It seems as if pictures have become a new main method of communication. Whether it’s your status update or simply sharing the memes and images of others, photos have begun  overpowering the written word.

Acknowledging the change in the way we are communicating, Facebook even changed the layout of your newsfeed, making it easier to browse all the photos, memes and images without feeling overwhelmed. Hayley Tsukayama, a blogger for The Washington Post, noted that, “The larger, more picture-centric posts are easy on the eyes, music to the ears of advertisers who want they take up more screen real-estate, meaning that users see fewer posts per glance at the screen.”

Does this mean that we are subconsciously allowing advertisers to reach us without having to create meaningful content?

Sites such as Pinterest and Instagram started the photo craze.

Allowing users to simply pin and image with one mouse click makes sharing products you like as easy as pie. This is — once again — music to advertisers’ ears, because the consumer does the heavy lifting; the biggest challenge they encounter is making sure the products are easily pinable.

This phenomenon has even taken Twitter by storm. The once word-heavy social media site is now joining the battle of words versus pictures. Users are able to send TwitPics easier than ever. Instagram and iPhones both allow TwitPics to be uploaded at the touch of a button.

So, in the end, the ultimate question remains: Are pictures the new words?

By: Justine Bowers

From catching up with friends, following authors, groups and other hobbies, to reviews for businesses and products, social media is big – and still growing. An impactful message can be distributed across thousands of people via social media reviews.

Unfortunately, those messages often aren’t the ones you want.

Many companies now have a Facebook page and Twitter handle where they post special offers and interact with the public. However, for some businesses, such interactions have led to it being blasted and commented upon by countless numbers of people, potentially damaging its reputation.

These interactions often start with a single customer complaining about a service, then spread into long multi-comment interactions where various complaints surface, with only the occasional happy consumer chiming in in defense. Disgruntled customers are far more likely to voice their opinion on a company or product than satisfied ones, which adds to the problem.

Even worse, these negative comment trails may influence decisions for consumers who heavily rely on reviews. A study done by J.D. Power and Associates showed that in a group of more than 23,000, 87 percent were “positively impacted” to buy based on positive reviews.

Countless companies have been affected by negative social media in recent years. Taco Bell faced trouble when an employee posted a picture in uniform engaging in disturbing acts. United Airlines took heat when it damaged musician Dave Carroll’s guitar, and he lashed out through social media. Applebee’s recently faced trial by fire from actions it took because of a photo posted to social media that resulted in an employee being fired.

So, what to do?

Protect yourself. You cannot avoid the social media storm.

Businesses need to be accessible on multiple venues or some consumers might deem them “unworthy” for not being up-to-date with the latest trends. And you must be proactive and try to negate any troublesome social media that comes your way.

Respond in a timely and calm fashion. Should you see a negative comment posted to or about your company don’t think it will go away. Create a positive response, perhaps offer a discount for their troubles or ask them to reach out to customer service. Don’t delay in posting back; the sooner you do, the less likely it is to get out of hand.

Watch what you post on personal sites.  Just because information isn’t going directly onto your company page doesn’t mean that consumers will not associate it with the company. Avoid the hassle — do not post politically aggressive topics or negative reviews.

Preventive interacting.  Go out of your way to be engaging on the company’s social media outlets. Post relevant topics or engage users in polls, competitions and pictures. Getting people involved in a positive way could discourage someone from posting something negative directly on the page.

Search social media sites. Set aside time each week, if daily perusal isn’t a possibility, to review social media sites and look for interactions from people that directly impact your company. Reviews aren’t always posted or tweeted directly on the company pages.

Learn from others mistakes. It’s no secret that 2012 was riddled with many social media snafus. Learn from the problems others endured — inappropriate photos, political leaders calling out companies on personal stances and so on. Seeing where others have gone wrong allows you to minimize the likelihood that your company will follow a similar damaging path.

Both answers are grossly misleading and both reflect laziness — two things that businesses can do without.

In a world that’s increasingly consumed with instant gratification, there are still some things that should be done methodically.  One is getting to know your customers.  Notice that I didn’t say “consumer research.”  Although the mission is the same, the latter implies that your customers are scientific experiments instead of walking, talking human beings.

This subtle difference prompts us to go beyond the numbers when figuring out exactly who our customers are.  By making the extra effort to know what our customers love to do, what their ambitions are and how they receive their information, among other things, we put ourselves in the position to make sound business decisions.

