On this Valentine’s Eve, we are feeling a lot of love with new client samples from KonaRed, a Hawaii based superfruit beverage company, and cookies from the Girl Scouts NorCal, who just kicked off sales with 2.9 million boxes distributed throughout Northern California.  Talk about a lot of Thin Mints.

We’re barely into 2012, but things are already chugging along nicely.  Katie, just back from the IPREX Global Leadership Conference in Berlin, is buzzing on the evolution of our practice and the increasingly “glocal” (global and local) communities emerging online.

This Thursday, Chelsea and I will be attending the PR News Digital Summit here in San Francisco for the latest on SEO, Measurement, Online Reputation Management and, of course, all that is Social Media … none of which are getting any simpler.  Just one glimpse at the evolution of the Conversation Prism by Brian Solis illustrates this point well. We call it the Kaleidoscope of Doom, and it’s been known to overwhelm even the most seasoned of practitioners.

There is something to be said about practice makes perfect, but conferences like these afford new perspectives which simply cannot be conveyed through more screen time.  Every day we find new ways to navigate the colorful, albeit stormy, sea of online communication tools and latest web 3.0 rhetoric worth sharing. Every hour, new insights emerge on which portals make sense for a brand and the nuances behind breaking into unfamiliar territory.

Whether your industry is food, fashion or finance, the beauty of these various communities is the luxury of selection, a virtual communications candy store of ways to find and talk to your targets.  While not everyone can go viral, every brand has something to say to its consumers who are listening intently.

Speaking of viral, who out there isn’t seeking to capture lightning in a bottle? There are a number of strategic campaigns that have emerged over the last few years which have entertained and inspired us.  We love them so much that we officially  “Like” them, Share them, Pin them, Stumble them, Tweet them, Add them, Blog Them, Plus them, Tumble and Post them.  PR and marketing mavens love to dissect and deconstruct them all as part of our cache of case studies.

So it was refreshing to read that at the end of the day, it’s the simple things that still reign supreme. As the New York Times reported Friday, Charlie Bit My Finger is officially the most viewed You Tube video ever, effectively catapulting the brothers into social media stardom as the poster children of organic, viral content.

In our ever-increasingly “glocal” communities, it only makes sense that a hilarious moment captured between two children is the ultimate universal story worth sharing.  You can watch this video a thousand times and still find the something new to admire. There are 56 seconds available to attempt to analyze the X factor that lies within, the magic in the making.

So although not your typical case study, there is value in learning from the success of Charlie and his brother. After all, they don’t hold the golden ticket for nothing.

Happy Valentine’s Day from Fineman PR!  Enjoy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_OBlgSz8sSM