We’re looking for a ridiculously talented, super smart marketing communications pro to join the Mullen team. Even more specifically, to join my team at Mullen. Are you ridiculously talented? Super smart? Awesome! Then I have a few questions for you:

Would you want to work at an agency that was ranked #3 on Ad Age’s “Agency A-List” and named to Fast Company’s “Top 50 Innovative Companies.”

Have you helped plan and execute integrated communications plans across a range of mediums, including print, radio, direct mail and digital?

Do you have 5-8 years of experience, at least some of which was spent at an agency?

Are you a creative problem solver and eternal optimist?

Can you lead a cross-functional team of creatives, digital strategists, media planners, pr and social influence experts and analytics gurus to help drive our agency’s work on behalf of a client?

Still with me? Great! If you’re interested in sharing your resume with us for this Account Supervisor position, you can do so by clicking the link below. Otherwise, I hope you’ll consider passing this post along to someone you know who is looking for a great opportunity or sharing it with your Twitter and Facebook peeps.

Click here to learn more and submit your resume.

Thanks!

*Image by Łéł†Āķ Mă3ý.

Mullen is looking for three great PR pros to join our PR and Social Marketing team in our North Carolina office.

Do you have ridiculous talents?  Do you deliver above expectations? Do you like working with great brands? Do people like to work with you because you’re a team player and you’re relatively nice to be around? Do you like being asked lots of questions that begin with “do you?”

Then check out the job descriptions by clicking on the links below. If you submit your resume, mention that you heard about the opening from David Mullen. And even if you aren’t interested in the job, please consider sharing this post with your peers – both offline and online. Lots of great people are looking for a great opportunity!

• TWO Senior Account Executives
• One Vice President

In case you’re wondering, I absolutely love working at Mullen. This agency rocks! And, no, I don’t own the place. (I’m not being presumptuous. A lot of people ask.)

What are you waiting for? Either send in that resume or pass this post along to someone who might be interested!

Arik Hanson and Valerie Simon have a great idea. And I think you should know about it.

They’re tired of seeing so many great PR “free agents” looking for hard-to-find job opportunities in today’s market. People who are smart, strategic, savvy and seasoned. People well worth the attention of hiring managers. And that doesn’t take into account the many others they don’t know who are in the same boat.

Back to that great idea. It’s called “Help a PR Pro Out.” It’s a four-hour Twitter event on Feb. 19 (next Friday) from 11 a.m. – 3 p.m. EST with the goal of connecting job seekers with companies and agencies looking for great talent.

Here’s the gist, as shared by Arik:

Are you a job seeker? Prepare a creative blog post, pitching yourself to prospective employers and share it via Twitter during the event on Feb. 19 using the hashtag #HAPPO. The HAPPO “market champions” (see below) will help by retweeting and connecting you with potential employers in your specific market (or markets you’re willing to relocated to).

Are you an employer looking for talent? Follow the hashtag #HAPPO on Friday, Feb. 19 and share your openings. Market champions will do their best to connect you with talent they think matches your specific needs.

Are you a PR blogger/Twitter addict? Then share the #HAPPO tweets with your personal networks and lend your support to those in need. Help your market champion identify job seekers and pair them with potential employers. This is your chance to make a difference!

Whichever of those buckets you fall into, I’d encourage you to jump in and participate. It’s a great idea and you can feel good about helping some great folks land great jobs.

Questions? Interested in who the regional “champions” are for the effort? Check out the official HAPPO Web site.

Last week, I was approached by an ad rep from TalentSeekr, who wanted to know if I’d be interested in placing a widget over there in one of my sidebars that spotlights PR jobs my readers might be interested in learning about.

Though I thought I’d never be interested in running ads on this blog, I was curious. It’s a tough economy and the marketing and PR fields have had a rough couple of years as companies have downsized their communications budgets in light of the recession. I’ve had many incredibly talented friends find themselves without a job. I thought it could be really cool if someone reading a post here was alerted to their next great PR opportunity.

After doing some research on TalentSeekr and asking the rep lots of questions, I have to say I’m pretty impressed initially. The PR job ads would be relevant to regular readers. And once you click through the ad, you’re taken to a nice landing page for the company, where they outline their culture, the open position, benefits and more. It’s a pretty nice user experience.

So I’m interested in your opinion. Would you be totally turned off if a widget ends up in the sidebar that advertises PR positions? Or do you see it as a good opportunity to help point out career opportunities to our industry peers who happen to spend a few minutes here?

