It turns out that hiring a PR firm can be a valuable tax minimization strategy. Here’s how it works. Hire a PR firm for 2012 and prepay the PR agency for 12 months of service. If the PR retainer is $8,000 per month, you write them a check for $96,000. Similarly, if the PR monthly [...]
Move aside, Silicon Valley. If news reports are any indication, it’s Chicago’s time to shine in the startup world. Earlier this month The Wall Street Journal asked, “Is It Chicago’s Moment For a Start-Up Renaissance?” and Reuters labeled the Windy City an “entrepreneurial hotbed.” BuiltInChicago reports that Chicago startups have raised nearly $1.3 billion in [...]
Securing a coveted spot in a major publication’s editorial and op-ed section is tough. On Wednesday, the Publicity Club of Chicago invited three influential editorial board members and opinion editors to share the ins-and-outs of pitching op-eds and editorial boards. Here are some things to remember for pitching an editorial department: Headlines Matter Tom McNamee, [...]
Walker Sands’ Quarterly Mobile Traffic Report has turned up some interesting results. Learn more about how you can make your site more mobile friendly!
You might have heard of the “SUCCES” acronym before. Each letter refers to a principle of effective communication, or more specifically, a way to get your message and its meaning to stick in the minds of your audience. Those six ideas—Simple, Unexpected, Concrete, Credible, Emotional, and Stories—are also the chapter titles of the 2007 bestseller, [...]
Rick Santorum faces an uphill battle against people who don’t want to see him winning elections, but having Google fix the search engine results isn’t the answer. How to prevent your brand from facing the same problems.
I ran into a problem earlier this summer. Like many just-grads desperately searching for a job to call home, we had to do the unthinkable: censor our social media. Countless professors, parents, friends and random strangers kept stressing the importance of first impressions, especially when they are online. It’s not that just-grads don’t understand the [...]
PRSA Chicago Young Professionals Network (YPN) held its bi-monthly workshop last night on Strengthening Relationships with the Media. As a newbie to PRSA Chicago and YPN events, I was excited to attend this workshop – along with fellow Media Relations Specialist, Emily Johnson. The YPN event featured a panel of traditional and digital media experts [...]
It’s nearly college football season and no doubt you’ll soon be hearing plenty of talk about the best teams and players in the nation. But while biased fans and alumni are expected to pub their alma mater, it’s those alma maters themselves that might be most guilty of self promotion. For many athletic programs around [...]
Walker Sands is looking for fall PR interns! I say this with excitement because I remember my intern days at Walker Sands with fondness. The internship runs from September 22 to December 16. The rest of this post gives some info as to what we’re looking for in an intern, but I’d also like to [...]