Social media receives frequent praise from marketers, PR professionals, business consultants and more as a wonderful communication tool. It can connect you to your customers or new clients, as well as peers and contemporaries. But it’s not always just about marketing and PR. A new book and accompanying documentary, Oral Sex Is The New Goodnight Kiss, offers a disturbing look at life for a group of teenage Canadian girls. Aged between 13-15 years old and from affluent neighbourhoods, these girls…

Branding is the public face of decisions you make in private.

Branding is the public face of decisions you make in private.

While some people might think that Ashton and Oprah on Twitter is the only news, the real social media story happening at the minute involves the FTC (the Federal Trade Commission). Their announcement that they want to regulate social media advertising has been met pretty negatively by many in the social media field, particularly bloggers and advertisers. The feeling is bloggers will refuse to publish content that could see them being sued for false advertising, meaning a reduced social media-led…

Being on auto-pilot is just the same as switching off your senses and letting the machinery take over. You miss the real things that are happening, the real stories, the real people. Fine if you’re a machine, but as a human being? Auto-pilot is life’s blindfold.

Being on auto-pilot is just the same as switching off your senses and letting the machinery take over. You miss the real things that are happening, the real stories, the real people. Fine if you’re a machine, but as a human being? Auto-pilot is life’s blindfold.

According to figures, there are roughly 175,000 new blogs started every day. That’s a lot of reading to take in, even for the most avid blog reader. So, to try and help just a little, I’m going to use Sundays as an opportunity to share a blogger and their blog with you. It won’t be restricted to social media, PR or marketing either. There are a lot more to read than just the bloggers from my neck of the woods….

One of the cool things about Twitter is the connections that you make. People you’d possibly otherwise miss or never know can become either friends or close contacts. Two people I’ve come to know over the last 6-8 months are Kris Reyes and Dave Fleet. Kris is a news reporter for CityTV in Toronto, and is one of the station’s key people in the social media space. She understands the medium and encourages the station’s viewers to become more involved….

A couple of days ago, I wrote about Fake-Twitter and concerns of how it could be misused. As a (partial) result, the site received an official takedown notice from Twitter and I received some of the most heated and angry comments ever from a post. That’s cool. People have opinions and sometimes these opinions are strong, and the comment section is where these opinions are allowed to be expressed. It’s one of the reasons that I have an open comment…

Social media tools are just that – tools to help you for a particular need or project. They’ll come and go, but the people won’t. Get your interaction and relationship right with the people and the tools will work themselves out.