Please take a second to answer the poll. And add any additional thoughts in the comments.

If a brand invests in advertising, there are two tools of the advertising trade that its PR pros should have at their disposal.

1. Media Buying Plans. They go by a few names – media plans, media flow charts, media buys. These outline where and when advertising for your brand will show up in the marketplace. This is helpful for a couple of reasons.

First, check to make sure the media outlets on the media buying plan are part of your targets in your media relations plans. Advertising dollars are spent on outlets that most effectively reach your brand’s key consumers. If the outlet is valuable enough to advertise in, chances are good you should develop a targeted pitch for it, as well.

Second, if it’s a long-lead print publication and you’ve been working with a reporter on a story, let the media buying team know about it. They can work with their ad sales rep for the publication to try to get your brand’s ad positioned adjacent to the positive story.

2. The Creative Brief. Creative briefs are what the advertising account team use to brief creative teams on a new campaign. Once it’s been approved, it should be in your hands, too. They contain interesting insights that you may be able to use in your upcoming efforts, like current consumer mindsets and behaviors, the desired behavior you’re hoping to achieve, and other insights.

Also, they’ll give you a heads up on what advertising messages will be in the marketplace in the short-term. Where appropriate, knowing these insights can help you shape your key messages, as well as the efforts you plan to deliver them. Creating more consistent messaging is a good thing for brands.

Do you see any other ways these tools can be helpful. Have you found other things helpful when working across integrated teams?

*Image by batega.

What does 2010 hold for PR pros?

I’m sorry to say that I don’t have a crystal ball – for that matter, I don’t even have a Magic 8 Ball – but there are a few trends I think we’ll see unfold over the next 12 months.

So to kick up some lively conversation about the immediate, short-term future of PR, here are four trends I think we’ll spot in 2010.

1. PR Pros Will Learn that Social Media isn’t a Three-Trick Pony. Okay, we get it. Corporate blogs and Facebook and Twitter. There’s nothing wrong with using them, but if you don’t think those three platforms are the beginning and end of many social media proposals these days, you’re kidding yourself.

PR people will begin getting past the shiny object syndrome of these three and realize that it’s a big digital world out there. They’ll start to better understand technology and the possibilities it unlocks online – or hire and/or partner with people who do.

Why?

Other than being a smart business decision, the next best reason is that many advertising and digital agencies DO understand technology and platforms, and how to leverage them to develop creative content and efforts online for clients. If PR people don’t get smarter about this in 2010 and look beyond “Tweeting 101” as a prominent example of the social media value they bring to the table, advertising shops are going to eat their lunch.

2. The lines between PR and advertising will blur more rapidly. The number of ways to get in front of and connect with customers is expanding fast. And we’re seeing blurring lines between which disciplines “own” which pieces.

I believe more PR pros will recognize this, loosen their definitions of what PR “is,” and instead focus on making smart communications recommendations that make sense for their clients’ businesses. Even if it doesn’t fall under the realm of media relations or experiential events or one of the other traditional pillars of the PR business.

Why not recommend a great idea using mobile marketing to help drive customers in-store during your event? Or a sponsorship and online display banners for a message board that is part of your social media marketing efforts? Even if you don’t execute the idea, you get credit for the idea – and for thinking more holistically about how customers interact with the brand.

3. More Brands Will Learn that Social Media is Not the Handsome Prince. The great news is that more companies began seeing that social media does provide value for their brands in 2009 and that trend is still growing strong. In 2010, though, more than a few of them will realize that a kiss from Prince Social Media won’t immediately and magically revive their Snow White of a brand.

Social Media isn’t the second coming of you know who. It is a smart channel to integrate strategically into a well-rounded marketing plan, but it alone won’t be a marketing cure-all for most companies. In the coming months, many will learn that first hand.

4. PR People will Become Smarter Business People. One skill that many PR people possess is the ability to get up-to-speed on a brand and its category quickly. Many times, though, that quick study leads to a superficial understanding of the client’s business. And if you want to truly impact a brand’s success, you should start with a deep dive into their business and their industry.

Where does the market research show the greatest opportunities for growth? How can you geo-target your efforts to line up with that? How can you support the sales team and open doors for them to expand distribution? Understanding the business more intimately will lead you to strategies and tactics that stand a far better chance of actually impacting the bottom line.

Your turn. What are your thoughts on these? What trends do you see popping up in 2010?

*Image from thesocialnomad.

