Preparing for the Volunteer Trip of a Lifetime

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Marketing Musings

Projectline proves its passion for giving employees unique opportunities to make a difference globally through its International Volunteer Grant. Each year, two Projectline employees are awarded the opportunity to travel abroad, to work in support of a cause of their choice. When I heard the news that I had been selected this year, I was beyond ecstatic.

On January 5th, I am embarking on the volunteer trip of a lifetime to Cape Town, South Africa. I will be working for two amazing organizations, whose missions are to assist the lives of those affected by HIV/AIDS. The House of Moria Orphanage caters to children whose parents died from HIV/AIDS; approximately half of the children, ranging from 18 months to 14 years old, are living with the deadly disease themselves. With little funding from the South African Government, House of Moria provides housing, food and education. Per the orphanage’s request I will deliver a presentation to the children on the how to prevent the spread of AIDS and how to be self-sufficient. The money I’m raising as part of this volunteer effort will go toward:

  • Nutritious fresh food—diabetes is on the rise, as they are often unable to pay for fresh produce
  • Educational supplies
  • Clothing
  • Diapers

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Projectline Makes 2013 Seattle Met Best Places to Work List

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News

What is it that makes Projectline one of the best places to work? Is it the turntable spinning vinyls on Floor 2 in the Seattle office, or our turntable.fm room where Projectliners across the country can meet up for a virtual dance party? Is it the fresh, local, organic snacks in our fully stocked kitchens, or the homemade happy hours we host each week? Book club? Community service? Flexible workspace? Fabulous people? Or does it all come down to our amazing annual holiday gala?

You’ll likely get a different answer depending on which one of us you ask, but there’s one thing we all can agree on: There are many things that make Projectline a great place to work, and that’s why we’ve made the Seattle Met magazine list of Best Places to Work two years in a row. Yep—we made the list last year, and we’re proud to announce that we’re on the 2013 list as well.

One employee’s take: “I’ve been with Projectline for over two years, and what I love most is that I’m given satisfying, challenging work to do along with the support I need to be successful. But this doesn’t mean I have someone standing over my head, watching my every move—I’m trusted to get my work done and done well, whether I’m working from home or the office. My coworkers are incredible, and our office manager works hard to make us all feel at home. We volunteer together, we learn together, and we definitely play together, too.”

Published by SagaCity Media, Seattle Met delivers a signature mix of in-depth news stories, provocative essays, and essential guides to the best of the city.

For questions or press inquiries, please contact Ann Naumann.

Picture of the Week: 12/18/12

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Pic of the Week

Every weekday morning at 10:42 am, our team is invited to send in a picture of where they are, what they’re doing, or who they’re with. We post our favorite picture from each week and share its story here.

10:42 Dec 14, 2012 - Wrapping presents for YWCA!

Projectline’s Holiday Donation Drive is in full swing! Just like Santa’s Elves, generous-of-heart Projectliners take part in the entire process. While we aren’t the best at actually making the toys, we do collect the funds, shop for the gifts, wrap them up, and deliver them to the families in our community who might not have gifts under their trees otherwise. No peaking! Not until Christmas morning, anyway.

Weekly Roundup: 12/14/12

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Marketing Musings

Welcome to the Projectline Weekly Roundup. We know that the week can move pretty fast. Since Fridays sometimes offer a chance for a breather, we wanted to share links to some of the articles we liked this week. As always, we’d love to get your take, so feel free to leave a comment or chat us up on Twitter. Happy reading and have a great weekend!

Weekly Roundup

Marketing
Every Marketer Should Be Technical—I really liked this post by the SEOmoz folks. I think this really gets at what it means to be a modern marketer. It’s about building marketing efforts that drive sales and increase revenue.

Social Media
Twitter Instagram Photo Battle—Visual communication is extremely popular on social media channels. Photos and videos are more shared than text. Recently, Instagram and Twitter have been battling for control of photos in social media.

