From Hollywood Connections PR account executive, Ashely Swanda, on the Dos and Don’ts of online etiquette…

Social Media And Email Etiquette 101: Don’t Commit Career Suicide

Social Media has become a mainstay in our lives. Many of us are on Facebook or LinkedIn several times a day, and we send so many emails we don’t even bother to count anymore. The instant access and communication is a blessing, but used it the wrong way and it will become a black flag that follows you to every job and lingers in all facets of your life.

Anthony Minite, President, Bentley Prince Street, Inc.

After reflecting on our first big trade show of the year, I think we all need to come clean about sustainability. It seems every manufacturer is claiming to be the leader in sustainability and backing it up with huge advertising and marketing campaigns. It’s time to talk about making an honest commitment to sustainability. You can talk all you want and blast it on the biggest billboards and in the glossiest magazines, but without proof, it’s all just talk.

Since Bentley Prince Street is committed to responsible manufacturing, we have nothing to hide and see no need to confuse the marketplace with an inundation of green claims and labels.  For this reason, we provide third-party verification of our sustainability claims with Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs).

Here is a useful nugget we found from Marketing Profs:

Marketers have a tough job! No juggler’s job has ever been as tough. With 13 or so online marketing channels (and just as many offline), the job of cross-channel marketing is difficult. But creating a successful cross-channel marketing organization is possible.

Building a strategy and organization to implement cross-channel marketing usually requires changes in the following:

Tips to help you save time and headaches

Business travelers are the best when it comes to getting through airport security. These savvy sleuths have figured out the loopholes and corners to cut that expedite the jaunt from check-in to airline seat. No doubt those in the flooring business are well traveled, to say the least. FCNews has a few travel experts on hand, as well. If you’re heading to Las Vegas to attend Surfaces this year, you might want to cross reference your travel regime with ours to make sure you’re getting through the security line with as little fuss (and pat-downs) as possible:

by Heather McCune via O’Reilly/DePalma, a building and architectural brand offering a decidedly modern set of marketing communications services.

Does design translate into improved sales and profitability? Next time you venture into one of its fast-food eateries, be prepared for a very different McDonald’s—a redesign that may just inspire you to rethink your order and your own approach to business.

In honor of Marketing Monday, I found a great blog by Susan Peyton of smallbiztrends.com. Enjoy!

So many of my company’s clients want to brand themselves–to be known in a sea of competitors as the best. And while this is certainly possible, it takes deep pockets and lots of time — something most small businesses don’t have.

And so I say that branding is a luxury.

St. Louis — Moms today believe social media marketing impacts their retail purchasing, according to the results of a national survey of nearly 700 mothers. The study, executed by Fleishman-Hillard in partnership with ModernMom.com, took place September 2011. The results were debuted by Fleishman-Hillard’s marketing-to-moms practice in partnership with ModernMom.com at the 7th Annual M2Moms – The Marketing to Moms Conference, Oct. 19, 2011, in Chicago. The study uncovered ways marketers should modernize their communications to bridge the gaps that exist between their brands and today’s mom consumers.

Most moms surveyed said social media is changing the in-store customer experience, and the top-ranked reason is because they use social media to get information about sales and coupons. Additionally, 63% of moms surveyed said blogger reviews are influential to their purchase decisions, whereas 56% of moms said they tend to avoid online ads because they are not viewed as trustworthy. Facebook was noted by moms as the most trusted space online to receive brand communication.

At the recent NAFCD conference in Nashville, Fox Business News personality Stuart Varney gave his take on something we hear few, if any, people ever talking about, something that could affect us all: a declining global birth rate.

Birth rates have fallen very sharply throughout the developed world. It’s significant because it has fallen below replacement population levels. A 2.1 birth rate is required to keep the population stable. That means 2.1 live births per 1,000 women of child-bearing age. In many countries, it is as low as 1.2 or 1.3. In Scandinavia, the number is 1.5 or less. In the Iron Curtain it is 1.4. It’s worse in Asia: Japan, 1.3; Singapore, 1.1 and China, 0.9.

This means a significant swatch of the developed world–about 45 countries–is losing population as you read this. Hundreds of millions of people are deciding to have far fewer children. Germany will lose a quarter of its population in one generation. It’s also extreme in Japan where there are many older people and fewer babies.

If you haven’t connected your business through Twitter yet, there is no time like the present. Originally featured in our Guide to using Social Media in Business, this post will outline the steps to creating your Twitter account in a little more detail than originally featured.

Step 1

For this sample, we’ve entered a generic name but when you create yours, be sure to use your real name. Twitter will generate username suggestions based on this information.

