SOURCE: Skrapz

Good manners=
“Say please and thank you.”
“It’s not nice to stare.”
“Keep your elbows off the table.”
“Don’t speak unless you’re spoken to.”

These might be some of the things you heard from parents and grandparents as you were growing up. Manners and courtesies seem to change as society evolves, but the basics remain the same. And how would those common courtesies apply to today’s world of social media?

Check out “10 things your grandmother can teach you about social media” from Eric Fulwiler.

1. Mind your manners. Social media is still social. Even though we are interacting in a virtual space, the same traditional social rules, laws and faux pas still apply. If you act like a jerk, don’t expect many friends.
2. Tuck in your shirt. How you present yourself is just as important in the virtual world as it is in the real world. Make sure you are always aware of how you appear to others.
3. Send a thank you card. People still appreciate being appreciated. It really doesn’t take much to convert an acquaintance to a friend, which will offer exponentially more value. A simple thank you or any genuinely human interaction of gratitude goes a long way towards this goal.
4. Keep your elbows off the table. Acting respectfully in front of others proves that you value them, which will usually make them value you more. And in social media, it’s all about value.
5. Turn your music down. Don’t contribute to the noise. Listen to whatever you want in your own personal space, but when your personal preferences start to become a distraction to others, people will tune you out.
6. Finish what you started. Any way you look at it, engagement is a commitment. When you make an effort to become part of a community, it’s not only up to you when or how often you interact with other members. If you put yourself out there as a friend, be prepared to be there when people reach out to you.
7. Finish your vegetables. There are some aspects of social media that aren’t sexy. But that doesn’t mean they aren’t important to your growth and health. Make sure you are keeping up with the essentials and not just chasing that buzz you get from a social sugar high.
8. Whatever happened to a good old fashioned…? Sometimes all these new gadgets and thing-a-ma-bobs aren’t as important or effective as we make them out to be. Sometimes a good old-fashioned email, phone call, or even in-person “get-together” can accomplish things that social media can’t.
9. A man is only as good as his word. The currency of social media is trust (or social capital). And if people can’t trust you, you have no value to them.
10. Think twice before you speak. You can always say something, but you can never take it back. Especially in social media where everything you say can be heard by anyone, forever, there are just too many “finites” to not reconsider everything you say before you say it.

Let Grandma’s old-fashioned advice help you, and in return, you can help her tweet.

That’s 34 percent more hours than the average American works. [so maybe things aren't as bad as they seem!]

In their article “Survive a workaholic culture,” Melissa Henriquez M.A., and Rebecca B. Andersen, APR, detail how we are more stressed than ever before. With the economic challenges, high unemployment rates and a fear of layoffs, everyone feels pressure to do more on the job. Often times, succeeding in our professional lives comes at the sacrifice of our personal lives.

Although the “workaholicism” is likely here to stay, they have some tips on how to restore some balance to your life:

• Write the next morning’s to-do list before leaving the office in the evening. This will help you prioritize your day and keep you on track. Productivity matters now more than ever.
• Seek shelter. If you’re on a tight deadline, hide out in your office or an enclave somewhere in the building so that you can work without interruptions.
• Change your scenery. Instead of meeting a client in the office, meet for lunch or at a coffee shop for a change of pace. Plus, a new setting can unchain you from your desk awhile.
• Ignore the vending machines and take a mid-afternooon walk. Sometimes just a 10-minute break can help clear your mind, break writer’s block or inspire a new idea.
• Have fun. If you’re going to spend 10-12 hours somewhere, then you need to enjoy the people you’re working with as well as the work you’re doing. Some socializing can be a good thing. [woo hoo!]
• Set boundaries. Let your clients and colleagues know when you’re on vacation or unavailable.  An “out of office” message is a simple tool to help adjust expectations during that time.
• Ditch the guilt. If you work at a fairly flexible place and are all caught up at 4 on a Friday and have been at the office late all week, then go home.  You’ll be a happier (and saner) employee if you feel like you have control over your personal life.
• Don’t be a slave to your iPhone or BlackBerry when you leave the office. Put it somewhere you can’t easily access it and dedicate a set time to check messages if necessary.  Use your down time for you and your family.

I personally am NEVER a slave to my CrackBerry — I mean, BlackBerry.

A supermassive black hole: Twitter's big brother?

More than 70 percent of tweets on Twitter get no reaction from one’s followers.

Sysomos, a market research company that specializes in social media, examined 1.2 billion tweets posted over a two-month period and found that only 29 percent produced a reply or a retweet. Of those that did get a response, 19.3 percent were retweets and the rest replies. This means that of the 1.2 billion tweets Sysomos examined, only 72 million tweets — that’s 6 percent – were retweeted.

The study found that 92.4 percent of all retweets happen within the first hour of the original tweet being published, while an additional 1.63 percent of retweets take place in the second hour and 0.94 percent in the third hour. This means that if a tweet is not retweeted in the first hour, it’s not likely to be retweeted at all.

