Social media tips for your company from a 140-year-old museum. Really.

In PR, case studies are like gold. People love reading about companies or people that did something cool or interesting that they can borrow and do for themselves.

This is the story of an unexpected case study: a 140-year-old museum focused on fishing and art in a coastal Massachusetts town. It’s not a huge, well-funded museum like the Met in New York or the MFA in Boston. It’s the Cape Ann Museum in Gloucester, Mass.

Founded in 1873 as the Cape Ann Scientific and Literary Association (catchy name, right?), the Cape Ann Museum has lots of works about the history of Gloucester, the nation’s oldest fishing port, but also an art collection by the surprisingly large number of artists who’ve lived on or been inspired by Cape Ann.

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?

So, LinkedIn Says You’re Not a Thought Leader?

With hundreds of definitions swarming around the phrase “thought leader” it can be hard to define for some. Thought leader is typically defined as a person (or business) who is an authority or expert in a specific field. This individual can be seen as the “go-to” person for opinions, expert commentary, future predictions, etc. Though if you ask some PR people, they may define thought leader as any of their clients. With that said, the title of thought leader can be pretty easily thrown around in our industry, especially when everyone wants their client to be forward-thinking or, excuse my language, “groundbreaking.” Unfortunately, last month, LinkedIn gave most of us a wake-up call by releasing a new thought leader feature. The verdict? You’re probably not one.

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.

Showdown: Twitter vs. Instagram

They say a picture is worth more than a thousand words – or in this case, 140 characters. This August, for the first time U.S. smartphone owners visited Instagram from their smartphones more frequently and for longer periods of time than they visited Twitter. Data from comScore’s mobile measurement report claimed that Instagram had an average of 7.3 million daily active users (DAUs) while Twitter had 6.9 million DAUs during the same time period. In overall visitor numbers, Twitter still wins (29 million unique U.S. smartphone-based visitors in August, versus Instagram’s 22 million.) But as Mike Isaac at AllThingsD reports, these numbers indicate that “Instagram’s users appear to be returning to the site on a more frequent basis, and spending longer on the site each time they return.”

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.

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.