In honor of our forthcoming second edition of the Guide to using Social Media in Business, we’ve decided to share some statistics that didn’t make it into the update:

We all know websites are the cornerstone of any integrated business. But did you know that:

•There were 255 million websites at end of 2010

•21.4 million websites wereadded in 2010

•16.91 billion web pages exist

•There are 2 billion Internet users worldwide

•There are 273 million Internet users in the U.S.

•1.1 billion Web searches per month in U.S.

•1.7 billion terabytes of information created and stored on Web each year

One social site that didn’t make it into the guide but really should have: Are you familiar with StumbleUpon?

•2.2 million web pages added every month

•51 pages added every minute

•50.34% of U.S. social media traffic driven through StumbleUpon

•Average session on StumbleUpon is 69 minutes

Can you believe this?

•186 online videos average Internet user in U.S. watches per month

•2,232 online videos average Internet user in U.S. watches annually

•53% of employees research potential job candidates on social networks

•17% of time spent online devoted to a social network

•20% of couples now meet online

•20% of divorces are blamed on Facebook

•37 million people watched VW’s Super Bowl Darth Vader ad on YouTube

•Groupon will reach $1 billion in sales faster than any company in history

•1.5 million real farmers, compared with 80 million Farmville farmers

•90% of consumers trust peer recommendations; 14% trust ads

•Babies in Egypt have been named Facebook

•If users were citizens, Facebook would be the 3^rd largest country in the world behind China and India. Combined with Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube they would be the largest country in the world. Yet, Facebook, and Twitter are technically not allowed in China so they do not count any users from the world’s most populous country, and both YouTube and LinkedIn users have had services cut off now and again.

• Google+ has 26 million users, 72% of which are are male

•Most users will click shared content within the first 2 minutes. If each page view generated a second of attention we would see 90 years of attention daily

Each October, Milliken associate Holly Lester does a poster/information drop off at design firms for breast cancer awareness month. Holly partnered with an associate from Antron this year to hand-make 150 baked goods, and a Milliken designer helped create the posters. The one day campaign touched more than 100 people! FCNews caught up with Holly to ask her about her efforts and what makes her think pink.

The 6th annual Bathroom Blogfest, taking place from Oct. 24 to 28, brings more than 33 bloggers and 34 blogs from various industries together to write about this year’s theme, “Climbing Out.” It focuses on improving the overall bathroom experience for end-users by bringing attention to the various aspects of a bathroom, including the floors, fixtures, design, and the retail experience. See the list of participating bloggers at the end of this post.

Bathroom Blogfest couldn’t have come at a better time this year. When I read the theme, “Climbing Out,” it was like an omen. The stars and planets aligned and I got the go ahead to literally climb out my apartment of the last two years and move somewhere where I can stretch my legs. On a couch because the new place has room for one of those.

LEBANON, PA.—Kids at the Nicetown Boys & Girls Club will soon enjoy a completely renovated facility, thanks to the efforts of the Shane Victorino Foundation and community partners including Regupol America, Robbins Flooring, Abacus Sports Installations, Ltd., and several others.

The Shane Victorino Foundation (SVF) is dedicated to promoting opportunities for underserved youth in Philadelphia and Hawaii, engaging in projects that provide children with educational, recreational and wellness programs. The renovation of the Nicetown Boys & Girls Club is the organization’s major endeavor in Philadelphia. The nonprofit pledged nearly $1 million to renovate the 105-year-old building. The club recently celebrated a grand reopening ceremony on Sept. 22.

If your store is doing any kind of Halloween decorations, promotions or even acknowledging the holiday, you may want to set the mood with a little more than carved pumpkins and fake spider webs. Other than playing Charlie Brown’s “The Great Pumpkin” on repeat, music is a great way to add to the ambience. We’ve come up with a list of 25 songs to fill the air with spooky, fun Halloween spirit for which your employees will thank you. It will spare them from the canned howls and screams CD you found in the bargain bin at Target.

Happy (almost) Columbus Day! For children across the U.S. the upcoming Monday holiday is a welcome “get out of school free” card, and that goes for a few lucky offices with grown-ups in it too.

Established as federal holiday in 1937, the celebration of patriotism has come to include a prominent American pastime: Shopping! A Google search of “2011 Columbus Day sales,” yields 82,700,000 results. Add “flooring” into the search bar and the number of results almost doubles to 148,000,000.

Carpet One in Maryland is one of the top results with a video on YouTube:

Continuing with last week’s theme of flooring-related references in pop culture, we’re adding the opening credits of 2007′s Juno to the list, with a great opening song; Barry Louis Polisar’s “All I Want Is You.” Sure, it’s a little bit of a stretch but it’s a great song. Listen all the way through to see if you can catch the reference:

In honor of the Emmy’s and carpet’s role in entertainment, I thought we’d visit an unconventional instance of the fuzzy-side-up on the big screen, especially to lighten things up after last week’s not so warm-and-fuzzy post.

