Jason Sprenger

November 24 2015

Can You Teach Creativity? The #PRStudChat Community Shares Insights

Deirdre Breakenridge Creative, Event, PR 2.0, PRStudChat, Public Relations Creative Quotient, Heather Whaling, Jason Sprenger, PR Creativity, PRStudChat, public relations 0

With technology advancing, consumer behavior changing and shorter attention spans, it has become increasingly difficult to build relationships. Organizations need communication professionals who have a raised creative quotient. You have to be more creative and innovative in your approach to connect and engage with audiences today.

On November 17^th, the #PRStudChat community gathered to discuss the importance of Creative PR and taking the art of storytelling to a new level. Heather Whaling, president of Geben Communication and Jason Sprenger, president of Game Changer Communications led the discussion on the different ways students and professionals view and use creative in their PR campaigns.

One question focused on whether creativity is inherent, or if it can be taught. Here are several of the interesting insights our community members shared:

According to community responses, levels of creativity will vary among professionals and your environment plays an important role. At the same time, we agreed that exercising Creative PR is both valuable and a necessity today. A career in PR requires strong skills in many areas. However, social media communication adds a whole new dimension to your creative knowledge and skill set. Taking the time to increase your Creative PR quotient is one way to stand out regardless of the position or your years of experience.

What are your tips for increasing creativity and learning new ways to be creative in PR?

November 11 2015

The #PRStudChat Community Discusses Creative #PR on November 17th

Deirdre Breakenridge Creative, Event, PR 2.0, PRStudChat Creative PR, Heather Whaling, Jason Sprenger, PRStudChat, public relations, Storytelling 0

On Tuesday, November 17th at 8:30 p.m. ET, the #PRStudChat community will gather to discuss Creative PR and how smart PR today requires a combination of creative storytelling, powerful visual imagery and data-driven decision making.

Special guests, Heather Whaling, President of Geben Communication and Jason Sprenger, President of Game Changer Communications will lead a discussion with PR students, professionals and educators on the importance of visual storytelling that:

Leverages data to create timely PR opportunities.
Uses social and content to amplify media placements
Partners with influencers to extend campaign reach.

Here’s a little more information on our PR experts:

Heather Whaling:

Heather Whaling is founder/president of Geben Communication. An avid Twitter user, Heather can trace the majority of Geben’s business back to relationships that began online. This ability to turn social networking into business outcomes illustrates Geben’s contemporary approach to traditional and digital PR. After launching the company from her dining room, Heather’s fresh approach to best practices has helped Geben evolve into a highly respected, sought-after, award-winning PR firm. Geben was named the national media relations agency of the year (Ragan/PR Daily) and a top 10 agency for startups (Agency Post). Geben is also the top boutique agency in Columbus, according to Columbus CEO.

Jason Sprenger:

Jason Sprenger is the president of Game Changer Communications. Hw founded the agency in 2012 to help organizations propel themselves forward using the entire spectrum of public relations. Before starting Game Changer, he led North American PR for FICO and built a successful corporate PR department at data storage firm Xiotech (now called X-IO Technologies). He has also held various roles with three Twin Cities public relations firms. He has worked for a wide variety of organizations, from large to small and public to private, and has been a corporate, agency and freelance counselor. As a result, Jason has seen the PR industry from as many angles as anyone and learned how to drive success no matter what the challenge or situation.

If you have any questions about Creative PR or thoughts you would like to share in advance of the session, please tweet or DM us. We hope you’ll join us for a fun and informative Twitter chat session focused the art of creative storytelling and the best ways to improve your visual content to create more impact. “See” you on the 17th!

More About PRStudChat:

It began with a simple question asked by Angela Hernandez, then President of PRSSA at Central Michigan University (CMU). “Is PR Right for me?” A follow up blog post by PR 2.0 expert Deirdre Breakenridge inspired a series of direct messages on Twitter between Breakenridge and fellow PR industry pro, Valerie Simon. This was an important question and one that should be explored beyond one student or one blog post. Why not build a community to help students across the country, and even the globe, learn from the experience and perspective of industry professionals… A community where everyone can learn and grow together. Read more

September 21 2015

[Guest Post] The Umbrella Model of Public Relations: A New Way to Approach #PR

Deirdre Breakenridge Guest Post, PR 2.0, Public Relations, Strategic Communications Communications, Jason Sprenger, PR Roadmap, public relations, Umbrella Model 1

A Guest Post by Jason Sprenger, President & Founder, Game Changer Communications

As I’m sure you’re well aware by now, whether you work in PR or not, it’s really hard to define public relations. According to the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA), the leading trade organization in our industry, “public relations is a strategic communication process that builds mutually beneficial relationships between organizations and their publics.” Ummm…that’s pretty vague. What does it mean? How do we translate that into concepts and practices that will add value to our clients and organizations?

