A leader's job:  Kindness in the workplace.  We are all human.  You and your work colleagues experience grief, illness, loss and tragedy.  It can strike anyone, at anytime.  Managers and leaders need to ask themselves how they can and should support their people through these moments, whether it's offering flexible schedules, time and space to grieve, or simple, compassionate gestures.  Indeed, there is a place for kindness at work.

Take a social media litmus test.  Thinking about hiring a consulting firm to support or build your social media program?  With web developers, internet marketers, advertising agencies, PR firms and "integrated marketing solution providers," the world of interactive support services can be challenging to navigate. Fortunately, by asking five simple and open-ended questions, you can separate the true leaders from those who simply speak the latest lingo to make the most of your investment.

The value of a good headline:  Whether you're Tweeting, Facebooking, blogging, or issuing a news release, you've got to catch readers or reporters with the headline.  The New York Times reports that Matt Drudge (creator and editor of the online Drudge Report) drives more traffic to major news sites than any other source, owing to his "nose for news" and his "irresistible headlines."  Consumers and journalists alike are too flooded with information to waste their time reading articles with a boring headline.  Spice up your headlines to results.

Bringing Comcast Cares Day To Colorado Communities and Media

Comcast Cares Day is one of the largest single-day volunteerism efforts in the country, giving the company's employees, families and friends the opportunity to get out into their community and give back.  As part of the national effort, more than 3,000 people in Colorado donated a day of service to a local nonprofit organization. Linhart PR has supported the event for the past seven years, and heading into Comcast Cares Day 2011, media and online coverage of the event remained a top priority.  Linhart PR executed against two strategies:  Deliver robust local-market stories to media outlets across Colorado to share the philanthropic efforts of Comcast; and create interesting and engaging Comcast Cares Day content to leverage across external and owned social media channels.  The result:  Through its community relations and media relations efforts, Linhart PR successfully placed Comcast Cares Day stories with Colorado's top media outlets, including the Denver Post, Denver Business Journal and KUSA-TV, the state's most-watched television news station. Comcast Cares Day photos and user-submitted articles appeared on more than a dozen community news websites, including Examiner.com and YourHub.com.  A Linhart PR-created "time lapse" video of a Cares Day project site also was posted to the company's Facebook page and promoted via Twitter. 

Last quarter, we asked what barriers you've faced in establishing a social media presence in your organization:  100% said lack of resources or staff.  In this issue, with the continued growth of social media channels, we want to know where you turn for news-making headlines.

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We recently welcomed three new account associates to support our clients and teams - Emma Garten, Andy Peters and Noelle Robillard.  Each previously served as an intern through our JumpStart Internship program.

Linhart PR won three top Gold Pick awards from the Colorado chapter of the Public Relations Society of America for our work on behalf of Rudi's Organic Bakery and Red Robin Gourmet Burgers.  Account Executive Quinn Kelsey also won the 2011 Rookie of the Year Award from PRSA Colorado.