For example, it’s no longer safe to assume that all middle-aged Caucasian women love gardening.  You might well find many of those same women in a Tuesday night MMA class.

Today, our world is so interconnected that we’ve been introduced to interests and lifestyles that we may not have known about in the past.  In doing so, the way we live our lives has changed – as has how we make buying decisions.

As companies, it is our job to recognize this and find out as much about OUR customers as possible to make the right business decision. Whether it’s deciding to launch a new product or choosing to invest in a social media strategy, it is vital for a business to understand its customers inside and out.

By: Garron Gibbs

This makes it glaringly apparent that meetings are not nearly as productive or efficient as they should be.

However, there are steps that can be taken to make sure meetings at every organizational level are thorough without being tedious.

Here at Slice Communications, we began to run into similar problems. Our meetings were getting longer, while what was actually accomplished was diminishing. Once we recognized that our weekly Monday afternoon update meetings were pushing 100 minutes, we decided to implement changes that  helped streamline our efforts and accomplish more in less time.

Preparation

Perhaps the most overlooked and underappreciated aspect of a strong meeting is preparation.

To help make sure everyone is on the same page, a template should be sent around at least 24 hours prior to the meeting (we store ours on Google Drive). This template should include updates from the past week, including successes and priorities and goals for the week to come. This document serves as the “bones” for the meeting and is what each team member references.

Just Skip It

There are times where an update for a particular subject may not contain anything particularly pertinent or worthy of discussion — at least in a group setting. In such instances, skipping over a topic or, in our case, a client, is not necessarily a bad thing. Again, meetings are for discussing important details. If you are aware of client needs and the past week has been somewhat slow, you shouldn’t be afraid to focus on something more important. It saves time and makes the meeting flow more smoothly.

Brainstorm Elsewhere

No doubt brainstorming is an extremely important activity for developing new ideas or creatively solving a problem. However, there is a time and place for everything. If you want to hold a brainstorming session, arrange to have a meeting solely focused on that. Effective brainstorming takes time, sometimes quite a bit. It makes more sense to dedicate a separate meeting focused on a brainstorm (allowing employees to prepare for the session) than to clog up a meeting focused on higher-level issues.

Wrap It Up

Similarly to knowing when to skip is recognizing when to wrap up a discussion and the meeting entirely. Again, hitting on the key points as referenced in the preparation documents is important. No need to delve into endless discussion on every minute detail.

When the meeting feels like it’s starting to drag and the same ideas and topics are being thrown around, just end it. Make sure that any concerns are addressed and allow employees to head back to their desks. It may make sense to send around an updated document that details what was discussed during the meeting and any next steps.

Let’s face it, meetings are rarely the most exciting parts of a professional’s day, but they are important.

Unfortunately, many of them eat up valuable time, which is completely counterintuitive. With minor tweaks and adjustments, meetings can be fast, efficient and even enjoyable — and John in accounting can leave his pillow at home.

By: Matt Sorrentino

Social media outlets like Twitter have a character limit, which leaves little room to provide a comprehensive, detailed message. Because Twitter is a bit limiting for the purpose of posting a deep, meaningful message, many users choose to write concise, witty messages in lieu of choosing less frivolous topics.

Facebook, although it allows for more text and characters, often ends up being used in the same vein. That’s because of users who feel comfortable to make snide or humorous remarks that then receive negative feedback from “friends” who take their words more seriously than they were intended.

Without a doubt, it’s incredibly easy to misconstrue meaning online. Less than 10 percent of meaning in communication is the actual wording and, online, there aren’t any non-verbal cues to go on (despite vaguely helpful, and often sarcastic, emoticons). So, regardless of a given individual’s intentions, it’s incredibly likely that a misunderstanding could occur.

Part of the problem is that many social media users forget how large their audience is when they experience a comfort level with their inner circle of close friends or followers that is different than that with their wider list of friends. A few years ago, a coworker said he felt “uncomfortable” with the concept of a Facebook status. “I have over a thousand Facebook friends; to me, posting a status is like standing up in an auditorium in front of a thousand people and saying something as if it is important enough for everyone to listen.”

The concept of a Facebook “friends list” or “followers” on Twitter and Tumblr is extremely fascinating. Regardless of the medium, those lists tend to range from close friends and family to acquaintances and total strangers. The very concept of a friend has come to include Internet buddies who converse with each other, yet could live across the globe and may never meet. For men and women, this can mean anything from being a cyber hater, viral confidant or being a counterpart of a long-distance flirtationship.