Since October 2009, Fake AP Stylebook has filled the gap for a satirical attack on the topic of language. The site attracted 1,000 followers on the first day — and now with over 150,000 — it is clearly catching the attention of many loyal fans. The founders, Ken Lowery and Mark Hale, even have a book deal in the works! [In Bookstores Spring 2011, from Three Rivers Press]

Quoted in PRSA’s PR Tactics, Lowery says, “The account was a joke between some friends and me. We’d just hit on a good comedy prompt and see how far we could take it before the joke ran out of steam or we lost interest. Once we got some vindication that the joke had legs, we made the account.”

When asked about the Fake AP Stylebook’s effect, Lowery says, “The reception has been largely positive and sometimes surprising. That said, I know at least one of us has been told by a colleague that they’re concerned the Fake AP Stylebook will steer students of the English language down the wrong path, even if we have ‘fake’ right there in our name. So you can’t please everyone all the time.”

Here are a few of the hysterical tweets you’ll find on @FakeAPStylebook:

• Avoid repeating common myths: we only use 10% of our brains, drink 8 glasses of water a day, man landed on the moon.
• Roman numerals are neither Roman nor numeric. They’re, like, letters, right? Are we the only ones seeing this?
• Do not use quotes inside quotes inside quotes; you’ll get lost if you go that deep into the sentence.
• Include plenty of rainbows and unicorns when writing your organization’s marketing plan. Everybody loves rainbows and unicorns.
• internet – Wires and something? We’re looking into it.
• Op-ed: May only be written by men named Ed who wear vintage 1980s surfer clothing.
• When interviewing third-party candidates, try not to snicker when they discuss their chances of being elected.
• Sprinkle the word ‘quantum’ throughout science articles, particularly if you have no idea what you’re talking about.
• Never say anything about a colleague in a private e-mail that you wouldn’t put in print, since it’s going to end up there anyway.

Welcome to the location-based social networks, such as Foursquare — which I have previously discussed in another post. I tried out Foursquare — and I while I’m not super familiar with it, I can see the appeal. You “check in” to businesses and other locations in real time, and many places are now offering special perks for their most frequent visitor — called the “mayor” — and others who check in.

But what about Blippy? Customers can tell their friends about the products that they buy through this site, which links merchant accounts to broadcast members’ purchases to the world. Blippy lets you communicate about and share purchases with friends by syncing already existing e-commerce accounts to Blippy such as iTunes, Netflix, Woot, eBay and more.

And then you’ve got TagWhat, which takes a leap into the world of Augmented Reality (AR). It allows people to tag real-world locations and attach information, reviews, links, photos, videos, notes and so on to those particular spots, whether tied to their current location or not. Users can also follow other people and merge their respective ‘markers’ together in an effort to build a global network of augmented reality hotspots.

A little overwhelming, right? Well, maybe it’s best to start with a toe in the ever-changing social media pool instead of taking a flying leap headfirst. But whatever you do, start swimming!

David Henderson, author of “Making News in the Digital Era,” said, “Static newsrooms are the least-visited part of a website because most are just graveyards of old press releases. Your newsroom needs to present the spectrum of all the things that your company is doing within its industry, and hanging press releases there kills credibility.”

The core audience for an organization’s online newsroom is everyone from shareholders and business partners, to customers, donors, employees… and THEN the media. And because newsrooms are not only for the media, practitioners must use a writing style that draws interest in a way people can relate to.

“Nobody cares what your company does unless you tell them in a way that adds value,” Henderson said.

What are some elements to add value to your online newsroom?

• News articles (300-500 words)
• Short videos (HD for B-roll)
• Links to company facts and contacts
• Search capability

And if you use WordPress as your content management system, you’re not alone. Even The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal use it for their blog networks, said Ryan Zuk. There are over 22 million WordPress publishers as of February 2010: 10.6 million blogs hosted on WordPress.com plus 11.4 million active installations of the WordPress.org software. According to Quantcast, around 250 million people visit one or more WordPress.com blogs every month, and they view over two billion pages on those blogs.

So get reading, writing and online newsroom–ing.

Do you know into which generation you fall? According to most sources, the following applies:

Silent Generation [born 1928-1945]
Baby Boomer Generation [born 1946-1964]
Gen Xer [born 1965-1980]
Gen Yer/Millennial [born 1981 or after]

Millennials are known for being confident, self-expressive, liberal, upbeat and receptive to new ideas and ways of living. But they may not be as loyal to their employers and companies as past generations. This post brought up some great tips on how PR agencies can attract, and keep, their new talent, including offering career advancement opportunities and a greater focus on state-of-the-art technology and social media.

And just because I’m on Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, Twitter and send a mountainous number of texts and e-mails a day… I don’t know that that necessarily makes me tech-savvy:) — but I try!

