Each week, Geben will compile and share some of our favorite PR and social media articles. As we close out this new week, here are some of this week’s must-reads:

• Why the Sharing Economy is Growing
• Seven Elements Creative Teams Share
• Brainstorming: 3 Reasons Why Everything You Know is Wrong
• How Method Home is Simultaneously Solving a World Problem and Building a Better Brand
• The Steve Jobs Emails That Show How to Win a Hard-Nosed Negotiation
• Salvaging Your Sanity as a Community Manager
• Social Media’s Role in the Future of Investing [Infographic]
• To Have a Productive Day, Make Work a Series of Sprints
• Do You Understand the Mathematics of Social Marketing?
• 2013 Social Media Marketing Industry Report
• Integrating Digital Marketing & PR: Breaking Down Silos Through Content
• 3 Twitter Hashtag Campaigns to Emulate
• 6 Lessons NYC’s Candy Cab Can Teach You About Marketing
• Marketers Should Tailor Specific Pitches to Tablet, Smartphones

Follow Team Geben on Twitter for more articles and resources throughout the week. Say hi and tell us what you’re reading, too!

The post Geben Communication’s Must Read Articles – Week of May 20th appeared first on prTini.

The Pew Research Center has released the 10th edition of its State of the News Media report. In it, they identified six major trends, here in tweetable format for your reading pleasure:

The effects of a decade of newsroom cutbacks are real – and the public is taking notice. (TWEET THIS)

• Nearly a third of U.S. adults have stopped turning to a news outlet because it no longer provided them with the news they were accustomed to getting. 
• Newspaper newsroom cutbacks continued, putting the number of full-time professional employees below 40,000 for the first time since 1978.
• In local TV, sports, weather and traffic account for approximately 40% of the content produced.
• On CNN produced story packages were cut nearly in half from 2007 to 2012.
• Across the three cable channels, coverage of live events and live reports during the day, which often require a crew and correspondent, fell 30% from 2007 to 2012 while interview segments, which tend to take fewer resources and can be scheduled in advance, were up 31%.

The news industry continues to lose out on the bulk of new digital advertising. (TWEET THIS)

• Mobile advertising grew 80% in 2012 to $2.6 billion. Of that, however, only one ad segment is available to news: display
• Local digital advertising is also growing, up 22% in 2012.
• Improved geo-targeting is allowing many national advertisers to turn to Google, Facebook and other large networks to buy ads that once might have gone to local media.

The long-dormant sponsorship ad category is seeing sharp growth. (TWEET THIS)

• Sponsorship ads rose 38.9%, to $1.56 billion; that followed a jump of 56.1% in 2011. Promoted tweets on Twitter account for some of the growth, along with the rise of native ads—the digital term for advertorials containing advertiser-produced stories—which often run alongside a site’s own editorial content.
• Traditional publications such as The Atlantic and Forbes, as well as digital publications BuzzFeed and Gawker, have relied on native ads to quickly build digital ad revenues, and their use is expected to spread.
  

The growth of paid digital content experiments may have a significant impact on both news revenue and content. (TWEET THIS) 

• 450 of the nation’s 1,380 dailies have started or announced plans for some kind of paid content subscription or pay wall plan
  
• The New York Times reports that its circulation revenue now exceeds its advertising revenue, a sea change from the traditional revenue split of as much as 80% advertising dollars to 20% circulation dollars.

While the first and hardest-hit industry, newspapers, remains in the spotlight, local TV finds itself newly vulnerable. (TWEET THIS)

• While local TV remains a top news source for Americans, the percentage is dropping—and dropping sharply among younger generations.  Regular local TV viewership among adults under 30 fell from 42% in 2006 to just 28% in 2012,
  
• The most popular local TV topics —  weather and breaking news (and to a lesser extent traffic)—are ripe for replacement by any number of web- and mobile-based outlets.

Social media and word-of-mouth leads to deeper news consumption. (TWEET THIS) 

• A majority of Americans seek out a full news story after hearing about an event or issue from friends and family
• 15% of U.S. adults get most of their news from friends and family this way, and the vast majority of them (77%) follow links to full news stories. Among 18-to-29 year-olds, the percentage that primarily relies on social media for this kind of news already reaches nearly one-quarter.

