Jay Gatsby, Invented Lives and Social Media

It's not a stretch that Jay Gatz, nee Gatsby, lived an invented life. From rather humble origins a stately pleasure palace he did decree, all the for the sake of the love of Daisy Buchanan. Historian Chris Mathews writes, "It's the classic story of the fresh start, the second chance." Fitzgerald, of course, famously wrote, "There are no second acts in American lives." Gatsby tried, of course. He most certainly tried. The fact that he ultimately failed was of course an accident, an accident which most certainly was not Gatsby's fault. No, he was not who he pretended to be. But in this age of social media and invented lives, who is, anyway?

“There are only the pursued, the pursuing, the busy and the tired," Fitzgerald wrote. In a later era Fitzgerald might have been writing about social media, the ever-consuming avocation in which we all invent ourselves and quite literally chase the facts and opinions of the persons and organizations we have come to trust. We invent ourselves and we pursue the knowledge and approval of others--in many ways, that's what social media is all about. Gatsby became (at least for a time) who he claimed to be, and the same can be said of those of us who rely on social media for our professional reputations.

"No amount of fire or freshness can challenge what a man will store up in his ghostly heart,” Fitzgerald wrote in The Great Gatsby. But like Jay Gatsby, frauds and poseurs will ultimately be exposed through social media. We police social media ourselves, and we have no tolerance whatsoever for excessive self-promotion and outright misrepresentation. Remember that when creating content for social media.

"I was within and without," Fitzgerald wrote, "simultaneously enchanted and repelled by the inexhaustible variety of life.” Remember that when creating your content. And remember the Tom Buchanans lurking in the shadows of your words.

The Brothers Tsarnaev and Digital Age Journalism

By definition, a journal is an account of day to day events. It is also, more elegantly, a record of experiences, ideas and reflections. One of journalism's most elegant early practitioners, of course, was James Boswell (1740-1795), author of a book I didn't discover until long after I had left journalism myself: The Life of Samuel Johnson.

“It matters not how a man dies," Boswell wrote then, "but how he lives. The act of dying is not of importance, it lasts so short a time.” 

Journalism documents our life and our passing, our trials and triumphs. It's certainly an account of day to events, a record of our shared experience. Journalism is not history--although we often want it to be--but it is a source for historians. Journalism is not literature, although it is sometimes literary in nature. Journalism sometimes fails, but often transcends. Increasingly, in this terrible age, journalism is the means by which we learn, grieve and understand.

Not yet two weeks after the attack in Boston, the criticism and second-guessing is underway. "There were real victims," writes Larry Sabato of the University of Virginia, "in the Boston bombings last week — the dead, the wounded, the grieving families, the terrorized communities — but there was substantial collateral damage done to news media credibility."

Mistakes were made, we all know that. Reporter error. Competitive pressure. Combine the terror that we all experienced with the pressures of live television and digital journalism, and perhaps mistakes were inevitable.

That doesn't excuse the mistakes, but it does highlight what can go wrong when the entire world is watching expectantly for not just information, but answers. The pressure for journalists to make a definitive statement--to tell us what we want to know--is immeasurable.

As news practitioners or news consumers, perhaps we can take from this experience this simple knowledge: standing in front of a camera on live television isn't journalism in its grandest sense. It's reportage. True journalism results from investigation and reflection. True journalism is written, not ad-libbed. Perhaps there were many among us who realized the difference last Wednesday evening when Scott Pelley opened the CBS Evening News with the simple statement, "They lost him." As events would quickly demonstrate, "they" found him. But for those of us with a background in news, it was obvious that after an entire day of off-the-cuff reportage, journalists and editors at one of the world's most trusted sources had begun to write about the events we all witnessed. And we all know that it's much easier to make mistakes while ad-libbing instead of writing.

About the author: Ed Lynch, President and Managing Partner of Emergent Communications, is a former reporter for WKYT, Lexington KY.

Does Urgency Come Before Craft in the Digital Age?

