Welcome to Wonderland: The Social Media Edition

In the digital age, the landscape of every industry can change with the click of a few keys and the push of a button. Business moves faster than it ever has before. We are all constantly looking for ways to keep up and stay on top.

Social media is no different. Right now, it’s a lot like falling down Alice’s rabbit hole and looking for the right treat to eat so you can unlock the door and, hopefully, not get lost in what is clearly a topsy-turvy world.

Consider me your social media Mad Hatter, guiding you through the strange changes of digital Wonderland’s top social media platforms.

Twitter is the new Instagram?

Digg of the Dead – The website’s triumphant return to the world social news sharing

Digg has done what most social media platforms are unable to accomplish, much to the chagrin, I’m sure, of MySpace’s would-be knight in shining armor Justin Timberlake – Digg has returned from the dead.

Gizmodo’s Sam Biddle reported that “Digg had once attracted a (rumored) multi-hundred million dollar bid from the likes of Google,” and ended up selling for a measly $500,000 to Betaworks in July, after the site, in Biddle’s words, just went to hell.

In the PR world, we mourned the loss of the social news website, which allowed us to share client content and news, with the potential of driving thousands of unique visits to their websites and blogs. Sure, Digg promised us a full recovery, but you’ll have to forgive us for not believing that, in six weeks, there would be follow-through. Just look at MySpace and Friendster.

Social Media Etiquette from the Ghost of Emily Post

According to a recent report from DOMO, 70 percent of CEOs at Fortune 500 companies have no social media presence.

I find myself asking how can this possibly be a real statistic? In her piece for Forbes, Victoria Barret writes that social media isn’t a passing fad—one of the major reasons to utilize social media is because that’s where your customers are.

Barret is right. Social media has been changing the game for businesses on a global level for several years, allowing them to share their products, brand and point of view everywhere from Canada to Australia. Platforms like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Google + allow businesses the opportunity to not only sell a product, but to have real personality and engage with the audience that matters most to their business—their customers, clients, potential new hires and even existing employees.

A 4 step program for coping with trolls

Tech blogger and humor writer Paul Carr recently released his book Sober Is My New Drunk, which details how he solved his drinking problem with the help of social media and why he found the Internet to be more useful than AA to stay clean and sober.

When the Wall Street Journal posted an excerpt of his book on its website, the trolls came out to play. They bet money that he’d be off the wagon in a year, chastising him for not joining AA with comments such as, “CONGRATULATIONS!!! Let us hear how YOUR steps are working for you in 20 years.” Others conveyed hope that Carr would start drinking again because he didn’t join the program.

6 tips to getting your company started on Pinterest

You may understand how Pinterest can help plan a wedding but are you still wondering what it can do for your business? The latest craze in social media has been said to beat out major names like LinkedIn and Google when it comes to driving traffic. Pinterest is reportedly responsible for more than 3.6 percent of all referral traffic in January.

In fact, HubSpot reported that by simply adding the “Pin It” button to their pages, they accumulated more than 640 links from Pinterest in just two weeks. It’s clear that marketers need to be paying attention to this platform.

The Fancy: the high-end commerce answer to Pinterest

It was only a matter of time before websites similar to the increasingly popular Pinterest started to pop up out of the woodwork. The Fancy describes itself as “part store, blog, magazine and wishlist,” and it’s the store piece that’s really differentiating the platform from its competitor. The site allows you to “Fancy” anything you see on the Web so you can return to it at a later time.

According to a recent article in Fast Company, the New York-based startup has 250,000 users compared to Pinterests’ more than 10 million users, but has some serious clout behind it. Fancy’s board includes Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey and Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes. They’ve collected $18 million from investors, which include Andreessen Horowitz, Ashton Kutcher and French conglomerate PPR, the parent company of high-end fashion lines like Gucci and Alexander McQueen.

How social media networking is like attending a cocktail party

This morning over coffee I was talking with my husband and our friend about the value of social networking. They’re both self-employed and generally don’t understand how to use it to foster new relationships and business prospects.

I hear this a lot, even from friends who do publicity for the music industry. Here’s what I say: Approach social media the way you would a cocktail party or networking event.

1. Survey the space. When you walk into a networking event, you might look at the nametags at the entry table or see in advance who registered. Then, when you get there, you know the people you’d like to say hello to. This same tactic should be used on Twitter. Do a search for key words in your industry or for the publications you read every day. Follow people, reporters, publications and organizations that really line up with your interests, especially if they have a robust following or fan base themselves. Many people and organizations will follow you back, no questions asked.