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Good work begets more good work. When you exceed customer expectations, deliver impressive results and consistently go the extra mile, word spreads.

Entrepreneurs aren’t the most patient people  in the world. So, they’re always looking for ways to accelerate this tried-and-true business development practice. One way to jumpstart business development? Social media. Whether you’re a small company or a larger brand, social media scales lead generation, uncovers new opportunities and shortens the sales cycle. Combined, this results in faster growth, better clients and – my personal favorite – no cold calls.

Let’s take a more in-depth look. For starters, here are three opportunities created by embracing digital communication:

• Establish expertise without borders. My PR and social media firm’s largest client is based in Canada. The introduction came from someone who lives in New Jersey who I “met” via Twitter. In fact, I can trace 75% of my company’s business back to relationships that initially began online (most of which originated on Twitter!). Thanks to social media, anyone can build a better network and share client work, case studies and their business philosophy with a larger audience – unlimited by geography. Even though we’re a boutique communications consultancy based here in Columbus, we work with clients from Canada to California. Technology makes it easy for businesses today to not only establish thought leadership, but also to convert that expertise into business opportunities.
• Show your intent. To monetize social media, humanize it, according to Harvard Business Review. We work with the Columbus Marathon and through social media, their online community has direct access to race director Darris Blackford. For the past two years, we’ve organized “Ask the Race Director” – a live Q&A broadcast on UStream and Facebook – where Darris answers marathoners’ questions. Two years ago, Darris got teary during the live broadcast as he shared gratitude for the thousands of volunteers who make the marathon happen. Last year, he literally couldn’t speak as he tried to convey his passion for Nationwide Children’s Hospital and the marathon’s commitment to raising funds to help sick kids. The result? The marathon sold out again and participants helped raise $875,000, which was donated to Nationwide Children’s Hospital. Additionally, comments from participants after the race were overwhelmingly positive. While the marathon is a non-profit, the lesson is just as relevant for for-profit companies: Social media puts a spotlight on the people behind the logo, reveals your values, and strengthens brand loyalty and preference. As Simon Sinek says, “People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it.”
• Shorten the sales cycle. By leveraging social media to share your “why,” you can drastically decrease the sales cycle. Prospects can learn a lot about you and your company by perusing social profiles. Who are you interacting with? What kinds of conversations are you having? What are other people saying about you? Does their approach to business and intention align with yours? Interestingly, potential customers can develop a sense of “knowing you” just by following and interacting with you online. As a result, the sales cycle is less about background and more about the brass tacks of getting down to business. By the time someone contacts me to learn more about Geben, they already know a lot about our approach to integrating traditional and digital PR and my approach to business, thus eliminating multiple stages of the sales process. Thanks to this shift in the business development, you can spend less time chasing new business … and more time delivering results.

Social media accelerates business development. Whether you work for a B2B or B2C company, a large organization or an emerging startup – you can grow and achieve your goals faster by taking a fresh approach business development. Of course, there’s an upfront time investment, but as you can see from these examples, adding a layer of social media is good for business growth.

How are you using social media to spur business development?

This post originally ran on Columbus Business First’s Social Madness Blog.

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Each week, Geben will compile and share some of our favorite PR and social media articles. As we close out this new week, here are some of this week’s must-reads:

• ESPN, Twitter expand tie-up
• Content is consuming us: If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em
• Abercrombie & Fitch: Good marketing & bad PR? 
• 10 tips on how to handle a crisis on Twitter
• 4 Lessons in Creating Dynamic Social Content
• The End of Rational vs. Emotional: How Both Logic and Feeling Play Key Roles in Marketing and Decision Making
• Feed Your Career Octopus: Tips for Finding (and Keeping) Awesome Mentors
• This App Will Make Sure Your Shopping Doesn’t Give Money To Companies You Hate
• How A CEO Can Wreck A Brand In One Interview: Lessons From Abercrombie & Fitch Vs. Dove
• Surprise Is Still the Most Powerful Marketing Tool
• ‘Girl Rising:’ Changing The World, One Story And One Life At A Time

Follow Team Geben on Twitter for more articles and resources throughout the week. Say hi and tell us what you’re reading, too!