Within the Ernest Hemingway Collection at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in Boston are forty-seven alternate endings of A Farewell to Arms. Most of these are collected in the 2012 edition of the novel, which The New York Times describes as "an artifact of a bygone craft, with handwritten notes and long passages crossed out, giving readers a sense of an author’s process."

Craft sometimes takes a backseat to urgency in the digital age. No matter what sort of content you produce, whether it be journalism, commentary or entertainment, the knowledge that your competitors are meeting the public's voracious appetite places you under incredible pressure. In this ultra-competitive environment, "publish or perish" takes on an entirely new meaning. No wonder first drafts are becoming a thing of the past; while you're polishing, others are publishing and dominating the landscape.

However, this also means that the editorial process is more important than ever before. Mistakes occur in this hurried atmosphere, and they're often disastrous. Running a small shop? Your credibility is at stake, so consider a safety net (or at least a process for review).

• Blogging or using a web publishing system? Write your article in a word processing app, which encourages you to slow down a bit and consider what you're writing. Somehow this makes the writing seem more permanent, which encourages revision and reflection.
• Print and proofread the hard copy. We all want to be digitally savvy and perform every single task on our computer or smart device, but we read physical media more closely and carefully. You'll spot more errors this way, both from a prose and copy editing perspective.
• Have a colleague take a look. The cliche about "another set of eyes" isn't such a cliche after all.
• Concerned about typos in boilerplate you must use? Cut and paste, use templates, or create macros.

So, unless you really are writing a novel, there probably isn't time to create forty-seven alternate endings or drafts. But you must somehow build in some time for revision, or you certainly won't be a credible publisher for very long. 

What the Timing of Obama's Secret Service Appointment Teaches Us About Public Relations

There is a photograph of me, long since lost, with former Kentucky Attorney General Chris Gorman in the moments right before a news conference. I wish I still had it, as it's really quite funny: I'm so focused on the event and the last minute preparations that I look positively angry. That's how intense I was (am?), and it's a good example of the pressures involved in presenting your message to the media and the public. We expect our political and business leaders to appear relaxed in such settings, and the fact they usually are is indeed a testament to their presence, poise and confidence.

In comparison to my rather strained countenance, Attorney General Gorman did appear positively relaxed. Of course, I'd like to think it was because of his faith that I had done my job, prepared him well and eliminated all the risks, pitfalls and curve balls we could possibly think of. But he was quite good in front of the cameras; he was the elected official, after all, and the risks were his (not that there wouldn't have been...repercussions...if things didn't go well). Still, it was my job to quite literally think of everything. We had a small communications shop for a statewide office and literally everything rested on my shoulders: advance, speech-writing, news releases and all the rest. And in regard to risk? Eliminating risk is job one for a public relations professional, and the only way to eliminate risk to the greatest possible extent is by precise, thorough and relentless preparation.

As with so many areas of professional communications (even web-based communication), the elements to a successful media event aren't exactly state secrets. From Roosevelt to Reagan, there's a precedent and road map for crafting a winning message and delivering it with artistry, sincerity, elegance and success. It's all about execution: the ones who execute best, win. It's really that simple.

Still, it always helps to keep in mind the most important principles, a sort of checklist for success. Here are a few of the best.

1. For a news conference, create a list of anticipated questions and answers. There's really nothing quite like the gratification of hearing journalists ask the obscure or tricky questions you anticipated. And this is exactly what we're talking about in regard to eliminating risk. Not much fun to be surprised during a news conference.
   
2. Practice. It really does make perfect, doesn't it?
   
3. Pick an appropriate setting. A picture is worth a thousand words and all that. Sure, there are times when you want and need the official look of the briefing room or a distinguished and familiar setting. But the most memorable images come from the field. Remember Dukakis riding in a tank (ick!), or Reagan standing on the cliffs of Normandy? Setting does make a difference.
   
4. Select the time and day of the event carefully. There's really no such thing as a news cycle anymore, but conventional wisdom says to select (or try to select) a day when there's not as much competition. However, President Obama and his staff recently turned conventional wisdom upside down by announcing the appointment of the first female Secret Service director on the day of the marriage equality argument before the Supreme Court. This basically turned the entire day into a civil rights day. Brilliant public relations.
   