Do you want the CMO or CEO to pay attention when you share the results of your PR efforts? Do you want to significantly increase the chances of them seeing your work as a critical piece in moving the business forward?

If yes, then I have a single, four-letter word that is left out of most PR plans and certainly out of most PR results reports, which will help you do just that – data.

I’m NOT talking about evaluating total impressions and number of placements and increase in online mentions. I’m talking about planning your efforts against actual market research and tying your results back to that.

The Bad News
Most PR and corporate communications budgets don’t provide enough money to do research.

The Good News
Within most companies’ marketing departments is a rich deposit of market research that you can use. You just have to ask for it.

Here are two ways you can use existing market research to create more meaningful PR plans by next week.

Better Targeted Geographies. Too many PR pros have a knee-jerk reaction when it comes to planning, especially within media relations. “We’ll target the top 50 markets, as well as online media and bloggers.”

Here’s my question. If the CEO and CMO place the San Francisco market as a low priority based on results of the company’s market research, how excited do you think they’re going to be when you update them on the great placements you got in the San Francisco Chronicle and on the city’s local NBC station?

Leaders within most well-run companies make decisions with a good deal of data in consideration. You should, too. Market research will help you better define the primary and secondary markets you should focus on. Spend more of your time – and your clients’ budgets – in those areas.

Better Targeted Messages. Market research can zero in on the cities, counties and states where your brand is the leader, as well as where you fall behind the competition. Group those places into buckets and tailor your proactive messages to those markets accordingly, instead of creating a one-size-fits-all “editorial calendar” of what you’ll pitch across the board for the year.

For example, you don’t need to pitch stories to the Houston Chronicle as part of a mudslinging battle of strong competitive messaging and comparative claims against your foes if your market research shows you own 85% of the Houston market. Use your time and energy there to tell a different story and act like the market leader. On the other hand, if you’re targeting areas where you trail, you may want to focus all of your efforts on competitive claims, experiential events with side-by-side comparisons, etc.

These are just two ways I’ve found that market research and data can create PR efforts with more impact – both in the eyes of your customers and in the eyes of the C-suite. What other ways would you add?

*Image by M.B.X.

Is e-mail marketing still a good platform to reach out to your customers or do they get completely ignored? What is the biggest benefit email brings to marketers? What’s the most important ingredient in good email outreach?

These are the questions I recently asked Joe Colopy, CEO of email marketing firm Bronto, and he was kind enough to spend a few minutes on video answering them.

What are your thoughts on e-mail marketing? If you have additional questions for Joe, feel free to leave them in the comments.

More marketers are recognizing that social media brings value to their brands’ marketing efforts. And along with the interest in social media comes questions, like:

• What kind of information could we share through social media that our customers would even care about, but also would provide value to our organization?

• How do we measure success and return on investment?

• Can we trust our employees to represent our brand well within social media networks?

I asked these three questions to Jeramie McPeek, vice president of digital for the Phoenix Suns, during Internet Summit ‘09 yesterday. The Suns are using Twitter in a myriad of interesting ways and Jeramie provided some great examples and tips that should give you some new ideas for your brand. If you have any questions for Jeramie, feel free to leave them in the comments so he can address them when he has a spare minute.

Also, I’d encourage you to connect with Jeramie and the Phoenix Suns on Twitter to continue seeing ways they use the tool in the future.

The difference between success and less-than-stellar results can sometimes be a thin line. Sure, lots of things need to be in place to help ensure success – measurable goals, sound strategies, creative tactics. But why do some efforts that have this foundation still not measure up like others?

That thin dividing line? It’s called hustle.

Two different people with the same amount of smarts can take the same communications plan and derive very different results. That’s because exceeding your goals doesn’t always mean doing things that no one else can do. It often means doing the things that anyone can do, but doesn’t. That’s where hustle wins the day.

But hustle isn’t easy. It means moving faster, thinking harder, never quitting. It means you don’t see problems to complain about, but instead see opportunities to excel.

I spent all day yesterday on a long flight across the country. The young woman sitting next to me could have spent the entire five hours reading People magazine and napping. While she spent a little time doing both of those, she also took an hour or so to dig through email – sorting old emails, organizing her inbox and filling her outbox so replies would be ready to go when she landed and reconnected to the World Wide Web. That’s hustle.

Hustle has a price tag. But it also has rewards.

What helps you hustle? How do you channel that energy to excel?

*Image by Rick Harrison.