K Street Cafe

A Million Little Klouts (Adweek)
Several competitors are moving in on Klout: if you use the popular social media ‘influence measurement’ service, you may want to check out these new (and improved!) tools.

18 Ways to Promote Your Blog Offline (Business2Community)
“The traditional idea of a website is turning into a changing, content rich environment where visitors can learn and interact with your business or nonprofit” – here are some easy ways to promote your blog offline.

Facebook Timelines Being Considered For Brands (WebProNews)
As of today, all individual Facebook users can transition to the newly-designed “timeline” format. Though the timeline is not currently available to brands, “Brand timelines, for those companies who choose to utilize them to their full potential could provide limitless information and knowledge about brands in a way that we just haven’t really seen in the past.”

Learn How to Leverage LinkedIn, or Fall Behind (Fast Company)
LinkedIn is far behind Facebook and Twitter in terms of popularity, and many people wonder if having a profile on LinkedIn is worth all the work. Douglas Crets explains why (and how) to embrace LinkedIn today.

Stop Online Piracy Act: Can Google, Facebook, tech wonks, and Web activists kill the Stop Online Piracy Act? (Slate)
The Stop Online Piracy Act, otherwise known as SOPA, was one of the most popular bipartisan bills of the year. But a flurry of opposition grew among a number of open-Internet groups and now thousands of people and many major organizations have joined the campaign to stop the passage of SOPA. Slate’s Will Oremus calls them ‘the geek lobby.’

Poll: Obama Top Among Tweeters (POLITICO)
Plus: “Twitter users tend to lean more to the left: 13 percent of liberal Democrats say they use the tool, compared to 8 percent of conservatives and 6 percent of tea party supporters. Black adults are more Twitter-savvy than whites – 14 percent of African-Americans say they tweet, double the percentage of whites who are fluent in the 140-character messages, the poll found.”

Twitter Launches @Gov Account To Track Unique And Creative Political Uses Of Twitter (AllTwitter)
Twitter is using the new account to tweet about ‘examples of engaging political campaigns and government initiatives.’ The Twitter Government and Politics Team promises to use the handle to promote creative uses of Twitter for civic engagement.

Twitter.com Gets a Complete Redesign (AllTwitter)
Perhaps you’ve heard about (or seen) the ‘new’ Twitter; this article breaks down all the changes you can expect. For more info, check out Twitter’s info page.

Google+ Released Guide for Politicians and Candidates (Mashable)
The young social network recently released guidelines for politicians (as well as activists and campaigners) to help them promote their issues across the web. “The post highlights five ways politicians and campaigns can use Google+: to share content, express support, tailor content through circles, host hangouts and share photos.”

In #HackWeTrust – The House of Representatives Opens Its Doors to Transparency Through Technology (Sunlight Foundation)
Last week, the House of Representatives hosted a public discussion on ‘how to give the public better access to congressional information.’ Check out this post to learn all the ways that the House is working to ‘open itself up’ to the average citizen.

Occupy Wall Street and the Tea Party: How They Appear on the Web (Huffington Post)
Chris Holden uses social media analytics to compare and contrast how two very different movements – OWS and the Tea Party – are represented online. The results might surprise you!

“Time Shifting” Reinvents 2012 Voter Campaign Message Consumption (Business Insider)
A must-read for digital campaign strategists. The most important takeaways? Strike a balance between traditional and new media outreach, leverage SEO, and pay close attention to KPIs when it comes to website analytics.

Social Media in Congress Growing, Yields Limited Results (Daily Campus)
Despite the fact that Internet correspondence in Washington is growing rapidly, constituents are not communicating to their elected officials via social media as much as expected. “The only trouble with social media is that not everyone uses it,” Geoff Skelley, a scholar at the Univ. of Virginia’s Center for Politics, said. “Most of the people who follow members of Congress using social media tools are politically active individuals who do not exactly represent the typical voter.”

9 Tips for a Successful Facebook Presence (PR Daily)
Do you have custom tabs (and are you directing traffic to them?) Are you unintentionally ’spamming’ your fans? Are you optimizing your page for feedback? Find out how to make your Facebook page alluring to all users.

As Social Media Tastes Change, Can Campaigns Keep Up? (Campaigns & Elections)
When it comes to social media platforms, Katie LaPotin argues that Tumblr may be poised to overtake Twitter in popularity during the next election cycle. Will lawmakers be able to keep up with the change?

Google Cutting Knol, Wave, Other Fringe Projects (Forbes)
Among them: Google Bookmarks List, Google Friend Connect, Google Search Timeline & more.

New iPad App Hopes to Modernize Lawmaking on the Hill (techPresident)
Last Thursday, PopVox unveiled “MarkUp,” a new iPad app that enables Hill staffers to work on legislation ‘in virtual form.’ According to PopVox founder Marci Harris, ‘MarkUp delivers…[information] right into the hands of Members of Congress, who really want to know what their constituents have to say about pending bills.”

Are You Measuring the Right Social Media Metrics? (Econsultancy)
According to Econsultancy’s Chris Lake, “The key to measuring social media is to track all of the usual ‘hard’ metrics, but it’s also to step back and correlate performance against the major business key performance indicators.” Read more here.

Should OWS Switch to Online Enabled Guerrilla Actions? (e.politics)
Colin Delany argues that “[Occupy Wall Street's] occupation of physical spaces has attracted the movement worldwide notice, but its very success contains the seeds of its own decline, since the long-term encampments provide both authorities and criminals convenient targets.” Read through Delany’s thoughtful alternative to OWS’s current strategy.

Google+ Integrates with Social Media Brand Platforms (ClickZ)
Buddy Media, Context Optional, Hearsay Social, Hootsuite, Involver, and Vitrue have already partnered with Google+ to make it easier for brands to manage their content.