We're moving!

By Brant Skogrand, APR, MBC

Skogrand PR Solutions recently launched a new website at http://skograndpr.com/, and future blog posts will be located on that site at http://skograndpr.com/blog/.

You'll still be able to read past blog posts on this site.

Thanks for reading!

For a collection of more public relations tips, insights and reflections, buy the book "19 Tips for Successful Public Relations: Insights on Media Relations and Reputation Management" from amazon.com!

Top posts of 2013

By Brant Skogrand, APR, MBC

As the year winds to a close, let's take a look at what the most popular posts on the Skogrand PR Solutions Blog were this year:

1. What is a press release? 
2. Preparing for a newspaper or magazine interview
3. Meet the media: Josh Rosenthal, content producer at KSTP-TV
4. Behind the scenes at the Minnesota State Fair
5. Inkybee review
6. Leading Minneapolis-St. Paul PR pros reflect on careers
7. Insight into Red Bull marketing
8. How to find media contact information
9. Public relations plan elements
10. Public relations case study: Toxic Shock Syndrome

Happy holidays!

For a collection of more public relations tips, insights and reflections, buy the book "19 Tips for Successful Public Relations: Insights on Media Relations and Reputation Management" from amazon.com!

The Internet in a day

Courtesy of InternetServiceProviders.org

Creative inspiration

Panelists at the Minnesota PRSA event (l-r):  Brian Prentice, Scott Broberg, Bart Heird, Paul Maccabee

Create a joke about corn on the cob and thirst. Not the easiest thing to do, right? It was, in fact, the challenge that Bart Heird of Aimia gave my breakout group at a recent Minnesota Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) event recently. (You can read my fabulous joke at the end.)

Heird was one of the panelists for the "Infusing Creativity into Your Job" workshop held at Padilla Speer Beardsley on Sept. 27.

The event started out with a panel featuring Heird, Scott Broberg of Fast Horse, Paul Maccabee of Maccabee Public Relations, and Brian Prentice of Padilla Speer Beardsley.

Attendees learned many nuggets about how to inspire creativity such as:

• Train yourself to remember your dreams to capture awesome creative ideas.
• Unplugging is essential for inspiring creativity.
• The solution is the least important part of creative thinking - set it aside and it will come.

The panelists each had unique takes on creativity. "What's original 20 years ago could be original today because of idea regeneration," said Heird.

Broberg pointed out that a simple twist on an idea can take it from good to great.

In regard to the "blue sky," Prentice said that it can be scary for creative people. "Sometimes it helps to have the box defined," he said.

Maccabee commented on the shifting expectations of clients as transitioning from "Get me on Oprah" to "Make my video go viral."

Breakout Sessions

After the panel discussion, attendees had the opportunity to get up close with each of the creative masterminds in breakout groups that rotated.

Maccabee presented groups with a situation involving Gold'n Plump chicken. Participants needed to collaborate on the launch of chicken called "Just Bare." Zero advertising was taking place, and Gold'n Plump needed to reach women who are "mindful eaters" ages 25 to 45 with one to three children. One caveat:  the company didn't want anyone playing off of the "Just Bare" name in the "au naturale" sense that immediately comes to mind.

Prentice provided an excellent way to break the ice:  Story Cubes. With Story Cubes, people simply rolled the dice and used the pictures on the dice to create stories on the spot.

Broberg reflected on brainstorms in his breakout group. Some tips that he had for effective brainstorms included:  removing distractions, asking "Why not?" and bringing in research and facts to help brainstorms stay on track.

Remember the challenge to create a joke about corn on the cob and thirst? Heird provided some guidelines to joke writing in his breakout session. He said that jokes need to be plausible and encouraged people to be curious and to find patterns and associations.

So, now as to my joke about corn on the cob and thirst:  The drought was so bad this year that even corn on the cob was drinking soda made with high fructose corn syrup.

How to get a book published

Guest post by Lauren Martinez Catlin

It's all about who you know. No one wants to hear that, certainly not me. I've been trying to get published since I was 13 years old, when I had an award-winning short story in hand. Since that disappointing experience I have queried four different novels. I've purchased two copies of Writer's Market, and three copies of the equivalent book on literary agents. I'd read countless articles on how to get published, what agents are looking for, how to write a dynamite query letter, the importance of what font you use. Finding an agent seemed not so much like a business deal as a mystic pagan ritual; if you coughed at the wrong time the whole thing would be ruined. 

