I had a different blog topic in mind today when I read Danny Brown’s, “Being Where YOU Need to Be, Not Where ‘They’ Say You Should.”

He relates a story of a small business owner who went to a conference and the social media expert who spoke advised attendees use all of the social media networks because “you never know where your customer is going to be, so you need to be in all of the places.”

This makes my blood boil. Clearly the speaker does not run a small business or have to make payroll or deal with HR issues or make rain or report to stakeholders. If he or she did, they would never advise this. Continue Reading »

I’m going to do something here I’ve never done before. I’m going to share an infographic!

Jon Aston will be so proud. He’ll tell all of his friends and then we’ll be a big hit (not really; he hates infographics).

And, truth be told, I’m not a fan of them, either. Particularly on Pinterest because they take up too much room and that irritates me when I’m scrolling through my stream on my phone.

But alas. That isn’t the point.

Geoff Livingston (rightly so) thought we should have an infographic to support the book, made up of the stats we used from our research. And, so, RAD Campaign set out to create something for us and, when we received it, I said, “Wow. That’s really cool!” 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 »

I’m on a plane again, which means I have takeoff and landing time to catch up on reading.

In the bundle I packed with me this trip is the April issue of Inc. (you’re welcome, Margie…now you don’t have to read this one either).

In the “Crunching the Numbers” section, they take a look at how many of us use Google to find local businesses.

What do you think is the number?

I think you’ll be surprised.

Only 14% said they do every day…and 24% said never. Continue Reading »

Today’s guest post is written by Jessica Lawlor.

You know a site has made it big when even the President of the United States is on board.

Seemingly everyone is using the wildly popular social network, Pinterest, and blog post after blog post touts the benefits of the latest social media darling.

Even though you’ve likely already read several articles about how to use Pinterest for business, hear me out.

I think I have a few ideas that might get you thinking about your Pinterest strategy in a different way.

At Visit Bucks County, the official tourism promotion agency for Bucks County, Pa., where I work as a marketing and communications coordinator, we recently joined a handful of other tourism organizations to use Pinterest in January. Continue Reading »

Last week, because I was recovering from my sleepless trip to Norway, I wasn’t able to attend the PR Digital Impact Conference with my Inside PR cohorts, Joe Thornley and Martin Waxman.

They were able to secure quite a few interviews with some of the conference’s speakers, which we’ll be playing in the coming weeks. But I also missed seeing some friends, such as Doug Haslam, Eric Schwartzman, and Steve Radick.

Luckily Steve wrote a great blog post yesterday about his experience at the conference and about how PR pros take the easy way out. And I think it’s a great topic of conversation today. Continue Reading »

Today’s guest post is written by Molli Megasko.

The “capture Kony” message has been all over Facebook. It’s been dissected by the media. Everyone is praising the video gone viral.

If, for some reason, you’ve been in outer space or under a big rock these past weeks, you can watch the video here.

I wanted to write this post not to talk about how great it is that a 30-minute YouTube video has had something like 75 million views in just one week but rather, how it achieved that number and what went wrong. Continue Reading »

On Saturday night, Mr. D and I attended a fundraiser for Riverside Hospital.

Our third attendance at this event, it has grown from a nice dinner put on for/by friends to nearly 1,000 people, more than $400,000 raised, and some really great entertainment.

This year? A Cirque de Soleil-type troupe called the Anastasini Circus Performers.

A show full of variety, one performer changed her clothes, on stage, no less than 15 times. It’s magic!

Two other performers, both male, did acrobats from one another’s feet (it’s hard to imagine how they perfected that … with getting kicked in the privates, accidentally, in practice). Continue Reading »

Today’s guest post is written by Margie Clayman.

A large part of marketing, PR, and online communication rests upon how you respond to criticism.

Some respond to criticism with grace, understanding, and a desire to improve, or at least a desire to see the world from someone’s perspective other than their own.

Others, however, respond to criticism in ways that makes them look really, really bad.

The ramifications of these silly mistakes can be extensive and far-reaching.

I’ve pulled some parallel reactions from fictional characters to illustrate my point.

Continue Reading »

Today’s guest post is written by Doug Haslam.

During the last several years as social media emerged, we in the communications industry have railed against “Shiny Object Syndrome.”

Well, many of us have.

Others have gleefully promoted it.

To you I say, “stop it.”

Shiny Object Syndrome hurts us, and I hate being lumped in with a train of fools.  Continue Reading »