These are challenges we’ve faced for a long time. But now, with the Umbrella Model of Public Relations, we have a tool to solve them.

This new model, launched on September 15, presents the entire spectrum of how people and organizations communicate and build relationships with their stakeholders in a visual, easy-to-comprehend way. This provides a roadmap for organizations to easily develop a holistic PR program with varying types of communications elements. Even better, it means we all finally have a tool to show our parents, spouses, etc. so that they can truly understand what it is we do for a living!

To download and/or read a white paper and images for the Umbrella Model of Public Relations, please visit http://gamechangercommunications.com/umbrella-model/. Already, the model has started a discussion in our industry about what we do and what value we can bring, and that’s fantastic. The more we engage in this dialogue, and the more we take it upon ourselves to grow our skills in other areas of PR and bring new value propositions to our organizations and clients, the better work we’ll do and the better our industry’s reputation will be in the business community.

I look forward to all your feedback, and the great discussion that is to come!

Jason Sprenger is the president of Game Changer Communications. Jason founded the agency in 2012 to help organizations propel themselves forward using the entire spectrum of public relations. Before starting Game Changer, he led North American PR for FICO and built a successful corporate PR department at data storage firm Xiotech (now called X-IO Technologies). Jason has also held various roles with three Twin Cities public relations firms, and has worked for a wide variety of organizations, from large to small and public to private, and has been a corporate, agency and freelance counselor.

July 3 2015

Social Media for Consumer vs. B2B: Three Fundamental Differences

Deirdre Breakenridge Guest Post, PR 2.0, Public Relations, Social media B2B, B2B Social Media, B2C, Consumer Social Media, Jason Sprenger, PR 0

A Guest Post By Jason Sprenger, President & Founder, Game Changer Communications

As with any other tactic in our PR arsenal, social media can help us make waves for our clients. Most of the work I’ve seen profiled in best practices, case studies, award entries, panel discussions and other channels has been consumer-facing – as in work done by companies or agencies to advance the agenda of a B2C company or a consumer product (Oreo, Dove or Skittles anyone?). But there’s plenty of quality work in the B2B realm as well. Most of the time, you just have to look a little harder for it.

There are some fundamental differences in how social tactics are applied in the two arenas, which I think is only right given that they contain different kinds of organizations with differing agendas and audiences. Here are some of the biggest distinctions I’ve seen:

Consumer-facing voices tend to be louder, energetic, more flashy and sometimes more controversial. B2B voices, on the other hand, are generally plainer and more understated. But don’t confuse this with weak; in both arenas, quality social media voices can be found all over the place, and the meek are quickly overwhelmed by the strong.
Calls to Action. In B2C social media, you see a lot of product and brand-oriented calls to action. Enjoy our experience…buy our product…come to our event. In the B2B space, most calls to action try to get audience and community members to visit a website to read a blog post, download a collateral item or sign up for something. It’s about information sharing first, and experiences and purchases second – which I think is an interesting microcosm of the differences in audience buying cycles in the two arenas.
B2C social channels use a ton of video, images and other media channels. Moreover, B2C companies are very often the earliest adopters of emerging technologies, and you see them pushing the envelope all the time to try to gain a competitive edge. B2B companies, on the other hand, are starting to understand the value of sharing media in social channels. I still see a lot of text-only posts, but wiser companies are integrating screen grabs and creating eye-catching creative – if not even more.

After reading about these variations, you might draw the conclusion that B2C social media – and maybe B2C PR in general – is sexier and more fun. Depending on who you are and what you value, you might be right. But I’m here to tell you that B2B PR can be plenty fun and interesting too. More on that in a future post.

What else have you seen in terms of differences in social approaches?

May 14 2015

Clichés of the PR Industry

Deirdre Breakenridge Guest Post, Public Relations B2B, cliches, Jason Sprenger, management, PR 3

A Guest Post By Jason Sprenger, President & Founder, Game Changer Communications

I’ve been around the block once or twice in my career, and along the way I’ve been exposed to some sayings, themes, ways of doing things, etc. that I’d like to chuck out the window. They do us a disservice as professional communicators, in my opinion.