 

One day the magic finally happened; my father gave a copy of my latest book to a friend, who then gave it to another friend who happened to be a literary agent. Several months later I got a call from my father (of all people!) saying that the literary agent loved my book and was dying to represent me. My husband and I called everyone we knew and threw a huge party at our house. My best friend brought me a bottle of champagne. People congratulated me on all my hard work and persistence. And then nothing happened. More than a year later on one of my routine “just calling to check in” calls, I learned that agent had left the company and they were dropping all her clients. I sat down and cried at my day job. 

 

Then there was the Amazon Breakout Novel Award (ABNA). It was a novel contest, and the prize was a $25,000 book deal with Penguin. I took my latest novel (a different book than the agent had), and submitted it. I did make the first cut, I was in the top 20 percent, but I didn't make the second cut. The next year I tried again, same result. I queried that second book to a few people, but I couldn't bring myself to do the mass mailings I'd grown too accustomed to. I kept writing, because I honestly don't know what else to do with myself. 

 

About a year later, a friend of my husband from his work started publishing travel guides on the Kindle. It was something he was doing on the side because he was being shipped off to Belgium for months at a time and he needed something to do on the plane. The travel guides were aggregated information he pulled off of the Internet, not original work, but they were making some money. He wanted to see if he could take on some authors with original work, and he knew that I wrote books. This wasn't how I was hoping it would happen, but this point, I had five books sitting on my hard drive, and I didn't want to die with them languishing there. So I said okay. A few months later, I held a proof copy of my book in my hands. It was solid and heavy and when I opened it, words I had written were there in print. 

 

Like most of the stories I've heard from published authors, this journey is completely impossible to duplicate. You can't marry my husband and hope he'd keep the same friends who'd decide to open a publishing house. I used to get very frustrated about this kind of story, because I am a very proactive and pragmatic person. Thus, I will break out the underlying principles that are duplicable. 

 

First, write every day. There is something very sad about having five complete novels sitting on my hard drive, but knowing a guy who's opening a publishing house does me no good if I don't have a novel to give him. I had a few, and chose my favorite. As frustrating as ABNA was, I wouldn't have been able to participate at all if I hadn't had a novel to submit. This may sound elemental, but the first step in publishing a book is writing a book. This is slightly different for non-fiction, where I've heard you can sometimes get away with a very detailed outline. Write every day anyway, you'll be better off.

Second, call yourself a writer. Knowing a guy who's opening a publishing house doesn't help me that much if he doesn't know I write books. When people ask me what I do, I tell them that I'm a novelist. I told them that when I was an administrative assistant, when I was a grunt at a software company, and when I was a nanny. Those are just jobs, what I do is write books. 

 

Third, make lots of friends. One of the smartest and most fun things I've done in the last few years is start performing spoken word poetry all around the metro. Performing has given me a chance to promote some causes I really believe in, to meet lots of other artists, and yes, to gain a tiny bit of name recognition. I'm pretty solidly introverted, so going to a big event to perform and then try to network is a big challenge for me. Here's how I do it. I pretend that I'm a confident and interesting person that people want to meet. I pretend that when I approach someone that I'm being very gracious and magnanimous. I hand out business cards and say, “Let me know if I can do anything for you,” like I'm doing them a big favor, and not like I'm putting feelers out for new gigs. 

I was invited to write this guest blog because I'm friends with the kind and generous man who runs this website, and he knows that I'm a writer. So there you go.

About the Author:

Martinez Catlin is an author and poet who is committed to inspiring compassion through the written word. Her work has enhanced the efforts of A Minnesota Without Poverty, Breaking Free, Source Ministries, Justice4All, and A Beautiful Rescue. She graduated from the University of Minnesota in 2008 with a degree in English Literature. The Other Side of Silence is her first novel. She currently lives in Minneapolis with a very cute husband and a German shepherd.

Check out her website, buy her now-published novel, and watch some of her performances.

A pleasant Minnesota surprise for PRWeek editor-in-chief

Steve Barrett, PRWeek Editor-in-Chief

In his first trip to Minnesota, Steve Barrett, editor-in-chief of PRWeek, learned that his perceptions of our state were quite different from the reality.

"I saw 'Fargo' and I know that Prince lived here," Barrett told a group of approximately 60 public relations professionals and students. "You have something green called grass, which we don't have in Manhattan."

At the Minnesota PRSA event hosted by Carmichael Lynch Spong, Barrett discussed what's driving agency growth, how PRWeek is changing, and how agencies are evolving.

Calling this "the most exciting time to be writing about PR and to be in the communications industry," Barrett said that integration is the way of the future for public relations agencies.

