Friday, January 22, 2010

Trademarked Words and Press Releases


If you're writing a press release, your choice of words can be crucial. For example, a real estate agent is not the same thing as a Realtor. The Columbia Journalism Review points out that the term Realtor identifies members of the National Association of Realtors - and that the term should be trademarked. (I can do that in Word but not here for some reason...)

There is a list of trademarked words. You may want to bookmark the Information & Publishing section of http://www.inta.org/. That's the International Trademark Association's Trademark Checklist. And, you can find information about trademarked words in countries throughout the world.

According to the Journal, "Trademarks are proper adjectives and should be capitalized and followed by a generic noun or phrase. (They) should not be pluralized or used in the possessive form; and, (they) are never verbs.

So if you want your press release to be credible, do some homework - find out how to write.

MARKETING TIP: The credibility of your writing will increase if you adhere to journalistic standards.

No comments: