Summit Orthopedics, the Twin Cities’ top orthopedic specialty group with 14 locations and over 600 employees across the Minneapolis/St. Paul area, has chosen Minneapolis-based Maccabee as its new public relations agency.
Thrice-named one of Minnesota’s “100 Best Companies To Work For,” Maccabee is a strategic public relations and online marketing agency providing clients with exceptionally strategic and creative media relations, social media strategies, inbound/content marketing and corporate communications counsel from its headquarters in the Warehouse District of downtown Minneapolis. Learn more about Maccabee at www.maccabee.com and www.maccabee.com/blog,  and find the agency on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube and Pinterest.

Agile Education Marketing, a leading provider of education information and marketing services and award winning PR with Panache! (PRP) are pleased to announce their strategic lead engagement partnership.  Through this partnership, both firms will have the ability to offer clients new, innovative solutions for engaging potential customers and taking their prospecting efforts “beyond the lead”.

• President – , APR, President, Risdall Public Relations
• Vice President – , APR, President, Game Changer Communications
• Treasurer – , APR, Director, Bellmont Partners 
• Secretary – , APR, Principal, the plural i
• Ethics Officer – , APR, Fellow PRSA,
• Immediate Past President – , APR, Communications Director, Minnesota Department of Veterans Affairs

• , APR, Director of Communications, American Academy of Neurology
• , APR, Director of Strategic Marketing, Better Business Bureau of Minnesota and North Dakota 
• , APR, Account Director, Weber Shandwick
• , APR, Senior Public Relations Manager, Prime Therapeutics
• , APR, Marketing Consultant, Children’s Hospitals and Clinics of Minnesota
• , APR, Group Manager, Weber Shandwick
• , APR, Independent Consultant

Pineapple RM is pleased to announce it has promoted Cassie Roman to assistant account executive. 
 

Chalk it up to Minnesota humility. Despite the immense public relations wisdom and experience present during a recent Minnesota Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) "Breakfast with the Fellows" event, there was an air in the room of helping one another and advancing the public relations profession.

"I'm old, retired and insignificant," joked Lowell F. Ludford, APR, Fellow PRSA, during the introduction.

The event featured six Minnesota PRSA members who are members of the , considered the pinnacle of a professional's career.

Besides Ludford, other members of the panel included:

• Margaret Ann Hennen, APR, Fellow PRSA
• James Lukaszewski, ABC, APR, Fellow PRSA
• Rose McKinney, APR, Fellow PRSA
• Douglas K. Spong, APR, Fellow PRSA
• David Therkelsen, APR, Fellow PRSA

Panelists took both a look back at their experiences and offered glimpses into the public relations field's future.

Minnesota members of the PRSA College of Fellows share their insights. (Photos by Karen Lyons, APR)

When asked what advice they would give to a younger version of themselves, Hennen said to stay true to yourself and your values. Ludford emphasized the importance of educating your client's colleagues about the value of public relations.

"The ability to reinvent yourself every so often is important," Spong said when discussing trends in the public relations field. "Be relevant as the world around you changes."

Therkelsen, one of a small number of public relations practitioners who have gone on to CEO positions, said, "Some of the fundamentals will stay the same. You still need to think about stakeholders."

The panelists also provided recommendations to attendees on how to develop leadership skills, including:

• Study and read about leadership; Spong recommended any books by .
• Ask for help within your organization.
• Get involved in PRSA.
• Strive to be a PRSA Fellow.

In celebration of the 50th anniversary of Accreditation in Public Relations (APR), attendees who have earned their accreditation were recognized.

Minnesota PRSA President Joel Swanson, APR, shares his vision for 2015 surrounded by chapter past presidents.

In addition, the event served as an opportunity for 2014 Minnesota PRSA Chapter President Anna Lewicki Long, APR, to hand over the reins to 2015 Chapter President Joel Swanson, APR.

-- / Skogrand PR Solutions, LLC

The reason why you should consider utilizing Instagram to improve you marketing efforts is simple. The popularity of this social network has increased significantly over the past four years. In addition, the network is very user friendly and interacting with prospective clients is a simple process.

“You will see your user engagement increase on Instagram, especially if you utilize hashtags properly,” said Andrew Rice, the owner of a local web design business. “You can use dozens of hashtags in every one of your posts. When users search for that hashtag, they will have an easier time finding your post. This can significantly increase your follower base.”

For many small business owners, Instagram has proven to be just as beneficial to their social media marketing efforts as Google+, Facebook and Twitter.

“We didn’t think Instagram would be useful for us at first,” said Dean Bjorkstrand, owner of a Minneapolis landscape design & landscaping business. “We were open to using Facebook and Twitter but Instagram was really off of our radar. However, once we tried it out, we were very impressed by the results.”

Dean posted ‘behind the scenes’ images of his landscaping process on Instagram. His use of hashtags helped him focus his images on users that were interested in landscaping and lived in the Midwest. He began to see more traffic to his website and many users began linking to site. This improved his SEO efforts and he landed on the first page of Google for several important search queries. His new placement on Google led to a sharp increase in sales.

If you already have a strong social media following, Instagram will help you better connect with them. As Dean did, you can provide them with a look behind the scenes of your company so they can better understand you, trust you and connect with you on a personal level.

If you are a marketing student or you work for an organization that utilizes online promotion, you most likely have heard of the importance of content marketing. Instagram is one of the most effective channels to enhance your content marketing strategy. It would be wise make a place for it in your overall business plan.

A webinar is an Internet marketing instrument that is very effective for boosting your online reputation. One of the most important factors in regards to improving your publicity efforts online is proving that you are an expert in your industry. Doing so will help you gain the trust of your followers and quickly build your audience. A webinar allows you to quickly connect with niche users on an individual basis.

Although webinars are relatively simple and very effective, they are often underutilized by professional organizations. This could be due to their personalization and the fact that you essentially must perform when you host one. However, the benefits of webinars far outweigh the drawbacks.

If you are considering hosting a webinar, be sure to follow these three tips:

Most webinars follow the format of a slideshow or PowerPoint presentation. Images or bulleted information will appear on the screen while the host discusses aspects of the webinar topic to an audience that joined the presentation online.

Let’s say you have already created an informative and interesting webinar slideshow. How can you ensure that your webinar goes off without a hitch?

Promote your webinar using different marketing strategies. 

 

 One of the most effective ways to obtain webinar registrants is to utilize email marketing.

“The first thing you should do to promote a webinar is to reach out to your existing contacts via email,” said Andrew Rice, owner of a Twin Cities website design company. “You would be surprised how many of them want to hear what you have to say. Make sure to email them at least twice before the webinar. The first email should be a general invitation and the second should be a reminder. Email your contacts at least one week before the webinar is held.”

In addition to utilizing email marketing, make sure to promote your webinar through social media. If you have the funds, I’d recommend boosting your Facebook posts to increase your visibility.

Create a backup plan.  

If something goes wrong during the webinar (such as a technical issue), you will surely test the patience of your registrants and lose your audience.

“We were hosting a webinar on remodeling and our computer crashed during the first five minutes,” said Leslie Copsey, owner of a and a frequent host of home improvement informational webinars. “We were able to reboot it, but by the time we did, we had lost 80 percent of our registrants. All of our hard work was flushed down the drain.”

Copsey now keeps a backup computer that has the slideshow loaded next to her when she hosts her webinars. In addition, she provides a backup dial-out phone number for her audience at the beginning of the webinar to ensure there is continued communication in the event of a disconnection.

Make sure your webinar is to-the-point. 

Your webinar should take up as little time from your audience as possible to effectively get your message across. You do not need to go into details on the topic you are addressing. The webinar is meant to provide an outline of the topic to generate interest, not to be an end-all source for information. The primary goal of a webinar is to get your audience interested in your brand, after all.

Following the tips above will result in increased awareness for your brand, increased traffic to your site, increased conversion and an improved reputation. Webinars are one of the easiest and most effective ways to directly connect with your target audience.

