of itself, not that big a deal; scores of manufacturers had components on the Rover. What I learned from talking to company engineers is that it is impossible to build a seal that doesn’t leak, particularly in space; success is building a seal that leaks very, very slowly. How slowly? In this case, so slowly that it would take 1,000 years to empty a Coke can.
In the release, I told the story of these engineers working toward this ridiculously exacting specification. And it got picked up more than the dozens of cookie-cutter announcements that went out from other parts suppliers.
Of course, the stories must be interesting and short. They can’t meander and they can’t obscure the news. And they must be relevant. Don’t announce a brand of hard seltzer by telling a story about how a surfer took on a 50-foot wave and then enjoyed a can of seltzer back on the beach. Save that for the commercial.
Most press releases vanish with little notice or impact, like gnats flying into a bug zapper. But tell a good story, and people will remember it.
by Jim Sweeney | Sep 20, 2023 | Blog
When looking for a company to illustrate bad PR, United Airlines is an easy choice.
From 2009’s lesson in the power of viral video (“United Breaks Guitars”) to suffocating puppies, United can be counted upon to do the wrong thing and then make it worse through horrible PR.
Perhaps its worst blunder came in 2017 when a bloodied passenger refused to be bumped and was dragged off a flight. After the video went viral, then-United CEO Oscar Munoz called the passenger “disruptive” and referred to the forcible eviction as “re-accommodating the customers.” It took a firestorm of criticism before Munoz issued a more sincere-sounding apology, but by then the damage was done.
I wasn’t privy to what happened at United that led to such horrible PR decisions, but I do know who could have prevented them – Angry Arnold. That’s my term for the outsider reality check missing from too many corporate responses to PR crises. Here’s how it could have worked at United:
The moment the passenger video went viral, United’s PR team should have designated one of its highest-ranking members as Angry Arnold. He should have been put in a room with a laptop and the following instructions: “Forget you work for United. You’re just one of the flying public and you freaking hate United. It’s lost your luggage, delayed your flights, charged you for carry-ons and forced you to squeeze into ever-shrinking seats. And, by the way, it’s making obscene profits. Now, watch on repeat this video of a dazed passenger being dragged down the aisle.”
Angry Arnold would have been left in isolation to grow ever more furious at United while the rest of the PR team worked with the C-suite to write that self-serving statement from Munoz. When it was done, they could have slid it under the door to Angry Arnold and waited for his reaction.
And he would have kicked down the door, screaming, “Are you f*@%%^ kidding me? Blaming the passenger? ‘Re-accommodating’ customers? What kind of bull*$#@ is this?”
And then United would have known Munoz’s statement wasn’t going to fly with the public.
It’s not just United that could have used an Angry Arnold to save itself from itself. So could Southwest Airlines, Facebook, Wells Fargo, Uber, and other companies that have compounded their problems by responding weakly to PR crises.
That’s because Angry Arnold’s job is to take the perspective of the public that, ultimately, will decide how well the company weathers its PR crisis. If he doesn’t buy the company’s response, neither will customers, vendors and the media.
Too often, crisis PR is captive PR. Everyone on the internal team wants to help the company in its moment of danger, but, paradoxically, that prevents them from doing the best job at it. They’re hunkered down in the corporate bunker, trying to manage the crisis without admitting fault or being too hard on the company or its leaders. Lawyers get in the mix, counseling against admitting error and watering down language as only they can. As a result, the initial response is often inadequate and defensive and makes a bad situation worse.
Angry Arnold does not have that captive perspective. He’s not going to cut the business any slack or worry about making the CEO sweat. He wants the company to come clean, fix the problem, take steps to make sure it doesn’t happen again, punish those responsible, provide restitution, and beg for forgiveness.
Of course, it’s not easy to turn an internal PR employee into an Angry Arnold. He or she might be reluctant to offer frank opinions or go against the C-suite consensus, and might struggle to achieve that critical, independent perspective.
That’s why many companies benefit from using an outside agency for crisis communications and PR. While still loyal to the client, an agency has the independence and perspective to better assess what needs to be done to satisfy the public, customers, stakeholders etc. while also protecting the client.
Unleashing Angry Arnold is no fun. He bruises egos, calls for heads to roll and forces companies to do things they don’t want to do. But he should be a necessary part of any crisis PR team, even if he’s a trusted outsider.
Remember, the C-suite and the PR team are not going to determine if the crisis is handled correctly or not. The public and customers will, and listening to Angry Arnold is the best way to gauge their reaction.
