5 things for PR pros to know about Hurricane Sandy

The storm socked the world’s media capital—not to mention its PR epicenter—so most news outlets (particularly those east of the Mississippi) are focusing the bulk of their coverage on the storm, which means you should mostly avoid pitching the media this week (some exceptions to that rule here).

Meanwhile, here are five things PR pros (wherever you are) should know about the storm’s aftermath:

Twitter mentions of Sandy topped 4 million in one day. Citing data from monitoring firm Radian6, USA Today reports that more than four million mentions about the hurricane appeared on Twitter in the last day. “Hurricane Sandy” was the top phrase on Facebook in the U.S., followed by several other storm-related words. Instagram was equally alight with images from the hurricane. Instagram CEO Kevin Systrom told USA Today that there are 10 pictures per second appearing on the photo-sharing site with the hashtag “Sandy.” The Wall Street Journal highlighted several of the pictures, one of which was retweeted more than 5,000 times. Storify has been another busy place online for people and media outlets to tell stories via social media about the storm. Conversations about the storm will likely continue to dominate social media today and throughout the week.