Waggener Edstrom Worldwide Content: Emulation Principle in Effect

Surfing about the digital public relations world this morning, I ran across Waggener Edstrom via our new EPR Spanish Twitter variant. As anyone in the online PR business knows, WE’s award winning social media arm is out there, always. But my little blurb today focuses on another WE element that caught my eye, their Consumer Engagement Blog.

If you are reading this, chances are you are a PR professional or other communicator. Educated, decent income, maybe middle aged, and probably smack in the middle of what I would call “your ambitious years” too. You want to be good at what you do, and compensated for it too. Well, here’s the best piece of advice you will get this weekend (but you have to read down to get it). Invest in excellence. WE’s Jessica Spindel is a perfect example of someone at Waggener Edstrom, maybe even Milissa herself, paying to cultivate excellence. At a moment when most companies are chopping off arms and legs – in order to contract, to save, to be economical – Waggener Edstrom hires Event Services Coordinators, and other young people, who can not only write, but express with the best.

For many businesses, at least in the past, corporate blogging just did not bring in the ROI Daddy Big Bucks expected. Even assigning junior associates the task of announcements somehow fell short of expectations, for the short sighted, that is. WE, one of the first practitioners of “engagement”, has probably churned out more articles than any other corporate PR company. The images I include in this piece are all from Spindel’s recent posts, with subtitles set by me to reflect value. As for the content?

Ideas – We Connect You – Influence, this bit of PR dogma is no lie. Spindel’s blog posts, all those Waggener Edtrom bits out there, over some years now, they generate idea. They express, brand, and instigate in ways only one in 1000 CEO’s out there can imagine. Okay, maybe 2 in 1000. The ROI and conversion rate on sunshine! Sorry for the little slap Mr. CEO man, return on investment is not always instantaneous. Yet, Melissa Waggener Zorkin’s company, somehow understood this all along.

Art and architecture, to the way things make us feel, how many business behemoths out there reach out to us in such ways? I quote directly from a post about sharing art with those who cannot see it:

“Candidly, I grew up in a family of artists; painters, writers, and those who expressed their deepest selves through physical movement.  I took for granted the childhood I spent staring at stories played out onstage, or centuries worth of art and sculpture in museums, and never stopped to wonder how those with limited or no sight could everfeel as touched and connected to such beauty as I did.  Thankfully there are professionals out there who take the time to walk in others’ shoes daily, ensuring that one takes away as much as possible from an experience by engaging every sense.  It’s a wonderfully humbling reminder as both a human, and as an Event Coordinator, whose job it is to create engaging environments that attendees will never forget….”

I don’t know about you, but I just like and enjoy reading writers who feel, are honest, and who understand the humanity of humanity. While I have selected Jessica to single out here (you are most welcome Jessica), the client or passer by to Waggener Edstrom’s site will find the same “closeness” whether reading foodie stuff, really “being there” (image top), or accessing the heart (image above)of one of the business world’s most powerful practitioners, Melissa Waggener Zorkin.

The cynic out there will say; “this is just PR playing on our emotions.” I say, if that were true, communications industry buffs would find such sympathies splatter all over Richard Edelman’s blog, and others, for business sake. Even if the approaches from WE are feminine, even feline, which approach is really most appealing, humane, even touching? If you prefer the more clinical, surgical approaches to your world, good luck engaging with flesh and blood humanoids off Wall Street. Oh, and the “advice” I spoke of?

I leave the reader with one of the best bits of advice I ever learned, and no Kong Fuzi did not relay this to me personally, a basketball coach, several football coaches, and the pastor of a small church in Georgia, not to mention my father and brother did, many times over. Want to excel in all things, in business, become the Ronn Torossian or Melissa Waggener of PR? Heed this.

When you see someone of worth, study how to emulate them – when you see someone who is unworthy, study your own character.

Invest in good people and good people, their ideas and content, will protract your company’s worth. And for the reader who thinks this WE accolade some form of pandering? Type Waggener Edstrom in the search bar of EPR, we call em as we see’em. To begin your journey following my cutting edge advice here, and envisioning the world taking up your gems of communicative understanding…

Start at the start…