Stories by Dan Santow

Not long ago I returned from three weeks traveling through India by myself. While planning this eight-city adventure, a voice inside my head kept telling me I was nuts: India?

Midsummer is the perfect time for public relations and communications-agency owners and leaders to evaluate their companies’ achievements over the past six months. Many will review work product, staff performance, and new business wins, as well as client results and satisfaction.

There was a time when PR professionals tried to demonstrate the value of their contributions by counting clips and calculating the cost of the placements, as if that space had been bought as advertising. That time was, sadly, now. I’m saddened to hear that that’s still the method some agencies and their clients use.

When Twinkies parent company Hostess went out of business late last year there was an outpouring of sentiment from millions of people for the spongy cake with the creamy filling, which dates back to 1930. Saying goodbye to such an iconic brand was hard to, er, swallow for a lot of older consumers, who equate Twinkies with their childhood.

Personally, most of us know that communication is more about listening than talking. As marketers and corporate communicators, however, our professional training has too often driven us to think of our job as the science of monitoring, followed by the art of persuasion.

Becoming a leading voice on one of the hottest issues in the country is not easy. If you really want to move your brand ahead and get into true thought leadership space, one of the best ways is to become a credible source for a momentous national news story.

A recent study by Public Affairs Pulse has revealed that Americans hold a decidedly unfavorable opinion of the Federal government. A recent survey of 329 professional marketers revealed that marketers are changing their channel focus in 2013.

At the same time we suffer from stereotypes in the eyes of our elders. Think about how intimidating it can be trying to prove yourself to someone who thinks you spend the better part of your day tweeting, texting and keeping up with the Kardashians.

Soon after the U.S. Supreme Court in June ruled the Defense of Marriage Act unconstitutional, Chick-fil-A President-COO Dan Cathy chimed in on his Twitter account about the decision.

PR pros who work for nonprofits, associations and NGOs (Non-governmental organizations) play a vital role for their brands. They do everything that their PR counterparts working for consumer or B2B brands do—cultivate sources in the media, drive the social media strategy and find new ways to get the message out—but often with much smaller budgets.