5. If you're fighting an uphill battle for attention, follow up on your advisory announcing the event with calls to editors and reporters. Play it low key, of course. You're simply ensuring they have the information they need in deciding whether to cover the event. And you can subtly make your pitch, of course.
    

This isn't rocket science, of course. "Some were secrets," Hemingway wrote, "and some were known by everyone and everyone has written about them and will doubtless write more." Basically, we all play by the same rules, but as President Obama demonstrated, sometimes there's great advantage in breaking the rules. Rules are made to be broken, but there is never a substitute for flawless execution.

Social Media Strategy for Publishers

It’s commonly accepted business wisdom these days that a social media presence is vital to growing an audience or customer base and ultimately increasing revenues. But social media strategy is not simply creating a Facebook page or Twitter account and posting or tweeting away without regularity or overall goals or direction. Anyone can do that, and many do. All posts are not created equal: some posts are indeed better than others. Here's some strategic advice for those in the publishing industry (although the basic principles, of course, work for all industries).

A printing press, not a primitive computer!

1. Plan your tweets and posts by creating an editorial calendar. Make note of holidays, birthdays, anniversaries, etc. (personal and those observed by society). Relate such posts to magazine content whenever possible, or simply show you care about subscribers, contributors, advertisers and similar groups. When you can’t build a theme by tying into social concerns, build personal goodwill, instead. Obviously, the more advance planning you do, the easier it is to come up with content—and not just any content, but content which advances your overall strategy. And you won’t have gaps in your postings, gaps in which your customers forget about your presence and turn to competitors for content. In social media, gaps are anathema. What if any publication decides not to publish a scheduled issue? People tend to forget. Same thing here.
   
2. Tweet and blog about the issues you truly care about, with a special emphasis on synergy between your interests and your business. For example, it makes perfect sense for a magazine to post about social issues. Not editorials, per se, but demonstrate common ground on the issues which all citizens care about. You are community leaders, and this is a perfect way to demonstrate that fact.
   
3. Post “advancers” of coming stories, and then post descriptive links to published articles (after all, what good is social media if we can’t drive traffic to the web site?)
   
4. A picture is worth a thousand words. And it doesn't necessarily need to be a picture which appears in the magazine, although that’s certainly ideal.
   
5. Don’t overdo it. Social media posts should be regular, but not so much they become viewed as “spam” or become lost in the Internet noise.
   
6. Retweet or repost information from persons and organizations you trust. It builds goodwill, and as they say, what goes around comes around. What we’re doing isn’t called “social networking” for nothing.
   
7. As publishers, this will not come as a surprise: Be clear, concise and understandable. Write for your audience, one of the common sense tactics which never fails.
   
8. Don’t forget that with Twitter, there is a 140 character limit. Don’t consider it a hindrance; consider it a challenge and a means to be precise. Pay as much attention to crafting the tweet as you do the article or content itself (after all, it must stand out in the constant noise of the Internet).
   
9. Never forget that your target audience is likely catching up on social media even until the late hours. As you plan your social media calendar, don't hesitate to post important updates after normal office hours. Your customers are paying attention, and so should you. Unless they lack Internet access at home, people don’t merely use the web from 9 to 5.
   
10. Learn from the prominent players in your field. There are best practices out there; identify and use them. Study The New York Times, for example. Or whatever your favorite publications might be.
    
11. For Twitter, use hashtags to broaden your audience and join popular conversations (make sure your tweets are relevant to the hashtag, though). For an explanation of hashtags, Google the term or contact us to discuss the concept.

Put these principles into practice and see immediate improvements in your social media efforts, not to mention a larger audience and greater return on your investment. In summary, our goal is to drive content to the web site, and send even more hard copies flying off the shelves. Social media is the way to do it.

