It’s been a crazy couple of weeks!

I keynoted at Social Slam, took Mr. D to Vegas for his birthday, and co-keynoted (with Jay Baer) at Counselors Academy. And, on top of all of that, Marketing in the Round came out and, those of you who pre-ordered it began receiving it this week and sent in pictures (which we’ve posted on Pinterest).

But I slept for eight hours last night so I’m beginning to feel myself again. Just in time for the big Chicago book launch party on Monday night (are you coming??).

It’s supposed to be a glorious weekend in the Windy City so I’m going to go put air in my bike’s tires and fill my water bottles.

And you? You’re going to check out Gin and Topics. Continue Reading »

Today’s #FollowFriday needs no introduction. And I’m cheating a little bit because I wrote about her this time last year.

But it’s her birthday today so I figured you wouldn’t mind.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, LISA!!

Lisa Gerber is our chief content officer. She runs all of the guest posts here at Spin Sucks, which is no small job. She also began doing client work in January and now leads three of our biggest accounts.

About 18 months ago, I was shopping at Nordstrom (and then Sephora) and I called Lisa. I was venting that I needed some help with content on both Spin Sucks and this new project I wanted to launch (which you now know as Spin Sucks Pro). I told her I needed someone who I really trusted. As I stood on the corner of Michigan and Grand, in the dark, she said, “I’ll do it.” Continue Reading »

Yesterday I was invited to talk Pinterest for PR at the Public Relations Association of Louisiana in New Orleans.

When Abbie Fink asked me how it went, I said, “It’s really fun talking Pinterest with 30 PR girls (and three guys).”

Because, as we all know, I LOVE PINTEREST!

Rather than talk to the room from slides, I had written down 16 ways to use Pinterest for PR and I walked around the room asking for examples for each.

I began the discussion by reminding everyone that using Pinterest is not a strategy. So I remind you of the same. These are fun ideas for using Pinterest at work (and feeding the addiction), but they should be used as part of a larger marketing or communication strategy.

I now give you those 16 tips. Continue Reading »

A few weeks ago, a Facebook fan asked on our page, “Is it OK to post our news releases on our blog?”

Dear Facebook fan, see image to the left.

Just a couple of days ago, I was perusing through my personal Facebook stream and a friend of mine posted pretty much the same question.

Dear Facebook friend, see image to the left.

Actually, what I commented is exactly what the image says (even the “the end”) and Jennifer Windram thought it was funny enough to create the image (thank you, Jen!).

In 2001, I joined an advertising agency to help build their PR department. The first few months were really exciting because the account managers were introducing us to their clients and we were providing a new service. Super fun and lots of immediate work to do.

And then. Continue Reading »

Friday, Friday, Friday!

I’m off to New Orleans tomorrow for the annual Counselors Academy.

Jay Baer and I are co-keynoting (the brain child of Martin Waxman), which I’m really excited about! If you’ve ever seen Jay speak, you’ll know he’s going to make me look suuuuuper good in front of my peers.

We’re doing something kind of fun and different: We’re interviewing each other on stage. Hopefully there will be video of it that I can post here next week.

In the meantime, check out the fun stories we’ve complied for you in this week’s Gin and Topics. Continue Reading »

Last year, right about this time, I was standing in the grand hall at the conference center where BlogWorld was being held and I finally got to meet the incomparable Lisa Grimm.

After following one another on Twitter for quite some time, it was fun to finally see her. It was too brief.

But one thing I discovered about her then and have seen her demonstrate it every day since then: She really cares about our industry.

She does digital and social media for Mall of America (a job I can’t decide is really cool or super scary – I mean, people everywhere!). I don’t spend much time on mall websites (I’d rather kill myself than go to one, especially the world’s largest), but I’ve spent some time checking out the work Lisa does and, well, I’m impressed! Continue Reading »

I have to admit, Facebook is doing something I can really get behind.

They want to lower the number of people who die each year waiting for an organ donation.

What? Facebook, the social network? Yes, indeedy.

More than 114,000 people in the United States, and millions more around the globe, are waiting for a donated organ that will save their lives.

Many of those people – an average of 18 people per day – will die waiting, because there simply aren’t enough organ donors to meet the need. Continue Reading »

Today’s guest post is written by Justin Graves. 

Yes, they have something in common!

As anyone who watches any television at all has surely noticed, the new “Mad Men” season has finally started.

It’s easy to understand the show’s appeal: It gives the viewer what appears to be an inside look at the creative muscle and oversized egos that launched advertising into the business it is today.

While the advent of the Internet and social media has certainly democratized brand building, it’s also introduced a wealth of unknowns into the equation.

Given my background in analytics, I sometimes wonder how social listening and analytics might have been used by these ad men (mostly men back in those days) to better their campaigns and save potentially damaging ones from the fire of public assault. Continue Reading »

The sky is falling! The sky is falling!

The web is dead!

I guess all those business owners who’ve told me all these years that their customer doesn’t use the web were right. I really hate being wrong. It rarely happens.

Yet here we are. What are we going to do?

I discovered this disturbing news as I’ve been reading about the Facebook purchase of Instagram. You know, the $1 billion purchase they made of a company with only 12 employees and no revenue? Yeah, that one. Continue Reading »

Today’s guest post is written by Neal Schaffer.

Despite having preceded Twitter and Facebook in the social media space, LinkedIn, which was launched in 2003, has so far been unable to capture a larger share of social media users.

Many call LinkedIn the “black sheep” or the underdog of social media.

Social media demographic statistics show us Linkedin only has 150 million registered users, way below the nearly one billion Facebook users or Twitter with more than 400 million users.

See this excellent infographic for full details.

It’s also said only half of those LinkedIn users are actually active on the site.

Why is this the case? Let us take a closer look – and then ponder the question why we should care and how to use this to our advantage. Continue Reading »