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July 28, 2015
in Blog, Social PR News, Interesting Things, Tell Your Story News
by Nicole Benzer

Tell Your Story Founder George Rafeedie Shares His Story on Bootstrapping in America

As a marketing agency that focuses on developing compelling and valuable stories for its clients, it’s not everyday that we get an opportunity to share our own story.   Tell Your Story’s Founder, George Rafeedie, was a recent guest on Bootstrapping in America, a live online segment produced by the Tastytrade network that highlights entrepreneurs and their paths to success.   George discussed why effective story telling is crucial for an organization’s marketing efforts, in addition to a primary factor in overall business success and growth.   Hear how he’s applied his experience as a corporate marketer to build a small business that’s rooted in creating and sharing great stories through social PR.   ...

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February 11, 2015
in Blog, Interesting Things, Events, Tell Your Story News
by Nicole Benzer

Give Back the Love

“We make a living by what we get. We make a life by what we give.”  – Winston S. Churchill   The team at Tell Your Story prides itself on making a living by doing what we love: working with some of B2B’s brightest innovators and marketers, creating award-winning marketing and social media campaigns, and getting impactful results for our clients.   But outside of the 9 to 5, our team members are more than just marketers: we’re volunteers, fundraisers, and community supporters. Giving back is an important part of our culture and we do so in many ways. Two highlights of the past year are our involvement with non-profits Barbells for Boobs and Tutoring Chicago. Barbells for Boobs Fundraiser  [caption id="attachment_3058" align="alignleft" width="175"] George raising the barbell.[/caption] Tell Your Story, through CrossFit Wilmette, participated in a fundraiser for Barbells for Boobs, a non-profit organization dedicated to the early detection of breast cancer, with an emphasis on women under 40...

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October 22, 2014
in Blog, Events, Business Marketing Association, Tell Your Story News
by Amanda Pollard

Tell Your Story Brings Home Social Media Gold

  [caption id="attachment_2714" align="aligncenter" width="640"] Nicole accepts Tell Your Story's Gold Tower Award[/caption]   Last night at Moonlight Studios, the Tell Your Story team proudly accepted a Gold Business Marketing Association of Chicago Tower Award in the social media category for work done for client, USG Corporation. It was a terrific event and celebration of the best and brightest in Chicago B2B marketing.   [caption id="attachment_2708" align="alignright" width="168"] George shows off our Social Media Gold[/caption] [caption id="attachment_2706" align="alignleft" width="300"] Nicole and Erin at #BMAtower[/caption] Our winning social media program helped USG tell the story of their new brand identity and Team USA sponsorship through employee Brand Ambassadors. Tell Your Story worked to utilize the Brand Ambassadors as a team of social media champions whose exponential reach spread the word throughout the organization and externally to customers and influencers.       [caption id="attachment_2705" align="alignleft" width="300"] Ellen, Nicole and Amanda celebrate #BMAtower Gold[/caption] This wasn’t the only award our team received for USG...

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September 12, 2014
in Blog, Events
by George Rafeedie

Let’s Just Call It Marketing: Content Marketing World ’14 Recap

Watch Our Video Recap of Content Marketing World 2014 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gro1xK66wIE Read Our Recap of Content Marketing World 2014: For various reasons, some people hate the phrase “content marketing.” To me, after attending the 4th annual Content Marketing World, it is clear that content marketing is just marketing.  And always has been.  So let’s drop the word content and call it Marketing World.  What do you think? Anyway, the name aside and with the spotlight shining on what we love to do as communicators, there is a golden opportunity to get back to concentrating on the fun and impactful side of marketing – developing and telling great stories.  The themes that resonated with me the most were around developing stories that are emotional, inspirational and aspirational.  We heard about developing an editorial mentality, and to think like TV producers and film directors.  We were challenged to think about the elements of a great story. And although one...