What Sarah Said (About Web Design)

I must be the only web designer, social media strategist and programmer who can find inspiration for a blog post in a song by Ben Gibbard and Death Cab For Cutie. At the very least, if you're into music, I might have caught your attention with that post title. Truthfully, though, I can't say that the mythical Sarah had some true insights about effective design (the song is rather dour and melancholy, after all), but it's the sort of title that certainly grabs one's attention, isn't it? So, if Sarah was indeed somewhat of a web expert, what would she say, exactly?

Effective web design begins with listening, truly listening, to your client.

Without question, Sarah would say to listen to your client. That's first, foremost and non-negotiable. Probably the worst thing you could possibly do is present a client with preconceived concepts and ideas, ultimately designing and building a site which presents your strengths and meets your sense of style without taking into consideration the needs and corporate image of your client. Think about it: would you want to do business with someone intent on literally forcing their own ideas down your throat? I think not. We're hired for our vision and expertise, of course, but the true visionaries and professionals among us listen first and design later. Seriously: could we truly succeed and serve our clients any other way? After all, it's their company and their image. It's their future and their reputation on the line. And it's our job to refine and present that image in a memorable way, helping them to attract new clients and new customers along the way. Otherwise, you can forget about truly helping your client win new business. And you can forget about positive referrals and new clients of your own.

So, be sure to call upon your own expertise and experience. But never forget to listen, for listening to your client is perhaps the greatest skill you can ever have. It's the key to mutual success, and it's the key to longevity in this ever changing and highly competitive business. Pay attention, ask questions, make notes and prepare for the success which will come your way.

How to Improve Your Search Rankings

For small businesses in particular, effective Search Engine Optimization is often overlooked in the rush to build an attractive, user-friendly web site with truly useful content for potential clients and customers. Effective web design contains so many elements and tasks that it's difficult for a single professional to keep track of them all, let alone devote sufficient time to maximize each element of an effective site (that's why we have specialists and web development teams). If it was this easy to build a cutting edge web site and get noticed, anyone could be an expert web-based marketer and designer. We'd all get rich overnight, right?

Unfortunately, a little knowledge and a few buzzwords does not make one an expert. And don't even consider entrusting your web efforts to those cookie cutter companies which advertise their formula for success on television. It doesn't require an advanced degree to intuit that their shtick is a "one size fits all" approach, when what you really need is a custom effort based on knowledge of your company and your goals (do business with someone who values you as a client, not a customer). To put it simply, a web site is not a commodity; it's representative of your company's unique niche and products. And no matter who you do business with, you need someone to understand that basic law and design your site and social marketing plans accordingly.

So, here's a brief primer to give yourself a fighting chance to win prominent search rankings. SEO is a moving target, of course, with Google in particular locked in an unending battle against unethical marketers determined to take advantage of loopholes and exploit knowledge of the latest algorithms. 



However, even in the ever-changing landscape of SEO there are practices which are never deprecated or out of style. Here are some brief principles which never fail:

• Use important keywords in your web site copy. Be judicious or the search engines will penalize you for "keyword stuffing," but be sure to include the terms you want your customers and clients to search for.
• Research the keywords you want to use. Besides generating ideas and alternative words, it also gives you an idea of how competitive certain  keywords are--and that's something you absolutely need to know.
• If you can arrange it, attract links from web sites with search engine credibility. This makes your site seem more important to the search engines, increasing your rankings, and is most likely achieved by offering valuable content (as in blog posts) which will be re-tweeted and linked to from other sites.

There's no substitute for good writing, of course. Create value for your visitors by writing valuable content, and never forget about keywords and links to your site. Keep this in mind and you'll be well on your way to increased traffic, more customers and greater revenue.

What Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Rilke and Annie Dillard Can Teach Us About Writing for the Web

Certainly, there are subtle differences in writing for the web and writing for the sake of literature. Brevity, for one: reading from a monitor is much more tiring than reading from a book, making it even more vital to edit out unnecessary ideas, words and phrases. Make your key points early in your text, keep your text short, and use memorable, active language.

And never hesitate to learn from the masters, even if they wrote decades or even centuries before the advent of the Internet.

