Public relations pros are masters when it comes to crafting witty headlines. However, it’s important not to confuse the window dressing with the actual window. Without getting too postmodern/signifiers that signify nothing on you, let me offer this gentle reminder: a great headline is not the same thing as a great argument. While this lapse in judgment can negatively affect your pitching, whatever you do, don’t let it seep into your personal communications. When you find yourself talking in sound Read more [...]
Where do you find good ideas? Seth Godin posed this question in a recent blog post. Freelance writer Geeta Dayal offers tips for fellow creative types on how to stay fresh. The idea of ideas has been on my mind a lot lately. All agencies are faced with idea generation on a daily, if not minute-by-minute, basis. From pitching journalists, to coming up with relevant tweets, to creating “big ideas” for marketing and PR campaigns, to writing proposals from scratch, everyone on our team pulls rabbits Read more [...]
Every so often, you meet someone in your professional life whose wisdom you are eager to have rub off on you. I can’t remember exactly how I made the acquaintance of Jay Gronlund, CEO of consulting firm Pathfinder Group, but we seem to have interesting conversations every time we connect. While Jay often picks my brain on social media and other emerging tools of the trade, he never fails to remind me that at the core of every solid marketing program lies a well-conceived brand message. It was Read more [...]
Wish you were celebrating Social Media Week in London? Me too. We’re bridging the divide by bringing you fresh social media week-themed posts from our partner, Johnson King, a European technology PR agency headquartered in London. We plan to include coverage of Social Media Week events in London and other relevant thoughts. Today’s installment comes from Tom Kirkham, account manager, who tells the story of his social media revelation (complete with Biblical references). Tom manages Johnson Read more [...]
I’m all for social networking sites playing nicely in the sandbox. On a philosophical level, yes, thanks very much, LinkedIn, for allowing tweets to appear in your users’ status updates. Very kind of you. And Facebook, how generous of you to allow twitterers to use the tag #fb. I also understand why the management teams of social networking sites want to expand their footprints. The economics of online communities are still mired in metrics like churn. Unable to capture the long-term attention Read more [...]
You run the PR department for the St. Louis Cardinals. One Sunday morning, you receive a mysterious call. “Book a flight to LA. Immediately.” Within 24 hours, your newest client is sitting down in front of television cameras for a live, hour-long, one-on-one interview. That’s what happened to Brian Bartow, the team’s director of media relations, immediately prior to Mark McGwire’s conversation with Bob Costas, in which he publicly admitted to taking steroids during his baseball career. As I watched Read more [...]
Acquisitions can be a fun — and scary — time for communications pros. I remember during my days at 24/7 Media, at the height of the dot com boom, we acquired nine companies during my tenure. Nine! At the time, not all of the companies brought into the fold were also brought in to our existing marketing programs. But I can understand why, when Adobe acquired Omniture on September 15, Adobe would want to introduce itself to Omniture’s customers. I’m just not sure they went about it the right way. I’m Read more [...]
I’m an introvert in real life. (Really.) But I use my professional Twitter handle as an entrypoint into interesting conversations with people I might not bump into during my flesh-and-blood existence. At the risk of blowing my cover, I often follow people as a way of determining, hmmm, would this person make a good Affect Strategies employee? Twitter helps me meet great, social media-savvy candidates who work in PR and related fields. I have hit it off with some very smart, capable, two-to-five-years-of-experience Read more [...]
Though we haven’t blogged about it, we’ve had a really eventful summer so far at Affect Strategies. Here are a few of the highlights: Absolute Software’s CEO, John Livingston, appeared on Fox Business’ “Small Business, Big Ideas” segment. Check out the full video on Absolute’s blog. (And why not follow Absolute on Twitter, too?) Proclivity Systems was named to BusinessWeek’s 50 Startups You Need to Know list. We welcomed Chrissy Carney, Account Supervisor, and Kaylen McNamara, Assistant Account Read more [...]
Our friends at Brainloaf, a marketing technology company, have asked me to join a conversation this Friday on social media and market research. I’ll be joined by a who’s-who of panelists that includes representatives from MarketVision Research, BarnRaisers Group, Anderson Analytics and TNS. Here’s a sneak peek at some of the topics we plan to cover: How has social media changed the way we recruit online, collect data and conduct surveys? What are some techniques for pulling customer insights Read more [...]