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July 1, 2014
in Blog, Events, Tell Your Story News
by Annie Beard

BMA14: Looking Back at B2B Marketing’s Most Valuable Lessons

At the end of May, the Tell Your Story team attended the three-day BMA14 Conference in Chicago, the largest B2B marketing conference in the world. We joined over 1,000 B2B marketers from over 400 firms to learn the latest trends, thinking, best practices and more about a wide variety of B2B marketing topics. Our team was on-site for the duration of the conference, working to share the most valuable takeaways with our audience through a series of blog posts and live-tweets. Check out our dispatches from BMA14 below!   You Should be Proud of your BMA Chapter Leaders    By: George Rafeedie       Tell Your Story Wins Business Marketing Association B2 Award of Excellence   By: Ellen DePodesta   #BMA14 From Afar   By: Angi Day   Mobile Marketing Lessons from Facebook at #BMA14   By: Amanda Pollard   Business-to-Business is not Boring-to-Boring   By: Erin Neal   The Art of Social Selling #BMA14   By: Erin Neal   Taking Marketing from a Cost Center to a Revenue Center   By: Ellen DePodesta   Tripling Down at #BMA14   By: George Rafeedie   Watch...

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July 1, 2014
in Blog, Interesting Things, Tell Your Story News
by Annie Beard

Tell Your Story Moves Into Historic Civic Opera House

  The Tell Your Story office has moved, and we love our new location! In February, we relocated to the historic Civic Opera House at 20 N. Wacker. Built in 1929, it’s home to the second-largest opera auditorium in North America and is considered one of the world’s most beautiful.   Within this remarkable space, we work out of the Central Coast office, a dynamic and creative environment that keeps us inspired. Not to mention, the office is located on the 33rd floor, which offers hard-to-beat views of the city. The building also includes an outdoor deck attached to the back of the building, right along the river. It is perfect for lunch on a nice day or even as an extra working space if we want to get out of the office and enjoy the warm weather. We are excited to continue working out of such a historic building and innovative office space!   ...

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June 27, 2014
in Blog, Interesting Things, Tell Your Story News
by Annie Beard

A Word from our Intern

Hi, everyone, Annie Beard here! I am a Senior Strategic Communication major at Ohio University, and I am interning with Tell Your Story this summer.  I met George while he was spending time at Ohio U. as the Visiting Professional of Public Relations at the E.W. Scripps School of Journalism. After a few weeks of follow-up emails and calls, I found myself in Chicago working alongside the amazing Tell Your Story team!   It has been great so far, and I have already learned so much from these PR Pros. I have gotten a lot of hands-on experience with social media, blog writing, competitive audits, press releases and writing content for newsletters—basically everything that a PR nerd, like myself, could hope for!  I have also been working closely with George on CoWorkers, the co-working space he co-founded. (That’s a lot of co’s).  It has been a lot of fun getting to know...

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June 27, 2014
in Blog, Interesting Things, Tell Your Story News
by Annie Beard

Tell Your Story Staffing Up to Tell More Stories

  In recent months, Tell Your Story has welcomed two new team members - Ellen DePodesta and Erin Neal. We can’t be more excited to have their expertise complement what we’re up to at Tell Your Story. And our clients agree.   Ellen DePodesta    Ellen has more than 20 years of experience in the B2B PR and marketing world with agencies in Chicago, Los Angeles and Cincinnati.From this experience and her work with heaps of clients, she has plenty to show for it. She has placed client stories in dozens of top-tier media outlets and news websites, and her clients have presented at national and global conferences and received honors and awards in workplace environment, business ethics, marketing campaigns and product innovation. Ellen has earned APR professional accreditation from the Public Relations Society of America, following in her parents’ footsteps, both accredited members of PRSA. She holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in journalism...

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March 25, 2014
in Interesting Things, Career Thoughts, Tell Your Story News
by George Rafeedie

Visiting Professional for the Week

    [caption id="attachment_1843" align="aligncenter" width="225"] Jerry Sloan & George Rafeedie[/caption]   This week I am the Jerry Sloan Visiting Professional of Public Relations at the E.W. Scripps School of Journalism at Ohio University. What an honor – and incredibly surreal. He was my advisor and professor when I attended OU in the early 1990s. I've loved keeping in touch with him since and am proud to serve in a teaching capacity this week in his name. Not only is Jerry Sloan a mentor to me professionally, but personally, since the day I met him, he has been a role model. He cares about his students, alum, his former colleagues and especially his family in a way that has been inspiring to me.   Also inspiring, even to this day, are memories of lectures that made vivid imprints on our brains that helped us visualize what we could achieve in this great world of public relations and marketing...

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