Blog

Join us in conversation on the topics we believe matter...to our industry, our city and our society.

How to Leverage Big Data for PR and Marketing Communications

By Gretchen Hoffman | Aug 17, 2016

Image courtesy of photoexplorer at FreeDigitalPhotos.net Big Data has become a vital tool for large and small businesses alike, with Big Data software able to help analyze the vast amounts of information to today’s organization. New, simplified tools like Amazon Mechanical Turk allow organizations and individuals to more easily collect data from around the world, […]

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Business Needs Newspapers Too

By A.wordsmith | Aug 15, 2016

The media’s been buzzing about John Oliver’s recent Last Week Tonight segment on modern journalism. You really ought to watch it yourself (beware a healthy dose of profanity), but the gist is not exactly breaking news: traditional newspapers are in big trouble. Faced with plummeting ad revenue and a public increasingly used to free, 24-hour news, […]

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What to Know About Instagram Stories

By Savanna Frimoth | Aug 11, 2016

  The Controversy Instagram’s unveiling of its “Story” feature caused some waves in the social media realm. Critics of the feature say Instagram is attempting to take over Snapchat’s specialty, a sentiment that was echoed by some Snapchat employees. Fans of the new tool believe that Instagram has improved upon Snapchat’s original story concept by […]

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What Thought Leadership is Not

By Natalie O'Grady | Aug 10, 2016

“Thought leadership” is often considered a buzzword in the marketing and PR world – little more than a spruced up advertisement for a company. However, if your content marketing pieces fit this description, then you’re not doing thought leadership. Thought leadership can be a strong, useful addition to a content marketing program and goes well beyond […]

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Women of the Olympics & the Telling of Great Stories

By Ann Smith | Aug 8, 2016

Over the weekend the Summer Olympics in Rio kicked off. Despite much worry leading into the Games over major issues such as safety, facilities, clean water and overall security, so far Rio is proving to be a respectable host. And in a time when it seems hard to find common ground, sports once again bring […]

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The Verizon-Yahoo Deal: What to Know

By Candice DeForest | Aug 5, 2016

With headlines like “Yahoo Sells To Verizon In Saddest $5 Billion Deal In Tech History,” it would be hard to ignore last week’s news of Yahoo’s sale to Verizon after months of speculation. While the ink has barely dried on the Verizon-Yahoo deal, reporters and industry experts are racing to analyze the potential impact on […]

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10 Tricks to Appear Smart and Informed

By Kelda Rericha | Aug 3, 2016

2016 has been hard. In this tumultuous political, cultural and financial climate the conversations and written dialogues have been HEAVY. Never have I so dreaded my Facebook feed. So I want to take a step back and offer some tips for engaging in these conversations in ways that make you appear smart and informed, but not offensive. Taken […]

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The Future of Design

By Kris Travis | Jul 28, 2016

What is the future of design? This question is a constant for most designers. 99U put out an article that posed this question to a number of design experts and visionaries, and they provided their thoughts on what we might see in the next 10 years. A few things stood out to me: The changing role […]

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My PR Toolbox

By Carly Langdon | Jul 27, 2016

Every day a new tool is introduced into the world of communications. From a new social media app to a media monitoring program, it’s hard to keep them all straight. To help you on your journey to find all the right tools, here’s my top five list of PR gems. 5. Associated Press Style Guide […]

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A.wordsmith Continues to Grow

By A.wordsmith | Jul 21, 2016

June was a big month for A.wordsmith. Last month, A.wordsmith saw a surge in new projects for our copywriting and content development team, as well as expanded marketing, media and publicity demands from established clients.  All told, we shattered a record in terms of client and firm productivity. Since opening in 2009, the agency has […]

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