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Winner: Irwin Gail Consumer Communications – Badger & Winters #WomenNotObjects #WomenNotObjects is a women’s advocacy campaign that sought to shake up the way the advertising industry portrays women. The campaign was the brainchild of ad industry… Continued

Winner: The Mosaic Company – The Great Yield Mystery When commodity prices decline, America’s farmers cut back on input costs like fertilizer. But cutting back on such items can create long-term problems with soil fertility. As… Continued

Co-Winner: Newlink – OneNewl1nk OneNewl1nk’s core objective is to achieve internal collaboration and regional alignment in order to become a truly integrated company. To do so, the company embarked on a journey to maximize its… Continued

Winner: Hotwire – Meet Swivelfly When the Swivelfly team first approached Hotwire, they had a vision and business model in mind to disrupt and forever change the workspace furnishing industry. Bruce Paul, Swivelfly’s CEO, recognized… Continued

Content marketing is any correspondence you create and distribute to inform, teach and engage with a business’ readers and followers. The end goal is building relationships, thereby increasing brand awareness and name recognition. It’s much more than posting funny cat videos on Facebook or randomly updating a blog; it’s a consistent, measured approach to reach a specific audience.

Working outside of the limitations of smartphone-captured footage, communicators can now stream professional-quality video directly to Twitter. While smartphone video has its place within Periscope and on platforms like Snapchat, brands now have the ability to widen their approach to streaming.

If you’re a brand communicator, you’re not likely to wade into politically hot waters, but in this incendiary cultural moment any topic can inflame certain groups of people—or the government. The Amy Goodman case in particular demonstrates the increasing power and inherent dangers of live streaming and the seriousness with which government authorities are approaching the medium.

Research consistently shows that effective internal communications help increase employee job satisfaction, productivity, morale, commitment and trust. An engaged workforce inspires excellence and results in employees who are motivated and consistently produce good work. As we know, to achieve staff engagement, employees must be kept informed through regular and effective communications that are timely and relevant. So how can organizations use PR to continually connect with employees?

The diversity of knowledge needed in our profession continues to expand. We’re strategic advisors as well as communicators. As such, I’m seeing a greater need for continued learning. When I was in journalism school, I was required to take one marketing class. That’s right, one. Not that regression analysis is part of my day-to-day, but that class gives me more insight now than it did then. Communications is a business. A strong business education is critical to success.

Without Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump appearing in your brand’s YouTube video, and lacking the professionals and budgets of the major broadcast, cable and Spanish-language networks, does your brand’s video stand a chance? Indubitably so, communicators tell us. In this first of this two-part series we’ll concentrate on bolstering your YouTube content; part II, in a future edition, will focus on measurement and analytics.