When we started Spin Sucks nearly six years ago (go ahead and look at the very first post ; it’s TERRIBLE), we thought we were pretty darn clever. Not only was the spinsucks.com URL available, but we had a fun little acronym: FADS – the Fight Against Destructive Spin. We created an editorial calendar and everyone was responsible for blogging, from the interns on up through me. Our goal was to blog about the silly things people do to hurt the perception of the PR industry and perpetuate the “spin doctor” image. Disaster. And figure it out we did! Komen PR Disaster.” MORE >>

Welcome back to the real world! hope everyone had a really good Thanksgiving weekend. To start the last 20 work days of the year, I thought now was a good time to discuss trends for next year. This will get you started on planning and getting everything ready to launch the year on January 2. I’ve written the eight social media trends you  need to pay attention to for next year. But, before we get started, we’re going to let you choose the ninth trend, just like we did last year , for the chance to win two seats to the trends webinar. 2012 Social Media Trends. Social TV Convergence. MORE >>

Something interesting is happening with Google+. We’re all freaking out because we can’t import our Facebook and Twitter friends (you can export Facebook friends into Gmail now, if you’re patient and have a tiny bit of tech savvy). Here we’ve spent years (in most cases) building communities on something we don’t own and guess what? Our friends and fans aren’t moving to the newest platform with us. Or they are but we don’t know it because not only do we not have their email addresses, we don’t have their Gmail addresses. In this case: A database. MORE >>

Patrick Garmoe , serves as content and social media strategist for PureDriven , a digital marketing strategy company in Duluth, Minnesota. spent 10 years as a reporter in the BT (Before Twitter) era. Now as a social media strategist and public relations professional, I’ve found Twitter to be my primary and most successful method of building and maintaining relationships with reporters. It’s brought myself and clients I work with tens of thousands of dollars in free press coverage. One public relations agency I work with even grew out of a connection made on Twitter. Skeptical? MORE >>

Today’s guest post is by Yvette Pistorio. love Instagram. can take the world’s worst picture and boom! Instagram to the rescue! It doesn’t have business-specific profiles, built-in visibility, engagement metrics, or paid advertising options (not yet at least), but brands are taking advantage of Instagram and seizing the opportunity to share more personal perspectives with consumers. And I have to say, not to steal a catch phrase or anything, but I’m loving it! While many brands are still experimenting with ways to use Instagram, the following four brands are already killing it! Burberry. MORE >>