• Hemingway: "If a writer stops observing he is finished. Experience is communicated by small details intimately observed.” And: "All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know.'
• Fitzgerald: “You don't write because you want to say something, you write because you have something to say.” 
• Rilke: "And still it is not enough to have memories. One must be able to forget them when they are many, and one must have the great patience to wait until they come again. For it is not yet the memories themselves. Not until they have turned to blood within us, to glance, to gesture, nameless and no longer to be distinguished from ourselves-not until then can it happen that in a most rare hour the first word of a verse arises in their midst and goes forth from them.” 
• Annie Dillard: "One of the things I know about writing is this: spend it all, shoot it, play it, lose it, all, right away, every time. Do not hoard what seems good for a later place in the book or for another book; give it, give it all, give it now. The impulse to save something good for a better place later is the signal to spend it now. Something more will arise for later, something better.” 

You write what you read, in a way; so choose your reading carefully. Reading is our continuing education, both in wisdom and the craft of writing itself. And we close, of course, with Hemingway: Never forget that "we are all apprentices in a craft where no one ever becomes a master.” The attempt, though, it is all about the attempt.

Writing Effective Twitter Posts

"All you have to do is write one true sentence," Hemingway said. "Write the truest sentence that you know." It's good advice considering the brevity of social media updates, especially for the 140 character Twitter limit. There's not much room to violate Hemingway's admonition of "no fat, no adjectives, no adverbs," but at the same time the strange abbreviations and acronyms we see often on Twitter can look more than a little weird (not to mention unprofessional).

Really, do you want a tweet such as this representing your business or corporate image? I think not. Consider the Twitter character limit sort of a literary challenge, less of a constraint than an exercise in creativity. Effective writers can turn the limit into an asset, writing compelling and entertaining tweets that help you achieve your marketing goals and make an effective contribution to your corporate image.

A few brief tips:

• Learn from the prominent players in your field. There are best practices out there; identify and use them.
• Write with your own personality and voice. Followers enjoy reading tweets from real people, not corporations.
• Set goals for your tweets and posts. You can't measure effectiveness if you don't first identify realistic goals.
• Use hashtags to broaden your audience and join popular conversations (make sure your tweets are relevant, though).

Put these principles into practice and see immediate improvements in your social media efforts, not to mention a greater return on your investment. As always, send us comments on what you learn and experience.

Make the Most of Every PR Opportunity

It's a fact of life that you can't control every public relations opportunity. Perhaps it's not your event; perhaps you're a guest without even a minor speaking opportunity. So, you can forget about any news coverage, right?

Speaking from experience, nothing could be further from the truth. Sure, there are many events where opportunities simply do not exist, where you or the person you represent are tangential at best to the proceedings. These are the events where you build goodwill merely by your attendance, receiving gratitude simply by showing up and expressing your support and goodwill.

But over your career, you will attend many events where your very presence will add to the news value of the proceedings. For example, I'll always remember serving as Director of Communications for Kentucky Attorney General Chris Gorman during the time we were active against child sexual abuse. I especially remember the day when we were invited to attend an exhibit of children's art in the Capitol Rotunda; it was an informal event, but I was convinced that we could win some news coverage from the event.

So, on the short walk to the Rotunda, I advised the Attorney General to walk into the event as if he belonged, locate someone he knew well, and closely examine one of the works of art. He did, and was soon surrounded by television cameras. Needless to say, the video that evening was mostly of the Attorney General.

No, this sort of tactic doesn't work every time. But it's an effective example of making an informal event your own, which of course is made much easier when you have standing on the event. So, always remember that even though you or your client might not be on the official agenda, it doesn't mean that news coverage is beyond the realm of possibility. Be creative, make yourself available, and you might be surprised at the result.

Are You Going Overboard with Public Relations?

In the ultra-competitive business environment in which we live, there's a natural tendency to distribute a news release or pitch a story for virtually every little development. We all want to get noticed, right? And besides the validation of appearing in print or on television, there aren't many better ways to broadcast our message to the widest possible audience. Throw in the instant credibility of legitimate journalism, and there's a greater likelihood that customers and clients will take note of our products and services. So, we should send out news releases at every opportunity, right?

