If you’re near Philadelphia, join me for the Main Line School Night blogging class in February.  Learn how to create, launch and update a free blog.  We’ll cover the pros and cons of free hosting sites and provide step-by-step directions for setting-up, posting and promoting your blog.  Blogging is an interactive and creative way to connect with friends and family online.  Providing human faces for businesses, blogs are also a proven way to increase sales and brand image.  See you there!  To register, click here: http://bit.ly/zTc9ZK.

The free Apple app Instagram has announced that it has 15 million users.  What’s the big deal?  For starters, it’s really a social network.  You can “follow” other Instagram users after you register, and can leave comments on your favorite photos, just like with Facebook.  What’s neat about the app is that you can apply filters to your photos right on your iPhone before you share them, to make you look like a quasi amateur photographer.  Read more from Ragan, including brand-building tips:  click here.

Photo courtesy of Ragan.

Lowe’s made national headlines over the last week for pulling ads from a TV program about Muslims in America on the TLC network.  It then apologized on Facebook for doing so.  That posting is here.  As of this writing, that post has over 25,000 comments.  What do you think?  As clear-cut an issue as some people think it is, or are there more layers of complexity that muddy the waters?  More on the story here.

A recent post on the blog for Kinoshita Communications LLC shared the revealing results of a March 2011 study from CityGrid Media and Harris Interactive showing that, along with Google, Facebook is now a top five resource consumers go to for finding out more information on a local business.  And, findings show that 70% of people will visit an online source before visiting a local business.  To see the data and more:  click here.