In no particular order, here are a few of them:

We Know Your Business. As a veteran of both corporate and agency environments, I know a few things to be true. One of them is that agency people say all the time that they understand a company’s business. They say this because they have a certain amount of experience in particular industry, or similar experience working inside a related company. But it’s quite simple: they don’t know that company’s business. They can’t. The only way we really know a company’s business is if we work there. Period. There are so many subtleties, proprietary systems, culture nuances, political factors and many other things in play that influence how things get done that we simply cannot understand unless we’re inside the firewall and on the payroll. And put yourself in the corporate hiring manager’s position – when agencies told me they knew my business, I laughed at them. It’s overconfident and arrogant.
I’m a People Person. It’s an oldie but goodie. Insert joke here.
I’ll Give You Some Time Back Now. Have you ever had a meeting or a conference call get done early – and then the leader of the meeting says that you can have your time back? I used to like it, but shouldn’t it be the goal of every meeting to complete work in an efficient manner? We don’t need to pat ourselves on the back for it in front of everyone when we get it right, do we? Ugh.
Enter Your Time…Please… I’ll call this a cliché because everyone in an agency managerial role has to say it way too often. We all know it, but an agency cannot function well without an accurate accounting of the time that its employees spend working. And the longer you wait to record your time, the more you’re likely to forget or misrepresent your activity…yet I knew people who would wait a whole week or even longer to do it. I’ve worked for three agencies, and I heard this plea almost daily in all of them. Well, in my agency, you either log your time every day or there are consequences. If I can find the time to do it, you sure can. It’s simply part of the job, thank you very much.
B2B PR isn’t Sexy. Well, maybe this isn’t a tired saying per se. But I resent the idea that any campaign that doesn’t reach hundreds of millions of eyeballs and/or feature a big stunt isn’t that interesting or fun to work on. This tends to be the case almost all of the time when working in the B2B world. Sure, stunts can be fun, creative, stimulating, etc. But the most fun things I’ve done in my career were pitching toilet seat wipes to building owners…helping a start-up acquire some funding and go to market…help a high-tech company integrate a recent acquisition and spin it off a year later for a 3x return on investment…and the list goes on. To me, it’s incredibly fun and rewarding work, and it doesn’t require a six-figure expense budget.

What are the clichés of our business that you’d like to get rid of? You know you have one or two. We’d love to hear what they are!

February 23 2015

Guest Post: How to Sell #Content #Marketing to Your Bosses

Deirdre Breakenridge Guest Post, PR 2.0, Public Relations, Strategic Communications Content, Content Marketing, Game Changer Communications, Jason Sprenger, Leadership, PR 0

A Guest Post By Jason Sprenger, President & Founder, Game Changer Communications

Content marketing as a discipline is still relatively new, and it’s evolving into whatever we professional communicators and marketers say it is. But we’ve been strategizing and executing around its essential elements for decades. How do you most effectively package your company’s unique value propositions and expertise, and deliver it to the market? What’s the right channel to use? What’s the right timing? How do you capture leads and stimulate sales through these assets?

It’s fascinating to me just how many people in executive leadership have been resistant to these kinds of discussions. It could be because they see it as the latest passing fad, they just don’t know enough about it to make an informed decision or something else. But I’ve seen first-hand how content marketing can make a significant impact, especially to B2B organizations.

In no particular order, here are a few of my own tips for how you can sell content marketing to your bosses, and secure the buy-in you need to bring value to your organization:

Follow the money. Of course, executives are concerned about return on investment; will the expense of time and resources on content marketing show a direct return, and how long will it take to do so? So show them how content feeds the sales and marketing machine. Create forms to capture consumer information, and track them through the sales cycle – and ultimately tally revenues. Generate unique web links for your assets, so you know exactly how much traffic you’re driving and what impact that’s having on sales opportunities. If you don’t have a plan for measuring and proving the value of your efforts, and growing that value over time, your pitch is dead on arrival.
Focus on the content. Remind them that people consume information and learn in a variety of different ways, and that a one-size-fits-all approach to marketing simply won’t reach the entire target market. Also remind them that many pieces of research today show that people read and digest many pieces of online information before making a major purchasing decision. You’re either in the game, and relevant as an option, or you’re not. This is a big reason why, in my opinion, the best content strategies create a wide variety of deliverable assets – videos, white papers, blog posts, social media dialogues, webinars, byline articles in media, testimonials and more.
Set the agenda. The simple fact of the matter is that customers, partners and other stakeholders of an organization are having conversations about that organization in formal and informal ways on a regular basis. Do your executives want to know what those conversations are about? Do they want to help shape the narrative, instead of letting everyone else set the agenda? Do they want the competition to determine how you are perceived in the marketplace? In my entire career, I’ve never heard an executive say “no” to any of these questions. A simple way to participate in and shape the dialogue is to create assets and engage.
Play to their ego. In the majority of organizations, top executives are also top thought leaders. As they are showcased in content marketing, their personal brands and reputations are bound to get a boost – and that can lead to any number of good things both for them and the organization.

Thoughts? Comments? We’d love to hear from you…