In a word, no. One of my first mentors when I worked as a political strategist advised me to "make the letterhead mean something." Simply put, he meant that I should be sparing in sending out news releases instead of inundating my news contacts with notices of every little sneeze or minor event. It all comes back to credibility: when establishing your credibility with journalists, less is often more.

Many is the time I distributed an obligatory minor release and followed it with personal contacts stating that the release wasn't major news. Traitorous, eh? Hardly. This allowed me to make personal pitches for releases I believed in, releases which might have been met with reluctance or skepticism by the journalists I worked with. Being judicious with my pitches gave me journalistic credibility, one of the most important qualities a public relations professional can ever have.

So, evaluate every news release as if you were the editor or reporter receiving it. If it's of questionable news value, don't send it, package it with other news or take a low key approach when you follow up with individual journalists. There will quickly come a time when you pitch a story with news value which might not be readily obvious, and you'll need that credibility when you tell reporters how much you believe in the story.

Everything I Know, I Learned from Strunk and White

The Elements of Style: that slender volume by Strunk and White has taught me as much about writing as my careful lifelong study of Fitzgerald and Hemingway. This book doesn't condescend by teaching you a formula for writing; what it does is  identify the common elements in all powerful writing and inspire you to include those elements in your own work.

Here is a brief selection from The Elements of Style:

1. Use the active voice. The active voice is usually more direct and vigorous than the passive: "I shall always remember my first visit to Boston." This is much better than, "My first visit to Boston will always be remembered by me."
2. Use definite, specific, concrete language.
3. Omit needless words.
4. Exclamations. Do not attempt to emphasize simple statements by using a mark of exclamation!
5. Write in a way that comes easily and naturally to you, using words and phrases that come readily to mind.
6. Write with nouns and verbs. Even Hemingway advised, "No fat, no adjectives, no adverbs."
7. Be clear. Always.

No, following Strunk and White won't make a novelist out of you. But careful practice of The Elements of Style will make you a much better writer, especially in business. And that could make the difference between success and disappointment, especially in regard to winning new clients.

What Can Martha Tichenor and Other Journalists Teach Us About Writing for the Web?

In my days as a television journalist, there were times when I spent a few moments I didn't have staring at my computer monitor in the attempt to come up with a new and elegant way of stating very basic facts. It made deadlines more interesting, of course, but I like to think that it also made my prose and stories much more elegant, memorable and compelling.

So I very quickly learned to detest cliches and shortcuts, as well as any kind of formula which would typecast my efforts as merely another television news story. It all depended on my available time, of course; writing in the car and arriving in the newsroom an hour before the newscast didn't allow much time for revision.

But the basic principle is valid. Whether the field is journalism or writing for the web, we all want to stand out and have our audience take special notice.

A few simple guidelines for memorable writing, especially for the web:

• Avoid cliches, as you don't need them. There is always a new, memorable and simple way of getting your point across if you're creative and persistent enough to find it.
• As Thomas Jefferson said, never use two words when one will do. It shortens your prose and makes it easier to read and comprehend.
• Create memorable phrases which fit perfectly with your subject matter. In a very recent story which featured images of religious statuary, CBS correspondent Martha Tichenor described the "alabaster emptiness" of the statues. That's quite poetic.
• Write simply, and don't forget the best prose is like music. It should have both rhythm and flow.
• Keep the alliteration to a minimum. It's a bit too obvious, to be polite about it.

Oh, it certainly helps to be a "natural writer," whatever that is. And while there are many more guidelines, observing these guidelines will make you a better and more memorable writer. You'll communicate much more effectively, and your web-based content will be much more likely to attract potential clients and customers.

Speak Out on Social Issues to Become a Social Media Authority

Yes, there's a lot of noise on social media. Some of it is inconsequential, to be polite about it, while other content seems targeted at directly turning followers into clients and customers. That's the idea, of course, but what I term "look at me" posts can seem rather rote if that makes up the majority of content by the individuals and organizations you follow. The natural tendency over time is to tune that sort of content out (just as we often do with television advertisements), and no one can blame us if we do.

