Image courtesy of OraSure Technologies

Before you clear the last thing off your desk, attend the holiday party and hop on the plane to Barbados, remember to add that one last item to your December check list: employee holiday donations. Despite the tough economy, millions of people are planning to donate during the holiday season and many of them could be employees sitting right under your firm’s roof. It only takes a few quick steps to recognize these altruistic individuals within your company.

I recently worked with a client that had several employees actively involved in a local community event. We quickly discovered that spreading the “good word’ about holiday donations is a fantastic way to strengthen corporate morale, improve your firm’s reputation within the local community and help some truly deserving individuals during the holiday season. And it is fun for your employees! Here are five tips for spreading the good word about your employees’ holiday donations:

1. Ask around the office – Find out if your employees are planning
to participate in any holiday drives. If nothing is planned, suggest a local organization for your company to participate in. There are a myriad of deserving holiday charities to choose from. A quick Google search can help provide some options. The local United Way chapter and other volunteer organizations usually post the details of their holiday drives to their websites.

2. Draft a media alert and pitch to the local press – Draft a media alert with an event summary and send to local reporters. Writing an alert is a great exercise for creating content to later share with your company and stakeholders. Here is a sample media alert from a recent client’s employee involvement that summarizes the details in a “who, what, when, where, why” format. Offer up a time for interview and photo opportunities with your employees and local volunteer organization reps.

3. Take photos and videos – Go to the event and take photos or conduct video interviews to capture all the details. All this can be done now with a basic digital camera! It’s a good idea to label photos with names of employees when sending to the media. Be sure to add your photos to your company’s website or social media pages later on.

4. Write a summary email – The summary email is important for building corporate morale within your organization. Pull a summary from the media alert (attaching photos of employees who participated) and send in an email to members of your organization. Take a shot at sending a few summary bullets and photos to reporters for their newspaper’s community section or briefs.

5. Post a recap to your company site – Create a wrap-up summary and post to your corporate website. Include any relevant media coverage in your news section. Recap the event in your next company newsletter and be sure to share your holiday story by posting to your company blog, twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Flickr.

These are some of the fun and easy ways to show the holiday spirit of your employees and solidify your company’s connection within the community. Follow the tips above and ensure your employee volunteers are recognized this holiday season!

Post by Mike Levey, Zer0 to 5ive Senior Strategist

Is it possible to put together a pitch template that will work for any pitch? I believe that 99% of the time, the answer is yes. Below is a sample pitch format that I’ve found has worked time and again. Have a look:

Reporters want an organized and compelling pitch that is easy to read, includes numbers and offers thought into the bigger trends and issues around a company or product. Here are the 1, 2, 3s that I believe will work for crafting a great pitch:

1. Here’s the story: This section gives the reporter company/product background and explains why he or she should cover. I try to keep this to 2-4 sentences at most. It’s easy to ramble on about the company and product. For example, the SmartSponge System can easily be described in five sentences, but this format helps me offer a condensed background, top-line product description, and tie it to an industry trend that the reporter will know.

2. Here are the numbers: I’ve found that reporters find numbers, facts and statistics helpful when building credibility for the importance of the story you are pitching. For example, hospital infections adding $30.5 billion to the nation’s hospital costs helps quantify the pain point in the market. The bottom line – reporters love numbers!

3. Here are the discussion points: I like to show the reporter how the pitch applies to his or her particular outlet. For example, in the sample pitch I target a business TV show that interviews CEOs of exciting businesses. Sometimes I will substitute this section with an “interview opportunities” section when relevant and offer industry experts and clients in addition to the company executive.

Some might argue that the sample pitch is too long, but for a new reporter that does not know much about a company or product, I think it’s important to keep the pitch a bit longer to help them see the big picture. Use these three easy steps and you will be ‘moon walking’ with your reporters.

Posted by Michael Levey, Zer0 to 5ive senior account strategist

I took my daughters to see the new animated Disney/Pixar flick, Up, last night. After hearing early reviews, we made sure we saw the 3D version. Truth be told, however, I didn’t notice the 3D or killer animation. The story was that good.

And this morning it hit me: What Disney/Pixar did with Up is what all PR pros should be striving for. Despite the whizbang technical prowess and army of the world’s best animators at their disposal, Disney/Pixar is first and foremost a storyteller. If we as our clients’ storytellers are doing our jobs correctly, the reporters and bloggers we pitch shouldn’t even realize they are being pitched. Because we shouldn’t be pitching; we should be telling (or helping to tell) stories (minus the traditional hard news stuff we do).

All too often, PR pros get lost in their clients’ marketing-speak, forgetting that the best stories — the best pitches — have heros, villains, supporting characters, conflict and resolution. Disney/Pixar knows this. We associate Disney/Pixar with great animated movies not because of the animation, but first because of the stories they tell and later because of how they employed their animation expertise to tell those stories better.

Because at the end of the day, it’s the stories we tell, not the products we pitch, that make us (and our clients and the reporters and bloggers we work with) successful.

(Posted by Mike Maney)

How many presentations have you sat through where the speaker droned on reading every word of 12pt text on every slide? Too many to count, I suspect. It’s an all-too-common malady among presenters. Matt Helmke, a senior strategist here at 0to5, is one who is not afflicted with this illness. Recently, Matt produced a slide presentation where he discussed the best practices in presentation design, development and delivery based on Garr Reynold’s seminal book, Presentation Zen. Reynolds is an internationally acclaimed presentation designer and communications expert living in Japan whose clients include many of the Fortune 500. His book combines strong design principles with the tenets of Zen simplicity to help readers develop simpler, more effective presentations. While you can download a PDF of Matt’s presentation, I encourage you to watch and listen to Matt talk about what he learned from Reynold’s book and how you can apply its teachings to your next presentation.

Image Credit: Mike Finklestein via Flickr/CreativeCommons

Every brand has a story to tell. Finding that story is the tough part. Tougher still is crafting that story into something compelling.

As communicators, storytelling is at the core of what we do. We uncover, craft and find the right audiences for stories that convey — directly or indirectly — the messages we want customers to hear. In years past, telling our stories was simple: we pitched reporters, produced print ads and talked with prospects at trade shows. Today, we have untold numbers of channels with which we can potentially get our stories told — or lost.

This response by Hanson Hosein, the director of the University of Washington’s Master of Communication in Digital Media, on the topic of information overload drives the storytelling point home:

“It is not just about social media to me, it is also about really effective storytelling. If you are a good storyteller, you are always going to break through.”

Good stories don’t require 200 page manuscripts. They don’t require two hour-long screen adaptations. For some, all it takes is 140 characters typed on a keyboard. Or a blog post. Or, gasp!, an actual conversation. Good stories hook people, they reel them in with colorful characters, keep them engaged with conflict and resolution, and let them walk away with a sense that their time wasn’t wasted.

Hollywood writers don’t hold eminent domain on storytelling. Companies have stories too (more than they probably know). Can you find your Oscar-worthy company story? Have you built your syndicated run of episodic stories?