The Only Place to Surf During a Hurricane Is, Well, Online

Our office is working remotely today – as are most – because of the Frankenstorm. With many calls and all in-person meetings cancelled due to the weather, it’s freed up a lot of time to catch up on other assignments.

But in addition to preparing for the storm, it’s also an excellent reprieve to do some serious social media tending, weeding out followers who may no longer seem relevant, adding new ones to the list, writing that blog post we’ve been meaning to write (this will be my third today), connecting with new contacts and groups on LinkedIn, and building out more blog syndication channels (that’s how my morning went thanks to NetworkedBlogs and IFTTT, which is a pretty cool tool that lets one social media push trigger another social media action).

Why LinkedIn and Twitter’s Break Up Is Better For Your Business

As most of us know, LinkedIn and Twitter had a very public falling out this past June, ending a two-year relationship. Like many of the flings I’ve seen fall apart, when rumors spread and the going got tough (or LinkedIn faced a massive password breach) Twitter dropped the professional networking site like a hot potato…poor thing.

Now, months later, the drama continues. At last week’s TechCrunch Disrupt in San Francisco, LinkedIn Founder Reid Hoffman discussed the sudden removal of Twitter feeds from LinkedIn. So how is he faring after the split? Better than ever. Hoffman declared that the networking platform “got better” after Twitter cut off the site. Are these the harsh words of a scorned lover, or an accurate assessment of the site’s well-being post-breakup? I say, it’s pretty accurate.

10 PR Predictions for 2012

2011 was a good year for PR. It’s growing and changing for the better, as I wrote back in June. While it’s harder to break through the streams of tweets and updates that fly at us each day, PR has an unprecedented opportunity to tell stories through new vehicles. The stakes are higher though, so we have to be smarter and more creative. I used to tell clients not to worry too much about negative coverage because Google’s memory is short. Well, it’s gotten a lot longer this year with archive searches, so you can Google this post next December and call me prescient or just plain wrong.

Social Media as a Ubiquitous Force? Not Quite

I came across a Mashable article the other day that stopped me in my tracks. Shockingly, only 50 percent of adults in the U.S. use social media, according to a new survey by Pew Internet. Being entrenched for so long in a field where social media is ubiquitous (in fact, it’s a primary job requirement), I had a hard time believing that this could really be true. That is, until I got a call from my parents the other night.

I live states away from my family, and while it’s always great to catch up with them, when it comes to discussing my job, or any form of Web activity – social or otherwise – I know I can count on some laughs (after I hang up, of course). Just for fun, here’s a quick 60-second “take” from our recent chat:

Desperate for a Google+ Cross-posting Solution

In its first month, Google+ reached 20 million users. I am impressed. Brian Solis notes that to reach 10 million users, it took Twitter 780 days and Facebook 852 days. It took Google+ 16 days.

I like Google+ for the same reasons everyone else does: I can segment my contacts for better content sharing and it’s intuitive. Like everyone else in the social media world, I am also entrenched in Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn and have to constantly remind myself to update Google+.