Coles Marketing Communications

SteadyGRO is an inert, sterile product used by home and greenhouse gardeners, professional gardners and hydroponic growers that optimizes soilless plant growth. Available in plugs, sheets, blocks and slabs, SteadyGRO helps growers maximize results when growing indoor food crops like cucumbers, tomatoes, peppers, popular flowering plants, woody ornamentals, vines, ivy and more. SteadyGRO was created to be used as a substitute to rockwool, a soilless growing media developed in Denmark in the early 1970s that has been the standard for vegetable and flower production in North America and Europe for decades. SteadyGRO has been laboratory tested to produce faster seed germination, higher fruit weights and better overall fruit quality than rockwool and, unlike rockwool, SteadyGRO is eco-friendly and can be reduced from its original form to a mass of less than 11 percent or incinerated for bio-mass purposes

Recently, Purdue University conducted a six-month laboratory study that analyzed the performance of growing cucumbers and tomatoes indoors using both SteadyGRO and rockwool. The study concluded that SteadyGRO outperformed rockwool, producing higher germination and fruit weights, plant longevity, general plant health and overall fruit quality.

“We chose Coles Marketing Communications to market SteadyGRO due to the agency’s long and proven history for building and sustaining brand awareness and getting results,” said Kelvin Frye, national sales manager for SteadyGRO. “We have an innovative, revolutionary and proven product in SteadyGRO and Coles Marketing Communications understands how to grow our presence in the international marketplace.”

SteadyGRO is manufactured by Syndicate Sales Inc., a leading manufacturer, importer and distributor of more than 1,500 items to the international floral industry since 1946. Syndicate Sales manufactures brand names Aquapic©, Aquafoam©, Aquaplus the difference is clear©, Aquahold©, Hydraplus©, Hoosier Glass©, Garden Collection© and Everlastin Baskets©. With subsidiary Hurryin’ Hoosier Transport, Syndicate Sales is the leader in customized distribution and delivery to its customers in all 48 contiguous U.S. states and Canada.

SteadyGRO is a new product that optimizes soilless plant growth. It’s used by home and greenhouse gardeners, pro gardeners and hydroponic growers to grow food crops like cucumbers, tomatoes, peppers, flowers and more. Manufactured by Kokomo, Ind.-based Syndicate Sales, which has for more than 60 years manufactured and distributed more than 1,500 floral related items for the international floral industry, SteadyGRO is available  in plugs, sheets, blocks and slabs.

The Purdue study compared indoor plant growth results using SteadyGro and rockwool, a product developed in the 1970s. A huge difference between SteadyGRO and rockwool is their impact on the environment. SteadyGRO is eco-friendly and can be reduced from its original form to a mass of less than 11 percent or incinerated for bio-mass purposes.

Purdue University research concluded that SteadyGRO H+ was the best-performing soilless growth medium in terms of average grams of fruit harvested per plant in tomatoes and cucumbers. SteadyGRO H+ produced 47 percent more cucumber in terms of fruit weight per plant than rockwool, according to the study, and both SteadyGRO and SteadyGRO H+ outperformed rockwool in promoting the growth of tomatoes by a 23 percent gain in harvested weight.

News of SteadyGRO’s performance compared to rockwool was also picked up by Reuters, Forbes.com, Yahoo! Finance, the Boston Business Journal, the Los Angeles Business Journal, WBTV CBS-3  in Charlotte, N.C., WTHR NBC-13 in Indianapolis and more than 180 other news sites throughout the country.

Originally from Savannah, Ga., he served as an intern in the Information/Technology department at SteadyGRO’s parent company Syndicate Sales Inc. during the summer of 2009. Prior to joining SteadyGRO, he was a sales specialist at Circuit City in Savannah and a landscaper at Cottonwood Homebuilders in Richmond Hill, Ga. He graduated from Richmond Hill (Georgia) High School and is attending Armstrong Atlantic State University in Savannah.

SteadyGRO is an inert, sterile product that optimizes soilless plant growth. Used by home and greenhouse gardeners, professional gardeners and hydroponic growers and available in plugs, sheets, blocks and slabs, SteadyGRO helps growers maximize their results when growing food crops including cucumbers, tomatoes, peppers, popular flowering plants, woody ornamentals, vines, ivy and more. SteadyGRO is eco-friendly and can be reduced from its original form to a mass of less than 11 percent or incinerated for bio-mass purposes. SteadyGRO is manufactured by Syndicate Sales Inc., a 60-year staple in the international floral industry that manufactures, imports and distributes more than 1,500 floral-related items in the U.S. and overseas.

Recently, Purdue University research concluded that SteadyGRO outperformed rockwool, a soilless product that has been a mainstay in the industry for decades. Overall, the study concluded, SteadyGRO H+ was the best-performing soilless growth medium in terms of average grams of fruit harvested per plant in tomatoes and cucumbers. SteadyGRO H+ produced 47 percent more cucumber in terms of fruit weight per plant than rockwool, according to the study, and both SteadyGRO and SteadyGRO H+ outperformed rockwool in promoting the growth of tomatoes by a 23 percent gain in harvested weight.