Most people will agree that the subject line is essential in getting someone to even open your email. The subject line should provide a short description of what the e-mail is about. To get past spam filters, your subject should be descriptive, unique, and personalized. It should not include capitalization or exclamation marks, as they can come off as rude and unprofessional. Some examples of good vs. bad subject lines can be seen here.

Your e-mail should be written in a professional manner. It is very unprofessional to use abbreviations such as: 2, u, ttyl, thx, lol, etc. Your e-mail should follow proper grammar rules and be spelled correctly. If spelling is your weakness, use the spell check–almost all e-mail services provide this! If you do not do these things, it looks like you do not care about detail and are a lazy person, which are never perceived as good qualities.

You don’t want your e-mail to be too formal and stuffy, so try to word it like a conversation. You don’t need to use big words, but you also shouldn’t write like an uneducated adult.

If you need to send the same e-mail to multiple people, use blind carbon copy (bcc) so your recipients can’t see all of the other recipients e-mail addresses. This is also to keep the e-mail clean looking, because it doesn’t look neat or professional when you get a fwd e-mail with 50 addresses at the top. The proper way to do this is explained on this website. This is just a part of showing respect for your recipients. Another way to show respect is to ask before forwarding an e-mail from someone.

If at all possible, it is best to avoid sending attachments. If it is short enough, it is best to copy and paste whatever you are sending directly into the body of the e-mail. If it is longer, it is okay to provide a outline and ask if it is okay to send an attachment. Many people do not like attachments because they can carry viruses. Also, they take up space on the computer’s hard drive, so if the person does not know what you are sending and why it is important they look at it, they will often just delete the whole e-mail.

The best e-mails are short and to the point. The reason for the e-mail is specified in the first few sentences and the entire e-mail is no longer than a few paragraphs.

The most professional way to end your e-mail is with a signature that includes your name, title, contact information, and possibly even a website (this could be your blog!) This information and additional tips are expanded on in Guy Kawasaki’s blog.

Blogging is essential to public relations for several different reasons. The first and most obvious reason is network building. This is a vital part of the communication strategy for public relations practitioners, and blogging is the next big networking tool that PR practitioners should use to their advantage. This is one of the reasons it is very important to use links in your blogs, and hope that others will learn about your blog and include a link to it in their blog. It’s kind of like getting a support group together–you support them and they will support you. It is also important to use sites like blogpulse and technorati so your blog is easily accessible for those searching for a particular subject. Elizabeth Albrycht expands on these ideas here.

When I came across Albrycht’s article, I realized that the article was part of a project regarding blogs and public relations. If this is something that interests you, I would recommend exploring this site.

Another very important thing to understand about blogs is their power to reach the masses. Blogs have become an additional medium for communicators. I came across a fantastic article with some great quotes from blogging and social media expert Don Crowther. Here is one that really stuck out to me:

“What the traditional media doesn’t recognize is that many bloggers, though unrestrained by traditional journalistic methods and ethics, have audiences and actual readership larger than many newspapers, television and radio shows,” Crowther said. “Plus this audience is often more loyal and able to be influenced than that of traditional media, giving bloggers tremendous power to shape opinions, actions and purchasing behavior.”

These days, major companies are contacting bloggers in hopes to win their approval and be mentioned in their blog. Some even go as far as sending free samples, or providing free tickets/press passes to an event, hoping that the blogger will cover it. It is certainly cheaper than advertising, and possibly even more effective because consumers realize that bloggers are real people, which creates a certain level of trust. I would highly recommend checking out Crowther’s website if you are interested in learning the latest PR trends.

Several big companies are catching on and creating their own blogs. For example, Procter and Gamble has experimented with this. Click here to see one of the blogs for yourself.

Controversy usually surrounds topics of new interest, and this one is no exception. I, however, certainly believe that blogs will open many doors for PR practitioners.

According to the Chartered Institute of Public Relations: ‘Social media’ is the term commonly given to websites and online tools which allow users to interact with each other in some way – by sharing information, opinions, knowledge and interests. As the name implies, social media involves the building of communities or networks, encouraging participation and engagement.

Social media is particularly useful for PR practitioners because of PR’s focus on relationships and communications between people. Social media was basically created because of people’s desires to get closer to one another, and more involved in different aspects of one another’s lives. Social media allows creation of distinct communities.

Public relations practitioners can use social media to examine communities, which may also be categorized as target audiences. They can study similarities of people in these social media groups. Joseph Thornley expands on these ideas in his blog.

Some different types of social media are: blogs, wikis, RSS feeds, Facebook, Myspace, Flickr, YouTube, Delicious, Twitter, LinkedIn, Digg and Slideshare. An interesting social media website I came across strictly for PR practitioners is myragan.com.

Social media is definitely the next big thing for PR practitioners. Those who don’t choose to learn about it and use it to benefit their practice will certainly be putting themselves at a disadvantage in the profession.

I came across an article online called “Twenty Usablity Tips for Your Blog” and the first tip is to choose a topic. I saw this as a tip on other websites as well and they talked about the importance of choosing a specific topic that will provide you with a lot to write about. Then, if people are searching for blogs on a certain subject, they are more likely to come across yours and consider it relevant.

The second tip listed was to allow and respond to comments. It said that if you disable comments, you are disabling Web 2.0 communications, which is an essential part of a blog. More tips from this site can be found here.

A tip I found mentioned on nearly every site was to keep blog posts short and to the point. A common word count is 250. One article I read said to never go above 1,000 words, and if your post is long, to use subheadings.

Posting regularly and networking with other bloggers are two other important points I came across while researching blogging. On this website , it said to thank a blogger if you see that they have mentioned your blog on their post. The article also suggested ways to monitor links, traffic, comments and mentions of your blog by using different websites.

I found a lot of these blog tip websites stressed the importance of a domain name and using a site that will let you create your own. I even found a recommendation to create a logo on this website.