The various forms of social media have different personalities and, therefore, many users have completely different networks on each one. Internet users often spend extensive amounts of time crafting their online personalities, and they can vary from one medium to another. Each form of social media becomes its own world with unique content, capabilities and companions. Even if the Internet is “not real life,” it’s certainly a world of its own — regardless of what that reality may be.

By: Alessandra Severoni

Yet on Super Bowl Sunday, the biggest advertising event of the year, some of the best marketing was instantaneous and, literally, priceless.

This past Sunday was a record-breaking day for social media. According to Trendrr, Sunday night set a social media interactions record for any major televised event. For some perspective: The royal wedding had 5.6 million instances of social-media engagement, and Sunday’s Super Bowl racked up 47.67 million—WOW.

When the power went out at the Superdome in New Orleans, there were 231,500 tweets per minute on the subject, and according to Twitter it took only four minutes after the power went out for the first advertiser to bid on the search term “power outage.”

Some brands and celebrities took advantage of the opportunity to be creative on their feet and reach this captive audience.

Nabisco promoted its Oreo cookies, tweeting, “Power out? No problem.”

This was retweeted over 15,000 times.

Tide took to twitter with their message, “We can’t get your #blackout, but we can get your stains out.”

PBS seized the moment to suggest a channel change during the delay, tweeting, “This might be a good time to think about alternative programming. #SuperBowlBlackOut #WeHaveDowntonPBS

Even Calvin Klein saw an opportunity, tweeting “Since the lights are still out…” using Twitter’s new video-sharing app Vine to send out a quick video of a muscular shirtless man doing sit-ups in his Calvin Klein briefs.

Even Major League Baseball took the opportunity to grab the attention of sports fans by tweeting, “We thought we’d take this brief pause to remind you that pitchers and catchers report in 8 days.”

We now live in a “social” world of instantaneous marketing. The smartest marketers take advantage of clever communications at a minutes notice and therefore reap the benefits. We applaud those smart enough to do so. Creativity waits for no one.

B:  Carolyn Strum

Your public relations agency is constantly pitching new topics to the media in order to position your company as a leader in your industry. Pitching an interactive infographic will help to get the media’s attention and may give the topic more longevity.

Get your audiences attention. Most people are very visual. We only retain a small percentage of what we read. With the use of an infographic, information can become simplified and easier to understand. Data and hard facts can be organized and presented in well-designed graphs and charts. The audience can get an understanding of the topic with a quick glance. Infographics make it easy to convey complex information without much explanation.

We are all on the move. We want information and we want it fast. Most people will decide to leave a website or continue exploring in the first 2-4 seconds of viewing the page. With very little time to convince people to stay tuned, infographics are the most effective way to catch the audiences’ eye and keep them focused.

We are a digital society. With smartphones, tablets, and the Internet right at our fingertips, we are constantly taking in new information. Your thoughts can’t always be conveyed in a bylined article in a magazine. By putting your thoughts and ideas in an attention-grabbing visualization the information can stick out from the rest of the noise.

We all love to share compelling information. Unlike a regular pitch, an infographic has a chance to go viral. People are going to be drawn to something that is visually compelling, easy to understand, and can be shared easily with their colleagues and friends.

When creating infographics there are some technical pointers that can’t be missed:

1. The data that is used in the infographic needs to be well research and properly cited. All links need to work.

2. They need to be sized properly, in order to be embedded into mainstream media websites.

3. The embed codes need to be good or there will be no possibility of embedding on other sites.

4. Make sure that it works on every web browser.

5. Make sure you are thinking about your SEO when creating the infographic. They have the ability to drive tons of traffic to your site. Your company should be mentioned with links back to your site.

6. Make sure the infographic is relevant to the client, the industry, and the media.

 - Brian Loschiavo

Team Management                                                                                                                                                              

• Manage a team of public relations account managers in all client activities, particularly client update meetings, deliverables, and reports
• Use project management software to monitor account managers’ activities, to dos, client requests, client deliverables, and other items
• Oversee implementation to meet client goals, budgets, and deadlines
• Manage clients to ensure they meet media and project deadlines; proactively ask questions to ensure they have what they need
• Develop and share best practices among the team; push them creatively and strategically
• Set goals, evaluate, and report on the professional and skills development of account managers
• Demonstrate company values of tenacity, creativity, generosity, diversity, and integrity
• Be accountable for the public relations account management team
• Report successes, progress, problems, developments, and challenges to Principals