Clarity Coverdale Fury, a Minneapolis-based advertising agency that has been studying Conscious Consumer trends for three years, has released their 2015 THINK Report. It is their second report on the Conscious Consumption movement, providing findings and implications from a national study conducted with Mintel to understand consumer attitudes, behaviors and purchase intent. It also provides practical applications for how marketers can reach America’s millions of Conscious Consumers.

Personal branding is the process of promoting your professional image across multiple outlets. Professionals have used personal branding for years in order to obtain career opportunities or to drive traffic to their personal website.

One technique that has been discussed among marketers more often than before is the use of personal branding as a marketing tool for a separate business. This means that more employees are using their personal social media accounts to support the company they work for or own.

“Using one’s personal social media pages to promote their company benefits both the company and the individual,“ said Andrew Rice, owner of a Minneapolis website design business. “Not only are they building awareness for their company, they are improving and promoting their personal reputation as an industry expert. This will only help them in the future if they are jump hunting, etc.”

If you utilize personal branding to promote a larger organization, employers will be impressed by your initiative and willingness to use every resource you can find to enhance the marketing strategy of a company.

One local business owner has begun to take advantage of personal branding to support her family business.  Alethia Erotas, who works at her family’s home building company, uses her personal social media accounts to drive traffic and promote her company. The result is that the company now has two brands promoting one.

“First I spent a lot of time sharing home improvement and home building articles on my personal Twitter and Facebook. This helped me gain a following of users interested in that niche,” said Erotas. “I proved that I was a trusted source for industry information and I began promoting my company’s blog articles to my followers. This drove a significant amount of traffic and conversion to the company site. It is a win-win situation because my followers are still being supplied with useful and interesting information.”

While Erotas promoted her company using her personal social accounts, her family’s company continued to promote its brand through the company social accounts. This practice doubled the traffic to her company website.

If you have not thought about using your personal social accounts to promote the organization in which you are employed, it might be time to consider it. Your employer will be moved by your inventiveness and your organization can benefit greatly from your work. The marketing potential of personal branding is limitless.

If your brand uses email marketing to keep in touch with your clients, you should be providing those subscribers with a way to share your content on social media. This practice can help you quickly and easily increase your social media followers, your website traffic and your number of email subscribers.

“The best practice is to combine your email marketing and social media marketing campaigns,” said Andrew Rice, local marketer and owner of a . “Send emails to your subscribers that are relevant, unique, entertaining, and just plain interesting. The next step is to ensure that your subscribers have a way to share your content on their social media accounts.”

The most popular option for marketers hoping to spread their email marketing message is to utilize social sharing buttons. Social sharing buttons have become increasingly popular recently. In fact, they are truly a necessary feature for those wishing to increase their brand awareness, social media following and website traffic through email marketing.

“I have been utilizing email marketing for several years now by sending my customers monthly newsletters. I saw an opportunity to enhance that form of marketing by implementing a social media campaign at the same time,” said Chris Ochs, owner of a  landscape design and a commercial appliance repair company. “I placed social sharing buttons within the content of my emails and, instead of placing all of my copy in the email, I placed summary paragraphs with a ‘learn more’ link leading to our Facebook page (where I placed the entire article).”

Ochs began to see a major increase in his search engine traffic and he experienced a 60 percent increase in subscribers. In fact, the vast majority of his new subscribers were not customers at all. Because of the social sharing buttons, his customers were able to share his articles on social media and greatly increase his brand awareness for him.

It must be noted that Ochs did not build awareness for his social media brand simply by adding social sharing buttons to his blog articles. He did it by wring articles that were relevant and interesting. Because his email subscribers liked his articles, they decided to share it with their social media followers.

"If you want social media users to perform marketing work for your brand for free, consider placing social sharing buttons in your email marketing campaigns. They are incredible easy to use and, as long as you provide your readers with great content, they are very effective," said financial advisor and marketing professional, Tom Dasher.