You Don’t Have to Break New Ground to Contribute

  by Sarah Warlick, content director “It’s been done” shouldn’t keep you from starting a conversation or stating your position. Blogging, tweeting and all the other opportunities to contribute to the social media conversation can be intimidating for a lot of professionals, particularly when they feel that they have to come up with completely original…

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Overused Buzzwords: Kill Them with Fire

  by Kelly Lucas, client marketing director We’ve discussed before on our blog the overdone and overtired business jargon and buzzwords that should really just die already. We did it here, and here, oh, and here, and then there’s this one, this one, and this one too. These posts tend to get quite a few clicks…

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Wordsmith Party Time! Here Are the 2014 Words of the Year

  by Sarah Warlick, content director Word nerds around the world are reveling in the revelations, vociferating their approval or beginning their well-reasoned rebuttals. The most exciting time of the year is finally at hand: the Words of the Year are here!  This annual season of lexicographic joy is pure fun, with the added bonus of…

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Marketing Lessons from the Pallas Cat

  by Kelly Lucas, client marketing director When trying to come up with content to create or share, often people try to think of ground-breaking, earth-shattering or mind-blowing content that will educate the masses and stimulate intellectual conversations. And that’s a good thing. You want the majority of your content marketing strategy to be focused on…

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Blog Comments – You Really Should Pay Attention To Them

  by Kelly Lucas, client marketing director So you’ve decided to set up a blog on your website to share your knowledge with the world at large. Great, we whole-heartedly approve! But just as regular blog posts can increase website traffic and potentially attract quality leads, they can also attract the riff raff of the Internet.…

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Stand Firm Against Myself-Abuse

  by Sarah Warlick, writer and copy editor There’s a tidal wave of horror involving myself-abuse among our citizens – adults and children alike. We can, and we must, take strong action to put an end to the carnage. Today’s topic in bbr marketing’s ongoing series of occasional grammar lessons is the use of the reflexive…

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Words You May Be Using Incorrectly

  by Kelly Lucas, marketing and social media manager We’ve all been guilty of it at some point – using a word incorrectly. Sometimes you know better and you’re just going with the flow. Sometimes, it’s just simply because you never knew what the word actually meant to begin with. For example, when you see or…

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Expand Your Reach By Sharing Blog Posts

  by Bonnie Buol Ruszczyk, president Do you ever feel like you are writing (or having someone ghostwrite) all this wonderful content and getting little in return for your efforts? It’s sort of like throwing a party where no one shows up except your mom and the weird dude down the street! Chances are, you’re getting…

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Three Simple Steps Toward Grammatical Perfection

  by Sarah Warlick, writer and copy editor The Grammar Geek never gets to enjoy a nice trip to the supermarket or a relaxing read of the online news. Sure, she goes the same places you do and loafs about every bit as much or more, but everywhere she looks there are grammatical atrocities that…bother her. It’s…

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Buzzwords That Make You Want to Hurl

  by Sarah Warlick, copywriter and editor (with input from Bonnie & Kelly) It’s time for the spring Buzzword Bust, where we round up and expose the current jargon terms for their crimes against good taste and a workplace conducive to productive thought. The hot phrases of the business world tend to come in nauseating bursts…

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You Are What You Write

  by Sarah Warlick, copywriter and editor Language gives us the power to share thoughts, dreams, feelings and observations. It drives business relationships as well as personal ones, and does much to shape our perceptions of others. Our choice of words can deliver subtle messages masked behind the obvious ones as we talk to ourselves and…

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Say Hey! (It’s More Effective Than You Think)

  by Sarah Warlick, copywriter and editor With the national election at a safe distance behind us, it’s a good time to analyze one of the controversial campaign tactics the Obama camp utilized from a marketing perspective. During the campaign, the Democratic candidate sent out a constant stream of emails to potential supporters with what…

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Tell me Something Good…

  Published in AccountingToday on October 11, 2012 (with slight revisions) by Bonnie Buol Ruszczyk, president We spend our days (and some nights and weekends) helping our professional services clients communicate what they do, who they serve and most importantly, how they are different. We do this through their websites, collateral materials, blog posts, articles, presentations and…

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Beware the Scourge of Buzzwords

  by Sarah Warlick, copywriter and editor You know the way a buzzing mosquito or a fly stuck in the blinds can drive you crazy? Well here’s another buzz that drives people right up the wall: buzzwords. Every industry has them, and they serve a reasonable communication purpose. For a moment. After that, they’re just…

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Grammar Counts for More than you Think

  by Sarah Warlick, copywriter and editor We at bbr marketing are sticklers for good grammar, and we advocate for this underemphasized area of competency on a regular basis. That makes sense for a company in the business of marketing and public relations, but we’re not the only people who notice the relative levels of…

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Can You Keep a Secret?

  Published in AccountingToday, August 16, 2012 by Bonnie Buol Ruszczyk, president A few weeks ago I wrote a post entitled An Argument for Original Content that explained why I think investing in original content can be very valuable for your firm. Some of the biggest arguments against this tactic are skill and time. Professional services…

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An Argument for Original Content

  Published in AccountingToday on August 9, 2012 by Bonnie Buol Ruszczyk, president I am asked quite frequently about the pros and cons of writing original content – blog posts and newsletter articles mainly – versus purchasing canned articles from a content farm. Right off the bat, I will admit that I understand why so many…

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Curmudgeons at Play

by Sarah Warlick, copy editor Out with the old and in with the new! We’re all about to become disciplined, fit and disturbingly Zen in our daily lives, what with resolutions for 2012 fresh in our minds. As part of this new leaf motif, let’s pause in our newly adopted heart-healthy, sustainable and time-efficient routines…

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Google Grades on Spelling

  by Sarah Warlick, copy editor Spelling, meh. Spellcheck will fix it. My people will handle that. Google doesn’t judge…or does it? As it happens, it does, and the relative quality of your spelling and grammar will be reflected in your website’s page rank on the world’s most powerful search engine. Spelling correctly so that…

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Corporate Lingo, Christmas Style

Stupid corporate lingo never rests, even at the holidays. As a continuation of our series on Stupid Corporate Lingo (Parts 1 & 2), we would like to offer you the 12 Days of Corporate Christmas from the site Words, Pictures, Humor. Author Drew Dernavich has crafted one merry image for the rest of us to…

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