A VP, a VP Wanna Be and a Pope Walk up to a Microphone

Pick your favorite PR gaffe or stonewalling/media blaming incident of last week: (1) Vice President Joe Biden's reaction to the historic passage of the health care reform bill being caught on microphone: "Health care reform isn't just a big deal, it's a big f-ing deal." (2) Former Governor and Vice President wanna be Sarah Palin tweets the following: "Commonsense Conservatives and lovers of America. Don't retreat, Instead RELOAD! Pls see my Facebook page." She is referring to a Facebook page...

Reason #6 why B2B tech companies should treat Facebook more seriously

I recently wrote about the first 5 reasons on this blog. Those were grounded in some very compelling statistics about the amazing adoption and use of Facebook. To summarize the most important data: 200 million people log-in and check their Facebook feeds at least once per day That's not a quick scan, as the average person spends 55 minutes per day on Facebook The average user becomes a fan of at least 4 pages I posted about data from Forrester...

Social media at work: Interesting data from Forrester

Is it time to say that it is a myth that people use social media for mostly personal reasons? You could make that case based upon some new Forrester data. I received this week the results of a Forrester survey of social media users conducted from December 2009 through January 2010. One of the major conclusions: over three-quarters of the 337 respondents said they use social media to get ideas for their jobs and to research information for work. In...

Twitter as the canary in the coal mine?

The Boston chapter of the National Investor Relations Institute (NIRI) held an interesting panel on social media and investor relations Tuesday night. Serena Ehrlich of Startup Army moderated the panel of experts which included Laura Graves, who runs IR for Cisco, Adam Feuerstein, a columnist for TheStreet.com, and Megan Gates,a Partner at law firm Mintz Levin. Ehrlich offered facts from various studies regarding how social media is being used from an investor relations (IR) perspective. One study from Q4 Web...

Thumbs up or thumbs down for CEOs on Reality TV?

This tweet caught my eye this week: MarkRaganCEO: The CEOs who go undercover in "Undercover Boss" are nudged by their PR departments: http://bit.ly/cicjfE Digging into the actual article in the Los Angeles Times, I confirmed that the lead paragraph does say that CEOs who are participating in this new reality TV series which makes the big boss work with the little people in his/her own company have been pushed to participate by their PR people. What I did not read...

5 reasons B2B tech companies should treat Facebook more seriously

MarketingProfs recently released data that showed that about a third of B2B companies have a presence on Facebook. But the same data showed that almost half of B2C companies are on Facebook. B2B companies, especially in technology, need to take Facebook more seriously. Forrester found that the greatest growth in the usage pattern of social media was in the "Joiner" (i.e. people that participate in social networks) category. It also added a new profile of social media usage -- "Conversationalist"...

Why Facebook is beating Google: 2 personal reflections

A number of outlets, including CNBC, covered the news that for at least a one week period, Facebook bested Google by a razor slim margin among U.S. Internet users. The reason was simple: people are more interested in connecting with other people than in searching. As CNBC described it: In a sign that the web is becoming more sociable than searchable, research firm Hitwise said that the two sites accounted for 14 percent of all US internet visits last week....

Beyond the #SXSWi 2010 hype: 4 observations from the event

LP&P's Linsey Krauss was all over SXSW Interactive this past weekend and looks beyond the hype of the event and offers up her own take on the big winners for the 2010 edition. With the end of SXSWi just a day away, this year's event has flown by with more people, smarter technology and bigger announcements. As I mentioned, mobile and location-based services made a big splash this year and there are a number of smaller lesser known companies such...

SXSWi 2010: 5 Ways to Properly Invade Austin

This is a post by our very own SXSW fanatic, Linsey Krauss. Linsey works in our Austin office and thinks that this time when the geek world descend on her beloved city is her favorite time of year. The South By Southwest 2010 Interactive Conference is already upon us and everyone is abuzz with their opinions on the best parties to attend and the newest location-based services that will be making a splash. It’s enough to give this Austinite a...

We'll Miss You, Joe Fuentes

The PR industry lost one of its great ones this past Tuesday when long-time communications professional and legendary former Denver journalist Joe Fuentes, 64, passed away from complications of cancer. We had the privilege of working with Joe for over four years when he headed communications at StorageTek in the Denver area. I can honestly say that he is one of the kindest, nicest human beings I've ever encountered. I always enjoyed talking with him because he almost made the...