Waxing UnLyrical

NOVEMBER 24, 2011

Guest post by Lisa Gerber. A couple weeks ago, Erica Allison blogged about focusing your online efforts where your sources of revenue are located. I agree, and commented wholeheartedly to that effect. I mentioned that the friendships we build along the way are the icing on the cake. In honor of Thanksgiving, I wanted to talk about that icing on the cake; not about business development.

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Waxing UnLyrical

NOVEMBER 4, 2011

Guest post by Harrison Kratz. A while back, I was involved in a discussion among my PR student community about the balance between social media and public relations. While social media is a major factor in the future of PR, some students felt that we were all too focused on social media and forgetting our PR roots. Personally, I am adamant that many traditional PR tactics are fading.

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Waxing UnLyrical

NOVEMBER 8, 2011

It is very rare that social media is used to propel or hurt brands in significant business-altering ways. There are certainly examples, such as the Toyota acceleration deaths , Nestlé palm oil , the Ford Fiesta movement , or the BP oil spill , where the subject takes on a life of its own for good (or, usually, bad). But these are few and far between; exceptions as opposed to the rule.

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Waxing UnLyrical

NOVEMBER 9, 2011

This post was sparked by a Twitter conversation with Andrew of Redtype , when we were chatting not too long ago about how we sometimes need to disconnect ourselves from the wonderful world of social media when we need to F-O-C-U-S and W-R-I-T-E. Do you find you do? I find I do. It’s not that I can’t write when I’m flitting between social networks, but when I really need to put my head down and get a ton of writing down, I do need to go offline.

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Waxing UnLyrical

NOVEMBER 25, 2011

Change is a-coming. I was reading through Lauren Drell ’s overview of how to manage a re-brand in Mashable recently and began to reflect on my own experiences through a company re-brand and merger, and lessons I could pass on to fellow communicators. As a brief back-story, in May I returned to Australia after three weeks in New York … right in the middle of a company merger.

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Waxing UnLyrical

NOVEMBER 16, 2011

Last week, Spin Sucks ran a guest post I authored on how Twitter chats can be a doorway to your community. It was catalyzed by a DM conversation with a friend who runs – or, at least, has been running – a well-regarded chat for its niche. You see, my friend has been overtaken by that thing called Life. So it’s become tough for him to commit to the time needed for the chat, and since he hadn’t (at the time of writing) found someone reliable and versed enough in Twitter cha

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Waxing UnLyrical

NOVEMBER 22, 2011

Guest post by Jen Zingsheim. Ashton Kutcher has for a while been the darling of the social media/celebrity Twitter set. His Twitter account has more than 8 million followers, and perhaps most surprisingly to some, he has been the one tweeting. Until recently. After tweeting out an amazingly ill-informed defense of Penn State coach Joe Paterno (Mr. Kutcher says he was unaware of the scandal surrounding the firing, and assumed it was due to “football related issues”), he decided to turn over the m

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Waxing UnLyrical

NOVEMBER 29, 2011

Okay, our adventure wasn’t as thrilling as traveling the Circuits of Time in a phone booth with George Carlin, but it was educational none-the-less. This Fall the University at which I work hosted a career fair, cramming booth-after-booth of employers looking for new recruits into the main gymnasium. It was a great opportunity for students to explore their options and a fun way for Kate (my colleague) and I to see how some organizations are using QR Codes.

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Waxing UnLyrical

NOVEMBER 11, 2011

The other day I had to run down to my local UPS store to send a fax (I typically use an e-fax service when faxing is required, but these particular documents were too large for me to scan at home). There were a few people in line ahead of me. As I waited the store owner (franchisee? I don’t know, but you get my drift) smiled and said, “Hello,” to which I responded in kind.

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Waxing UnLyrical

NOVEMBER 18, 2011

As I write this, it is just past 6 a.m. ET. My world is quiet at the moment; the rest of the household is asleep and when I walked out onto my deck a few minutes ago (the sky is beautifully clear!), even the roar of traffic seems to have been temporarily lulled. It is also less than three days until I go on vacation. A real vacation, where I’ll be soaking up the sun in Jamaica, with no computer, no work and minimal online activity (though I might post vacation photos to Facebook, since a l

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Waxing UnLyrical

NOVEMBER 17, 2011

Earlier this year, Google announced it was rolling out a new device; one that would attempt to harness the power of the web and make it the center of the device’s power rather than the device itself. The Chromebook was pitched, in my mind, as a next generation PC; one that relied on the Web rather than the machine to do the heavy lifting. I was in the market for a new machine this spring, and was instantly interested in the Chromebook.

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Waxing UnLyrical

NOVEMBER 1, 2011

Today will be an interesting day. You see, after two months of not working out – specifically, not continuing with the My Bootcamp program that I started three months ago because of the emergency surgery I had to undergo in September – I’m picking up the workout cudgels. (That’s me holding a plank on September 1, two days before I had to go in for surgery.).

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Waxing UnLyrical

NOVEMBER 14, 2011

We bloggers like badges. Right here on WUL, there are a few that I’m proud of (you’ll remember how thrilled I was when we finally got the Alltop badge ). But today I’m exceptionally proud to unveil my newest badge and, perhaps, my favorite of all: the Baconator. And it came along with honorary membership into what I believe must be one of the most exclusive clubs in the world: the B acon A ssociation and C ulinary O rder of N ommers.

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Waxing UnLyrical

NOVEMBER 3, 2011

What struck me most about the PRSA 2011 Conference – which was just terrific, I got to see so many old friends and meet new ones – was that there were two things you couldn’t get away from. The first was the importance of storytelling. Whether you went to Soledad O’Brien’s keynote (which was absolutely terrific), or sat in on Jay Baer ‘s presentation, people kept talking about the importance of storytelling and how it is central to what public relations practi

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Waxing UnLyrical

NOVEMBER 15, 2011

Guest post by Daniel J. Cohen. Politics was my first love, but she broke my heart. As a student of American University from 2002 to 2006, I found politics a bit too vicious for my liking. Attack ads are a cornerstone of political campaigns because dragging your opponent through the mud is a fast way to gallop toward an ever-so-special seat in a fancy delegation or council.

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