Strategy                                                                                                                                                                                                       

• Advise clients on their overall business and marketing strategies
• Evaluate, prioritize, and predict clients’ needs and have a clear understanding of what PR / SM successes mean to them
• Lead a First Cut Session with a client, including taking them thorough notes and contributing to the conversation
• Support account managers in development and delivery of strategy documents to clients
• Identify strategic opportunities for clients, including media opportunities, conferences, awards, and partnerships
• Create new initiatives, campaigns, and projects that align with client objectives

Material Development                                                                                                                                                         

• Review, edit, and approve all press materials developed by account managers, including press kits, press releases, media alerts, bylined articles, talking points, infographics, pitches, scripts, and other materials
• Deliver feedback to account managers on messaging, structure, grammar, and spelling of all client materials
• Manage delivery of all materials on time and on budget
• Ensure materials are revised, approved, and distributed per client feedback and instruction

Research                                                                                                                                                                                   

• Constantly research and identify trends, news, reporter contacts, and other information to benefit clients and account managers
• Use the resources available to find data or figure things out independently

Media Relations                                                                                                                                                                      

• Leverage existing strong and meaningful media relationships for the benefit of clients and account managers
• Craft pitches that generate media coverage
• Communicate with reporters, editors, and producers through email, phone, and other methods when necessary
• Prepare clients for interviews and advise them on how to leverage opportunities
• Evaluate the impact of a media placement through business opportunities, website analytics, and impressions

Strategy

• Advise clients on their overall business and marketing strategies
• Support a First Cut Session with a client, including taking thorough notes and contributing to the conversation
• Develop and deliver a strategy document to a client
• Evaluate, prioritize, and predict clients’ needs and have a clear understanding of what PR / SM successes mean to them

Project Management                                                                                                                                                           

• Have a clear understanding of client budgets and deadlines and meet both regularly
• Deliver thorough, detailed, and relevant project management updates with clients and in staff meetings
• Manage managers to ensure my clients’ needs are satisfied
• Manage clients to ensure they meet media and project deadlines; proactively ask questions to ensure they have what they need

Material Development                                                                                                                                                         

• Proficiency in developing press releases, media alerts, bylined articles, blogs, and status updates
• Contribute to the material development of my team members through proofreading for content, grammar, spelling, and structure

Research                                                                                                                                                                                   

• Research my clients’ competitors, industries, trends, influencers, and media targets every day to identify opportunities
• Use the resources available to find data or figure things out

Media Relations                                                                                                                                                                      

• Develop strong and meaningful media relationships for the benefit of my clients
• Craft pitches that generate media coverage for my clients
• Communicate with reporters, editors, and producers through email, phone, and other methods
• Prepare clients for interviews and advise them on how to leverage opportunities
• Evaluate the impact of a media placement through business opportunities, website analytics, impressions, internal business use, etc.

Social Media                                                                                                                                                                             

• Proficiency in using and discussing social media tools including Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest, Instagram, LinkedIn, OfferPop, HootSuite, Sprout Social, and SpredFast
• Effectively manage social media campaigns for clients, including community development, community engagement, content development, ad development, and reporting and analytics

With growth and development always come changes.  Staci and I are both engaged to be married to amazing, supportive, and generous men.  We also formed a union professionally with Metrocorp, Inc. the company best known for Philadelphia and Boston magazines.

This partnership will help us focus on the thing that matters the most to us: the work.  The good news is that Staci and I will continue to run the day-to-day operations, client delivery, and sales.  We’ll also expand our partnership with the magazines and digital properties that began with the “Health Hero” project we completed with Be Well Philly in 2012.

The better news is that we will have the time and focus to push ourselves strategically and creatively.  With the fast pace revolution that is communications these days, we need to stay ahead of trends, technology, and best practices if we are going to continue to be innovative and “cut through” all the marketing clutter for our clients.

We are truly thankful to all of you for this opportunity: all our current, previous, and future clients; our new partners, David Lipson, Rick Waechter, and everyone at Metrocorp; our advisors, Roger Braunfeld, Kevin Leigh, Leo Daiuto, and Lori Reiner; our team, Justine Bowers, Garron Gibbs, Brian Loschiavo, Charla Platt-Doble, Alessandra Severoni, Matt Sorrentino, and Linda Levitt.com; our fiancés, Ed and Hallum; and our parents, families, and friends.

2013 is going to knock the socks off 2012 in all the best ways.  We’re really looking forward to what the future brings!