Are YOU Fearless?

On Friday, July 21^st hundreds gathered at Riverside Memorial to commemorate the life of Jennifer Goodman Linn. Many of the people attending the funeral had never met Jennifer Linn.  However, each person in the room knew and was a part of her life.  I write this post in her honor, for a woman who, with unrelenting determination and unwavering tenacity, developed a community of Fearless followers and founded one of the fastest growing charity events in the country.

Obama Tweet-Up/s...and Downs

Social media and the web have played a significant role in the election and presidency of Barack Obama.  In an address to the White House in May 2009, Obama stated that government must “recognize that we cannot meet the challenges of today with old habits and stale thinking…we need to reform our government so that it is more efficient, more transparent, and more creative.”  The New York Times blog, The Caucus, notes Obama has reached over 9 million Twitter followers and has more than 21.6 million “fans” on Facebook.

The strategy and use of technology to connect with audiences and voters has proven successful for Obama’s campaign, election and ultimately his presidency.  Obama, seeing an opportunity to further engage his followers, hosted the first ever White House Twitter Town Hall on Wednesday July 6^th at 2 p.m.

The “Tweet-up”, streamed through an hour long webcast, solicited more than 119,000 timely questions on jobs and the economy using the hashtag #AskObama.  Jack Dorsey, Twitter’s co-founder, moderated the event and questions were curated through 8 veteran Twitter users.

President Obama used the medium during the town hall meeting as a new tool for an old communication approach –was it a victory, defeat, or rather, a tie?  Let’s weigh in…

3 Ways Social Media Disrupts Public Relations

This is PR….                                                  This is PR on social media…

Any questions?

Social media, global, instantaneous and virtually cost free, has the ability to reach a substantial number of people.  Facebook tells us there are more than 750 million users, Forbes.com reports Twitter has reached “200 million registered accounts with 110 million tweets per day” and YouTube shares “more than 48 hours of video are uploaded to the site every minute.”  Statistics don’t lie and these are impressive.  Social Media is not something to be ignored nor is it a slowing trend.  The question is – is it worth it?