It all comes back to credibility, of course. Don't forget community relations and social involvement as you work to establish and fine tune your social media presence. Becoming an authority on social issues increases your overall credibility, making it much more likely that your promotional content will be viewed more favorably as well.

So, how do you strike a favorable balance between the issues you care about and posts which promote your products and services?

• Tweet and blog about the issues you truly care about, with a special emphasis on synergy between your interests and your business. For example, it makes perfect sense for a food company to post about food safety, recipes involving your product and hunger.
• Retweet information from persons and organizations you trust. It builds goodwill, and as they say, what comes around goes around.
• Don't forget to post relevant images. Besides a great headline, nothing captures the reader's attention more than a compelling image to demonstrate what you're writing about.
• Devote some of your posts to developments in your industry. It all comes back to credibility and establishing yourself as an authority in your area.

As we all know, it's not enough to become a regular presence on social media. Offering information of value is the surest way to become an authority on your chosen information, and that can only help your marketing efforts across the board.

What can R.E.M. Teach Us About Social Media?

While creative and business inspiration can literally come from anywhere--the essays of Montaigne, the lyricism of Rilke, the epiphanies of Scott Fitzgerald, the gentle beauty of Monet--who hasn't been inspired by their favorite music? As a discriminating fan of R.E.M. since my college days, it's not much of a stretch for me to find wisdom and inspiration for social media marketing and content creation in quite a few of their best or most interesting songs.

• Radio Free Europe: "Put that, put that, put that up your wall." If you don't post it and share your insights and ideas, you can't increase your personal and corporate visibility. As I've written before, plan your posts and even create an editorial calendar so you won't be wracking your mind for posts and tweets. When it comes to social media and marketing, increased market share only results from a consistent message and social presence.
• Talk About the Passion: In writing for the web, you must be passionate about your subject matter. "Write what you know," as Mark Twain said. And if you're passionate about a topic but are not quite an expert yet, study and learn all you can and then be sure to share what you've learned.
• Maps and Legends: Provide your readers with a road map for achieving their social media goals, along with the legend and lessons to help them get there. Be clear, concise and understandable. Write for your audience, one of the common sense tactics which never fails.
• All the Right Friends: Never forget that we're all in the business of social networking. Take the occasional break from creating content to give out a shout-out to deserving colleagues and friends by re-tweeting and highlighting their own original content. There aren't many more effective ways to solidify online alliances and friendships.
• Get Up: "Sleep delays my life." Never forget that your target audience is likely catching up on social media even until the late hours. As you plan your social media calendar, don't hesitate to post important updates after normal office hours. Your customers are paying attention, and so should you.

So, put on your favorite music, become even more inspired, and plan some winning social media content. Your audience will enjoy and learn from it, and you'll become even more of an authority than you already are. And who doesn't benefit from that?

Social Media as Your Personal News Service

As a public relations professional, former journalist and overall news junkie, there was a time when I read up to a dozen newspapers a day (pretty much all the daily newspapers in my state, plus The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal  and occasionally The Washington Post). Throw in local and network newscasts  every day, not to mention a stack of magazines every month, and the hours I spent keeping up with news and current events become, if not incalculable, then certainly one of the most significant investments of time I've ever made.  Staying informed is: A right and duty of citizenship Vital in learning about other perspectives and viewpoints A part of everyone's continuing education Essential for a competitive advantage in business Because of the way we learn and process information, I still believe that the value of reading actual newspapers and magazines (not to mention books) is inestimable. But the world has changed; perhaps it's true that we don't have time to painstakingly  keep up with the number of publications and newscasts that I once followed on a  daily basis. But excellent journalism is still written and recorded; there is more  information at our disposal than ever before.

And so I turn to social media for news, commentary and information. With the persons and organizations I follow, I have turned Twitter into a sort of personal news service, allowing me to compare coverage and sample viewpoints I wouldn't  otherwise know about. So, can social media make us better citizens? Probably, if we  are wise in selecting whom to follow. And we will certainly become better informed.