R2integrated released a new infographic and detailed blog that addresses the most successful features of rich media that help boost engagement while ultimately increasing ROI.  You can see it here.

The process of understanding, collecting and interpreting data rapidly has become one the most pressing topics impacting communications professionals. On April 29, the National Capital Chapter of PRSA hosted a panel of experts at the Navy Memorial to discuss a variety of issues related to "big data" in particular, also seeking to demystify its nebulous, buzzword-esque nature. The session was moderated by Dan Horowitz,

How to effectively integrate marketing and sales was the focus of one of the sessions at the Mid-Atlantic Marketing Summit (MAMS). The session was moderated by Fred Diamond, president of Diamond Strategic Marketing, and panelists included:

• Debra Lavoy, director, Strategic Marketing, Open Text
• Steve Stern, SVP, WB&A Market Research
• Val Voci, VP of Marketing, CQ Roll Call

The panelists, who provided their valuable in Read More »

B2B & Enterprise Marketing: What’s Working panel was a featured session at the Mid-Atlantic Marketing Summit (MAMS). The moderator of the panel was Limor Schafman, president of Keystone Tech Group, and panelists included:

• Ken Chow, CMO, Logi Analytics
• Tom Kohn, former EVP digital, Cygnus Business Media
• Bob London, founder & president, London Ink.
• Bob Ragsdale, VP/marketing, MicroPact
< Read More »

The SEO and Search panel at the Mid-Atlantic Marketing Summit (MAMS), led by Geoff Livingston, author and marketing strategist, featured a panel that included:

• Chris Mechanic, co-founder and CEO, WebMechanix
• Kari Rippetoe, content marketing manager, Search Mojo
• Missi Carmen, director of search, R2integrated
• Josh Greene, VP, marketing, 1-800-PACK-RAT

Highlights of the discussion included:

Startup Marketing: Working with a Lean Budget was a featured session at the Mid-Atlantic Marketing Summit. Moderated by Paul Sherman, Potomac Tech Wire, the panel included:
• Lisa Throckmorton, executive vice president, SpeakerBox
• Michele Perry, founder and president, MPB Strategies
• Trevor Lynn, marketing manager, Social Tables

Moderated by technology columnist Rob Pegoraro, the Social Media: What’s the Next Big Thing session at the Mid-Atlantic Marketing Summit (MAMS) featured a panel that included:
•Brendan O’Donovan, product marketing manager, Vocus
•Gayle Weiswasser, VP, Engagement, New Media Strategies
•Lisa Byrne, social strategist, Pappas Group
•Susan Ganeshan, CMO, New Brand Analytics

The session provided insights into best practices for popular social media sites

One of the highlights of the 2013 Mid-Atlantic Marketing Summit (MAMS) was the “Public Relations in a Social World” panel. Panelists included:
• Kevin Dando, director, digital marketing & communications, PBS
• Paul Mackie, director of communications, Mobility Lab
• Elizabeth Shea, president and CEO, SpeakerBox
• Mike Smith, CEO, MSBD
Moderator: Jeff Davis, partner, Sawmill Marketing Public Relations

The panelists shared Read More »

WB&A Market Research and Capitol Communicator have released the findings from the annual survey of the communications industry in the DC and Baltimore markets. A number of industry organizations promoted the survey to their members including AMADC, AMA Baltimore, the DC Ad Club, the Richmond Ad Club, SMEI Baltimore Washington, Washington Women in Public Relations, Social Media Week DC, and PRSA-NCC. We greatly appreciate the support of these organizations.

John Quinn, ABC 7 Public Affairs Marketing, just finished writing a book, "The Lowest Common Denominator (Media’s adverse effect on Society)", which, he told Capitol Communicator, took him eight months to write going to and from work on the Metro - with one finger and an iPad. He told us that “it’s no War and Peace, just 225 pages about 50,000 words. Even if nothing happens, I am content to have completed it.”  We asked Quinn what his book was about and he told us

By Kristen Grimm, Spitfire Strategies

Organizations working to make the world a better place have strong ambitions. They want to reduce gun violence in the wake of Sandy Hook, get Americans off the couch and active, and keep children safe from climate change. These groups need to wield influence to succeed—not in a Machiavellian way but in a public interest way. Yet often, they can’t articulate exactly how this influence will happen. It is a missing link in their plans to create change. When there is no clear idea for how influence will happen, it often doesn’t.

Capitol Communicator and WB&A Market Research have initial results of the "State of the Communications Industry" survey in the attached Infographic. A special thanks to the DC- and Baltimore-area organizations that encouraged participation in the survey: AMA DC, AMA Baltimore, DC Ad Club, SMEI Baltimore/Washington, Women in Film & Video, Social Media Week DC, Washington Women in Public Relations, and PRSA-National Capitol Chapter. Thanks to everyone who participated and stay tuned for the full report.

Cary Hatch entered Columbia Lighthouse for the Blind’s lunch, “Scar Tissue: Diary of a Sane Woman in a MAD MEN’s World”, with a warning label that prepared the audience for a candid conversation about life and entrepreneurship. Hatch, the accomplished sole proprietor of MDB Communications, identified herself as the “Elephant Man” of scar tissue.

By Mike Smith, MSBD

We all know the newshole is shrinking! But JOURNALISM is growing fast and you need to know the new rules of engagement: weeklies, online blogs, mommy bloggers, it is all about local. Hyperlocal. In fact, when Tip O’Neill famously said All Politics is Local, he may as well have been talking about News Media. People read what is going on in their neighborhoods, their schools, about their kids’ sports teams! AOL Patch is successful because it hits people where they live (at home).