It has been an exceptionally rainy summer up in this corner of the country: The second wettest August made way for flooding caused by Hurricane Irene to finish up the month. The first week of September followed up strongly, flooding some additional locations in the Northeast, including my hometown, Binghamton, N.Y.

There are some very cool, new area rugs from designer David Hanauer, who has designed a collection based on Google maps imaging that he calls Worldwide Carpets. His designs are laid out from the center and radiate out to each of the four corners for symmetry that mimics a Persian rug. On his website he states, “Comparing to Persian carpets of former times, Worldwide Carpets interprets ornaments from these times into the 21^st century.”

The Northeast had a pretty shaky week. On Tuesday, Aug. 23, a 5.8-magnitude earthquake hit Virginia with aftershocks traveling up the east coast, followed by Hurrican Irene a few days later. Authorities and Mayor Bloomberg told New York City residents in what was possibly the worst Spanish I’ve ever heard to get out of the city. Evacuate. “El stormo grande is mucho dangeroso!” New York City shut down all transit systems—subways, buses, Access-a-Ride, Long Island Railroad and MetroNorth—in an unprecedented move to mitigate damage to the lines and keep passengers safe. It was my first time in a hurricane and I was terrified.

Don’t misunderstand Joe Ternullo when it comes to his 12-year-old son Joey’s racing career. The second generation flooring dealer is crazy proud of his boy’s racing accomplishments and his deep passion for the sport. But as much as he enjoys a summer night at the track, what he values just as much, if not more, is the ride to the track.

It’s during the hour-long ride from their Middletown, Conn., home of the Waterford Connecticut Speedbowl when father and son, and often daughter, Danielle, 16, get to talk.

One material I know little to nothing about in this business is stone, so when I was told a trip to Gawet Marble & Granite quarry was in order on my recent visit to Vermont, I was actually looking forward to it. Not so much for the technical stuff but for the art program that held residence on the site. Positioned on 200-acres of a former marble quarry and manufacturing site was a sculpture garden and active work spaces for artists— locally, nationally and internationally renowned. Because we were there on a rainy Sunday we only saw a few artists working, but they were tented and tapping away at a seemingly endless supply of excavated and abandoned marble and granite. I’ve never seen marble sculpture outside of a museum or church, so this was really cool to see up close. And despite my best efforts, I learned a little something about marble production too.

We’re starting a new series here at the FCNews blog: What matters most. We hope to share the good deeds of the people in our industry, and give some recognition for all the hard work they do that makes our world a better place. Our first post looks at Team Jake, established by Karen and Mark Cook of Cook & Kozlak Flooring Center in Canton, Conn.

Autism is a disabling brain disorder that affects the way a person communicates with other people. It’s estimated one in every 110 children is diagnosed with autism, making it more common that childhood cancer, juvenile diabetes and pediatric AIDS combined. The cause of the disorder is unknown.

Karen’s 14-year-old son, Jake, has autism and she consistently downplays her years of volunteer service. She says she’s simply “doing her part,” but others see it differently, saying Karen is a dedicated, passionate and creative person when it comes to supporting children and adults with Autistic Spectrum Disorders and their families.

An oxygen bar at a trade show? I’m not going to complain. When Beaulieu of America hosted one at Carpet One’s product showcase during its convention in Anaheim last week, I was very excited to try for free what would have generally cost me $1 per minute anywhere else these babies are popping up like casinos, airports and resorts. Started in crowded Asian cities like Beijing and Tokyo to purify residents’ lungs, it was a great change from the “bottled air” we are all used to breathing at trade shows.

Our friends at Mullican Flooring posted a great story about spring cleaning that we wanted to build on for your benefit, with a few extra tips on keeping your place of business clean.

Were you an attendee at NeoCon 2011? Did your wildest dreams come true when you met Bono thanks to a resilient flooring company (that will go by Company X on this blog)? In what has been dubbed a “PR no-no,” evidence has surfaced that Bono was not, in fact, an attendee of the trade show and that thousands of visitors were duped into thinking they were meeting one of the biggest musicians and activists in the world. It was really this guy.

Summering folk in the northern part of the U.S. spend the following months outdoors grilling, swimming, or pretty much anything that affords time outside.

In conjunction with a story I’m working on, I have been playing with the abundance of Quick Response codes that are popping up on advertisements and products seemingly everywhere. My search history has everything from TV shows to flooring products in it right now. Surprisingly to some, the flooring industry isn’t light years behind when it comes to this kind of application. So far I have found apps/QR codes for Wools of New Zealand, Armstrong, Mohawk, Shaw, Laticrete, Mannington, Earthwerks, Coverings, Crossville, Interface and the usual software suspects like QFloors and RFMS.