The post Geben Communication’s Must Read Articles – Week of May 13th appeared first on prTini.

According to a recent article in Harvard Business Review, there’s a new kind of worker that every company needs: the amplified individual:

We live in a world in which amplified individuals — people empowered by technologies and the collective intelligence of their social networks — can do things that previously only a large organization could.

… People like these are engaged in “socialstructing” — that is, bypassing established institutions and processes for building new things, and instead working to create what they find missing in the world by communicating the need to their social networks, mobilizing whatever resources they have at their disposal, and pursuing solutions collaboratively.

What if we began thinking about PR agencies in a similar sense? An “amplified agency” is one empowered by technology and can tap into the collective intelligence of their social networks to help achieve better outcomes for clients. In this world, the size of the agency is less important than the agency’s nimbleness, resourcefulness and commitment to innovating best practices and creating new/better ways to get things done.

The HBR article provided some tips to help employers seeking to amplify their workers’ talents for greater innovation and impact. Using two of those constructs, here’s how the theory could apply to an amplified agency:

Change how you measure performance.

“The value you seek from employees, and should recognize and reward, can’t be measured only by focusing on their internal contributions. It also depends on their connections to and their standing in external communities that are important to your organization.”

Amplified agencies: Instead of solely relying on standard metrics — whether it’s media placements, number of downloads or sign-ups, shifts in perception or share of voice — also begin to value the connections and intangibles that an agency can bring to the table. Can the account teams offer insights from previous experiences, make introductions, or tap into their social networks (when appropriate)? This means management needs to allocate time for employees to build their networks and test new technologies. While not necessarily considered “billable time,” it’s certainly time well spent when these new skills and contacts can move a client initiative forward.

Design the organization to support individual initiative, not control employees’ actions.

“The value of self-organizing structures is that they can act quickly, responsively, and creatively from the edges.”

Amplified agencies: Hustlegy: It’s a word I first learned from Eric Koester (who may have made it up!). The idea is simple:  Combine hustle + strategy. Agencies bogged down in hierarchy, process and too much attention on the billable hour are ill-equipped to hustle.  Clients want  agencies that are go-getters, flexible and smart enough to provide solid strategic counsel. By embracing “hustlegy,” agencies empower individuals to take initiative and stay focused on doing whatever it takes to get the job done.

Your turn. Do you see businesses seeking “amplified individuals?” How can agencies embrace this concept to better serve clients?

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Like what you’re reading? Follow Heather on Twitter or subscribe to the blog.

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Each week, Geben will compile and share some of our favorite PR and social media articles. As we close out this new week, here are some of this week’s must-reads:

• The Best Social Media Tools of 2013 (so far)
• Why is Facebook Blue? The Science Behind Colors in Marketing
• Scholastic engages–and increases–Facebook fans with live author chats
• Starbucks, BuzzFeed Introduce Reaction-Cam to Create Animated GIFs of Your Face
• Fashion Billionaire Tory Burch Talks Oprah, Eric Schmidt, And The Importance Of Thick Skin
• Flipboard Brings Personalized Magazines To Android, Heads To The Web With New Magazine Management Tool
• Ebook: Eye on the prize: How brands are winning with social media contests and sweepstakes
• 87% of Tech Startups Hiring this Year
• Teen creates tool that prevents spoilers from appearing on Twitter
• 8 Marketers Doing Big Data Right
• Have a Big Heart, Play Nice, Boost the Bottom Line
• Mastery, Autonomy, Purpose: The Science of What Motivates Us

Follow Team Geben on Twitter for more articles and resources throughout the week. Say hi and tell us what you’re reading, too!

The post Geben Communication’s Must Read Articles – Week of May 6th appeared first on prTini.

After national tragedies or community disasters, I’m always amazed at the power of digital communication and seeing how social media amplifies social good. After the Boston Marathon bombing, Mark Drapuea reminded us that ”social media scales human nature.” After the earthquakes in Japan, Amy Jo Martin realized that “social media can allow us to accelerate the act of kindness.”