By Evan Levent, MDB Communications

The DC advertising community had its biggest creative night of the year this Wednesday with presentation of the 2013 ADDY Awards, or as they are called now, the “American Advertising Awards.” Somehow a name change was made when no one was looking and even some presenters got it confused. For those of you who have lived in the DC area for a while, it will take some adjusting to lose the “ADDYs” short hand, just like the Verizon Center is still “MCI Arena” and JiffyLube Live is Read More »

Where do consumers get their news today? Given constantly shifting technology, the primary place now is the Internet. This and other findings related to how the Internet - including the growing role of tablets - is changing the world faced daily by communicators, was covered in a March 5 webinar that explored the latest research on social media and the communications industry by Capitol Communicator and WB&A Market Research.

Eloqua reported results from a comprehensive survey of U.S.-based B2B marketers, which was published in a report entitled “Defining the Modern Marketer: From Real to Ideal.” The report, created in conjunction with BtoB Magazine, offers in-depth insight into how marketing's role has evolved to include both art and science and more specifically, what skills and technologies marketers need to improve ROI.

Public service announcements (PSAs) air largely during waking hours, according to an analysis of over 1.5 million television and radio PSA airings in 2012, reports WestGlen Communications. Highlights of the company's 2012 broadcast PSA airings analysis show:

By Eileen Kessler, OmniStudio

The heart of every social media campaign is its content. Increasingly, audiences are tuning out what doesn’t ring true to them or strike a personal chord. Key resonators for people—writing style, entertainment value, and emotional connection—are crucial to every aspect of online material. At one of last week’s Social Media workshops that ran throughout DC, Rohit Bhargava, the author of “Likenomics,” said content creators should emulate screenwriters.

By Elisabeth Crum, OmniStudio

The State of the Union (SOTU) address joined a growing number of national events that have been critiqued, promoted, and shared via social networks—especially Twitter. Twitter conversations for major events, discussions tracked along a hashtag, have increasingly become as entertaining as the event itself. Now with promoted tweets, major events like the Super Bowl and the SOTU offer marketers the opportunity to promote products and raise awareness for issues and ideas at a moment when they know people will be paying attention.

By Jimmy Minichello

Sharing real-life examples focused on pressing management challenges in the public relations industry, communications officers at all levels gathered to learn insights on making the successful transition from PR manager to PR leader. PRSA-NCC’s half-day workshop on enhancing leadership skills was presented by Jeff Ghannam, right in photo and president of Crystal Communications and Marketing, on Feb. 13. Hosted by the American Islamic Congress, the event drew about 30 attendees seeking to take their careers to the next level.

During last night’s Super Bowl, winning and losing wasn’t something only found on the field. It was seen in the advertising category, too; and the spread between the two seems to be growing. Whether the ads were funny or not (the seemingly most important factor in the quality of a Super Bowl ad), I was very disappointed that the digital component of most of these was lacking, even though Oreo’s was trying with their Instagram campaign. While most ads featured a landing page and a Twitter hashtag, I didn’t get the impression that many advertisers had even the hint of a digital strategy behind their spots.

From store locators to Google navigation tools, interactive maps have become an integral part of our daily lives.

Maps are also appearing more frequently on organization websites. Visualizing information in a geographical framework can be a powerful tool for advocacy, government and educational groups. And, in the past couple years, programming tools for online maps have become more accessible, especially for experienced web designers.

Donna Spurrier, president of Richmond-based Spurrier Media Group, stands alongside 32 museum-framed broadcast calendars that she has used during the course of her three-decade-long career in strategic media planning and buying, and provided Capitol Communicator with insights into some of the dramatic changes that have taken place in the media landscape during that time.

Carousel30 produced an interesting infographic on how the communications world has changed since its founding nine years ago. Check it out.

By Dan Rosenthal

Reading the article about Mitt Romney's in-house bungling of his advertising campaign in The Post on Dec. 12, I rcalled years of frustration trying to explain the penny-wise, pound-foolish attempts at delivering strategically sound advertising campaigns from in-house "agencies." According to the article, the Romney campaign actually spent more money using inbred resources than if they had used an outside, objective, professional service. In terms of bang-for-the-buck, the Obama campaign out-banged severely.

Mary Meeker, a partner at Kleiner Perkins Caulfield and Byers, has produced what one writer said was "her latest huge deck of amazingly useful data" on internet trends called the “2012 Internet Trends Year-End Update.” Among other things, It shows that PC's and the traditional Windows environment are rapidly being overtaken by tablets and smartphones.

Meeker became known as "Queen of the Net" after being dubbed so by Barron's Magazine in 1998.

When someone smiles, can you tell if it is revealing genuine happiness? Or is it a smile of frustration? A computer system developed at MIT can. It turns out that this same computer system does a better job of differentiating between smiles of happiness and smiles of frustration than humans do. A study conducted in MIT's Media Lab has discovered that most people smile when they are frustrated, even though they don't think so.

A paradigm shift has been happening in the world of corporate communications for many years, it’s the convergence of marketing and public relations. However, there’s another dimension to that discussion - which is equally important to any enterprise organization – and it’s customer service.

At the 2012 PRSA International Conference, BurrellesLuce asked for “Your Ideas.” Professionals and students from across the industry wrote their insights on the BurrellesLuce backdrop. They shared their thoughts about ways to improve PR, what they see on the horizon, and directions PR might take to stay ahead of the media relations curve.