With skills perfectly suited to the modern media environment, PR professionals are integrating with the marketing and investor relations fields like never before.

Barrett pointed out that last year PR agencies were up 10 percent, while the national gross domestic product was up 1.7 percent. Social media and content generation are two of the keys to that growth -- providing PR agencies a way to bypass traditional media and, in the case of social media, a cheaper way to connect with customers.

"Advertising is expensive," Barrett said. "As the saying goes, 'Fifty percent of advertising is effective, and we don't know which half.'"

This growth could lead to a billion-dollar agency possibly within the next five to 10 years.

Other aspects of this growth include globalization -- particularly in Latin America and China -- with agencies filling in the gaps to have a consistent offering around the world.

Three years ago, PRWeek changed its format to a monthly print publication, and continues to evolve.

"It's hard to peer into the crystal ball, although I can say we are integrating print with digital," Barrett said. "We have 22,000 Twitter followers and a YouTube channel. Our Tumblr blog is perfect for stories that wouldn't make the front page of the website."

Although there are no plans for a PRWeek iPad app, changes on tap for PRWeek include:  more special events, possibly a more global perspective, and more webcasts.

In regard to agency trends, Barrett noted that agencies are getting to become choosier about their clients and in which RFPs they participate.

He added that measurement continues to be the holy grail. Agencies -- and corporations -- are building their own analytics tools but are secretive about it because of the inherent competitive advantage.

Speaking of transparency, Barrett also touched on the mistakes that caused the CEO of Yahoo! to resign, as well as Best Buy's CEO and founder to give up their positions.

"Everything is transparent these days," Barrett said. "You're playing Russian roulette if you think that something isn't going to come out."

Feel free to come back to Minnesota anytime, Steve. Maybe you can experience the joy of a good snowball fight or the thrill of catching a big walleye while ice fishing.

A day in the Internet

Created by: MBA Online

What is Cyber Monday and other holiday shopping questions answered

Happy Cyber Monday! Today is the Monday after Thanksgiving, which is one of the biggest online shopping days of the year. Here's how Cyber Monday and other "days" around Thanksgiving originated:

• Cyber Monday:  the Monday after Thanksgiving. The term originated in 2005 in a Shop.org press release, "'Cyber Monday' Quickly Becoming One of the Biggest Online Shopping Days of the Year." Research showed that 78 percent of online retailers reported a significant increase in sales in 2004 on the Monday after Thanksgiving. It's not a very productive day in the workplace; on Cyber Monday more than half of the dollars spent online originate from work computers.

 

• Black Friday:  the day following Thanksgiving. Black Friday marks the first day of the Christmas shopping season, and retailers offer many deals to get shoppers in the doors. It's typically the busiest shopping day of the year. The term originated in the late 1960s, as a way for the Philadelphia police department to describe the huge traffic jams and crowded sidewalks in the city because of all the shoppers. In the 1980s, a different explanation for the term Black Friday arose:  that the day marked the time during the year when retailers shifted from operating at a loss (in the red) to a profit (in the black).

 

• Small Business Saturday:  the Saturday after Thanksgiving. Small Business Saturday was created by American Express in 2010 as a way to encourage consumers to shop at their local stores. American Express also offers many free marketing materials to help retailers promote themselves for Small Business Saturday.

 

• Big Wednesday:  Thanksgiving Eve. The night before Thanksgiving is the biggest drinking night of the year. It's a time when college students come home and get together with friends. For those working, there's plenty of time to recuperate before going back to work on Cyber Monday.

Have fun shopping today -- I hope that you find a great deal!

'Moves Like Jagger' and other songs about musicians

Maroon 5

"Moves Like Jagger" by Maroon 5 is one of the catchiest songs that I have heard in a while, and it led me to think about what other musicians are distinguished enough to have their names in a song title.

Here are some of the songs that I found:

• The Replacements -- "Alex Chilton"
• They Might Be Giants -- "P.S.O.K. (Paul Stanley of KISS)"
• Prince -- "My Name Is Prince"
• Wilco -- "Wilco (The Song)"
• Flight of the Conchords -- "Bowie"
• Dr. Dre -- "Forgot About Dre"
• Sublime -- "KRS-One"
• Sugarland -- "Steve Earle"
• They Might Be Giants -- "We're The Replacements"

What other songs that have musician names in the title come to your mind?

Welcome!

Welcome to the Skogrand PR Solutions blog! In this space, I plan on offering tips, insights and reflections on public relations, social media and more. Thanks in advance for reading.