Here’s the thing: This scaling and accelerating doesn’t — shouldn’t — only happen in the wake of a tragedy. In the last 12 hours, I’ve already come across three posts that illustrate this:

• Amy Taylor wrote an open letter to the CEO of Abercrombie & Fitch, who “allegedly commented on everything from why he hates fat chicks to why he doesn’t want “not-so-cool” kids shopping in his stores.” Not only did people share and reshare (a lot!) the post, but they directly reached out to Amy, thanking her for being so open and for courageously saying what so many other people were thinking. As Amy noted on Twitter, the reaction to her post is inspiring. (And, if you haven’t read her post, stop reading this and go read it.)
• Nikki Little shares an incredible tale of 5.5 weeks in the hospital, trying to stay pregnant as long as possible so her twins could grow and be born healthy. She courageously reminds us that “Being brave and courageous is hard. Sometimes it downright sucks because you know you have to do it, yet some days it seems impossible. But, you push forward, find coping mechanisms and you get through it.” (Want to share your own #CourageStory? Head over to her blog and leave a comment, or use the hashtag on Twitter.)
• Last night on Twitter, BuzzFeed’s John Stanton — over the course of dozens of tweets — shared the story of a junkie in Washington DC and the community of people who came together to help him. As he said, “we could all learn a lot about compassion and love and understand from the very least amongst us, if we only take the time to see it.” You can read about the acts of compassion on Storify.

There are lots of reasons to love the Internet. (Heck, in my world, Twitter is such a critical part of our business that I’m only half-joking when I say Twitter keeps our lights on.) But, there are enough self-serving posts, annoying videos and food pics that can create a love-hate relationship with the web. Look past all that though, and you’ll find amazing people sharing incredibly personal stories. Stories that will restore your faith in humanity and inspire you to join the scaling good movement.

On that note, Happy Thursday!

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Finally — a “hackathon” for the non-coders among us! The team at Tracky is hosting the first virtual hackathon for communications professionals. #CommHacks, if you will. Anyone working in the PR, marketing, journalism or content space can participate. The best part? No formal developer/coding training required. 

The post Introducing #CommHacks: A Virtual “Hackathon” for PR Pros appeared first on prTini.

Each week, Geben will compile and share some of our favorite PR and social media articles. As we close out this new week, here are some of this week’s must-reads:

• Staying Human in a Digital World
• 5 Reasons You Shouldn’t Try to Be Apple
• 9 Awesome Reasons to Use Infographics in Your Content Marketing
• Making a Request from Fans is the Keystone of a Product Launch
• Four New Roles for PR Pros
• The Imminent Shift From Social to Digital Engagement 
• Technology is a Canvas, Not a Platform 
• Leap2 Raises $1.6M For A More Social And Image-Centric Approach To Mobile Search
• Instagram Lets Users Tag Others in Photos Like They Do on Facebook
• #RunHappyIs [Social Media Campaign]
• Engagement: The Big Word that Means Very Little
• Tech Poaches Wall Street Talent

Follow Team Geben on Twitter for more articles and resources throughout the week. Say hi and tell us what you’re reading, too!

The post Geben Communication’s Must Read Articles – Week of April 29th appeared first on prTini.

I am totally biased, but I love #TeamGeben. Individually and collectively … the work ethic and personality quirks … our  friendships and partnerships with each other, our clients, friends of Geben, etc.

Recently, we’ve realized a lot of amazing stuff goes on behind the scenes at Geben Communication. Stuff we want to share and think our friends will be interested in seeing! This culture — our collective commitment to disrupting the status quo and embracing the crazy — defines who we are as a company and shapes how we approach our work. So, over the next 365 days, we invite you to join us on a yearlong visual journey. Starting Monday, May 6, you can follow #Geben365 on Twitter and Instagram for a daily peek behind the scenes at 539 S. 5th and experience what agency life – or our version of it – is like. Come along on client trips. Sit in on team meetings. Get to know the Columbus community we’re so happy and proud to call home. Who knows, we might even invite you to join us for Happy Hour.

Welcome to 365 Days of Geben.

Follow Geben on Instagram or look for the hashtag #Geben365 on Twitter.

The post Are you Ready? 365 Days of Geben Starts Monday appeared first on prTini.