Public Relations & Social Media Insight

I’m working on the followup to Steal Like An Artist, my book about how to be more creative in the digital age. It’s been a real pain in the ass. Here are five things that have helped:

1. Shut up and write the book.

As if Instagram weren’t easy enough already, last week we learned that the Socialmatic, aka the “Instagram Camera”, is really going to happenthanks to a deal between an Italian inventor and the folks responsible for the Polaroid name. We find the concept behind this product amusing, but it also represents the latest step in an interesting rebranding experiment.

The old-school camera company went bankrupt more than a decade ago, and the folks who bought the name quickly began making money by licensing it to other brands. C&A Licensing, which owns the rights to all things “Polaroid”, already attempted to tie it to the smartphone craze earlier this year by planning a series of “FotoBar” locations that aim to put the brand back in business by aping the Apple Genius Bar retail model....

...I used to think: oh, hope, big deal. It couldn’t have been an invisibility cloak or the ability to teleport or a genie who looks like Keanu Reeves?

I have a new slant on that myth after reading Srinivasen S. Pillay’s remarkable book LIFE UNLOCKED, in which he draws from neuroscience to present strategies in overcoming fear.

Some of the best life advice I ever got was this: Whenever you make a decision out of fear, you will regret it.I’ve applied that to writing, to relationships (and the end of relationships), to life.

I’ve learned to separate my fears from my intuition and, at times, to follow my intuition through the fear.

When a veteran stand-up comic is also funny on Twitter, it doesn’t exactly come as a shock. When an unknown phenom makes you physically choke on guffaws, though, it’s a revelation and also something of an extended audition.

...After catching the attention of the comedy cognoscenti in 2010, the then recent Harvard graduate soon got jobs writing on the Oscars and Disney’sA.N.T. Farm., before moving to a staff writer position at NBC’s ensemble sitcom Parks and Recreation. (The show was just renewed for a sixth season.) The in-demand writer is also an accomplished poet who’s writing asatirical guide to science for ladies.

Megan Amram’s frothy blend of dark humor and smart, surreal silliness has found more than 356,000 followers on Twitter so far. Although not everybody trying to generate laughs online is doing so for the same reasons, or with the same twisted flair, Amram’s consistent comedic quality is enviable for anyone trying to make their mark with brief bursts of humor. The multidiscipline writer recently spoke with Co.Create about puns, poetry, and how to be funny on Twitter altogether....

Technology and marketing tactics have changed the game, but there are some Sterling/Cooper approaches we can apply to social media today....

... I like to think of my Mad Men marathon as research. As I get further into the seasons, I am sure I will come across many more similarities between us and them. In some ways it’s comforting to see that, although we are rapidly moving towards a more digitally enhanced world, the core values stay the same.

These are valuable messages that we can take away from Mad Men and apply to social media marketing today: Build Relationships, Know Your Audience and Be Creative. So next time you’re staring blankly at your screen, do yourself a favor. Pour a whisky, inhale some cigarette smoke and transport yourself into the office of Don Draper, but most importantly, get inspired....

Get inspired by these 7 B2B companies we admire for awesome visual marketing content.

...Lucky for you, there a ton of ways you can get visual without taking screenshot after screenshot of your "boring" product. In fact, you already have the resources and know-how you need to create visual content right on your computer (or how to hire someone to help you out). Now all you need is a little dose of inspiration and creativity. So to help you get out of that non-visual rut and feel inspired to create awesome visual content of your own, we’ve compiled several noteworthy visual content examples from some B2B companies that have it right.

Just keep in mind that effective visual content may not always make you gasp, “Wow!” Remember that intricacy of design and professional photography skills aren’t always necessary in order to create outstanding visual content that brings in new visitors, leads, and customers to your business....

It’s one of my favorite pieces of writing advice from Ray Bradbury, and it’s blindingly brilliant in its utter simplicity. If you want to identify the ideas you should write about, the themes you can write passionately and believably about, follow this advice: Make a list of ten things you love, ten things you hate, and ten things you fear. Write to celebrate the things you love, and write to destroy the things you hate and fear.

Bradbury put it this way in an interview with his biographer, Sam Weller: “You can’t write for other people. You can’t write for the left or the right, this religion or that religion, or this belief or that belief. You have to write the way you see things.

I tell people, Make a list of ten things you hate and tear them down in a short story or poem. Make a list of ten things you love and celebrate them. When I wrote Fahrenheit 451 I hated book burners and I loved libraries. So there you are.”...