A Social Media Major?—This one isn’t critical, but I thought it was interesting. Apparently a college will offer a major in social media. Are they on the right track? Is this the future of communication education in college?

Reporting on Social Media Engagement—This article discusses some of the ways you can report on social media. Nothing ground breaking, but a good reminder.

Projectline Posts
Selling Ourselves Short—I wrote this post because I see marketers trying to fix bad content by making it shorter. It’s true that making it shorter usually makes it better, but that doesn’t make it good content.

Let’s Declare Ware on Collateral!—This post gives a brief introduction to the webinar presented by our own Ann Naumann. She outlines the difference between content marketing and marketing communications.

Let’s Declare War on Collateral!

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Content Development

Thanks to LinkedIn’s improved functionality, I recently have received multiple endorsements from former and current coworkers for my expertise in marketing communications. Every time I get one, I have to confess, I cringe a little.

It’s not that I don’t appreciate the votes of confidence. (I do. Really. Thank you.) And I’ve spent a lot of time over the years concepting, writing, editing, producing, and otherwise creating and project-managing all kinds of communication vehicles for marketing. White papers, webinars, datasheets, sales presentations, press releases, FAQs, web content, articles, brochures, blogs, newsletters, posters, mailers, table tents, sales tools – the list goes on. Some of it’s been good, too.

But let’s face it. Marketing communications is so yesterday. Content marketing is today. And the two are not synonymous.

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Selling Ourselves Short

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Marketing Musings

The common trend in marketing content development is to go short. The axiom “shorter is better” is trotted out at most client meetings, and heck, I know I’ve said it a bunch. Here’s the thing: I don’t think that this advice is wrong or misguided. “So, Brian, you’re calling out an industry trend and then saying it’s OK?” Pretty much, but only because I think it is the best advice a lot of marketers can provide.

Let me ask you a question. Has B2B marketing content ever been known to be particularly interesting, captivating, or inspirational? In my experience, no. Since Twitter’s popularity started growing in 2008, marketers have been dealing with a 140-character world. In that time, numerous “Blogging is Dead” blogs have been written. Combine that with the rise of mobile and the frequent, but inconsistent consumption of content and you arrive at the B2B marketers content equation.

140 character world + mobile + abundant content = short content

Perhaps this is simplifying too much, but I think this is kind of why we’re seeing this push for short content. I think marketers have the perception that people have short attention spans and the perception that shorter content is better. Though, I think that the reality of it is much more complicated than that.

What People Want
Good content.

What Marketers are Giving Them
Shorter content.

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Weekly Roundup: 12/7/12

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Pic of the Week

Welcome to the Projectline Weekly Roundup. We know that the week can move pretty fast. Since Fridays sometimes offer a chance for a breather, we wanted to share links to some of the articles we liked this week. As always, we’d love to get your take, so feel free to leave a comment or chat us up on Twitter. Happy reading and have a great weekend!

Weekly Roundup

Content Marketing
It’s Going to Be OK: B2B Content Marketing That Earns Trust—Any blog post with Mad Men references has me hook, line, and sinker. The plus side is that, in this piece, the author does a great job of framing the role of content marketing in the B2B buying process.

Six Ways to Use Online Video for B2B Event Marketing (a Case Study)—This article gives some good ideas of how you could incorporate video into event marketing efforts. Like the article says, videos can be very expensive, but try to think of ways you can make a video without spending lots of money. Sometimes, budget constraints make for the best videos.

Create Engaging Content for Any Industry, Even “Boring” Ones—Ah. The boring industries. Often most B2B companies fall into this category. Marketers need to realize that there are interesting aspects and aspects that are interesting to somebody in every industry. I liked this blog post in that it highlights the need for content marketing to go beyond boring.

Projectline Posts
Projectline Makes the Inc 5000 Honor Roll, Wins Inaugural Hire Power Award—This week, we were honored as a winner of Inc.’s inaugural Hire Power award. We believe in hiring exceptional people and when you hire exceptional people, they do amazing work and enable you to hire even more exceptional people.