The original title for this blog post was “Why I Want an iPhone.” I’m an Android girl, not because of any personal agenda against the iPhone, but because my last upgrade was available during the time of the AT&T iPhone-Verizon battle, and there was just no way I was going to switch to AT&T. For the most part, I don’t have iPhone envy, except when it comes to one particular app: Instagram. As a lover of photography, but not [...]

What we’ve learned in the past decade is that brands that want momentum, relevance and reach must ensure they are digital to the core. That means a lot more than having a cool website and delegating some people to talk about the brand in social media. In just the past few years, ordinary consumers have taken digital into every room of their house and with them everywhere they go. They’ve become digital to the core.
Digital is already massive, and it’s [...]

Whether or not, like Woody Allen, you’ve experienced sex as the most fun you’ve ever had without laughing, some days I can’t help but think that the online erogenous zone deserves another one of the comic’s lines: “When it comes to sex, there are certain things that should always be left unknown, and with my luck, they probably will be.”
I’ve been looking this week at how e-seekers of romance, love and eroticism feel about the new possibilities of the Internet [...]

Around Valentine’s Day 2011, our thoughts immediately turn to…social media. Well, why not? Social media is linking people in more ways than we can imagine and changing every day. It’s driving trends across all kinds of sectors and all parts of real life. But what are the new norms of love online today? Are there any universally accepted virtual behaviors that are contributing now to a cultural e-dating code?
Euro RSCG Worldwide, the parent company of [...]

There’s a certain set of consumers who don’t just passively consume goods and services; they proactively seek them out, help to produce them and help to propagate them. Alvin Toffler coined the term Prosumers in his 1980 book The Third Wave to label people similar to the leading-edge consumers we were studying at Euro RSCG Worldwide, the parent company of the PR agency I head up. When we started using the term later, it [...]

It’s Valentine’s Day once again, when lonely hearts turn to thoughts of love, Cupid’s lets his bow fly, and e-dating across the U.S. and the EU approaches a whopping $1.6 billion market.
But even as cyber-matchmakers here grow e-dating conferences and invent netiquette for the ethics of finding romance or dissuading cyberstalkers, this engine of moving parts raises a lot of questions. It’s a 21st-century McLuhan-esque stage, and the medium might still be the message, but [...]

When I was a kid (“back in the day”), if you wanted something special from Santa for the holidays, you worked for it. Sure, you could write him a letter. But to be certain you were getting exactly what you wanted, you had to convince your parents to take you to a mall or department store so that you could personally deliver the message. You had to wait in an endless line only to discover that, up close and personal, [...]

Hello again from Chicago! For the last time from America, I want to share with you the weekly social media links Baptiste Limb and I have gathered.
Let’s start this week’s selection with two interesting but nevertheless totally different examples of how to use social media to achieve your goals. Who would have thought that even the police use social media tools and channels? You should really check out this post and video on the Next Web Australia. It’s about a policeman [...]

Hello from Chicago! It is time again for “The Week in Social Media,” by Baptiste Limb and me—this time from Chicago because I’m on vacation in this amazing city. So let’s face the latest social media news and trends.
Social media is becoming even more popular than e-mail—at least on mobile devices. A recent study by research company TNS shows that mobile users spend 1.4 times as many hours using social networking sites than reading and responding to e-mail. Read more [...]

“Therefore, having obtained the opportunity from these sources, I too began to consider the mobility of the earth.” —Nicolaus Copernicus (Polish astronomer, 1473–1543)
A lot of communication-related conferences and summits have happened the past few weeks around the world. None of them has avoided social media. I can even say that it was the main topic everywhere. Why? Simply because social media is mainstream, and with that comes greater opportunities.
Let’s understand those opportunities with five recent speeches by the most relevant speakers [...]