The right to participate within the public dialogue has always come with responsibility. Television had its obligation to share the news. Radio and television participate in the Emergency Alert System. Newspapers have a self-enforced responsibility as the "fourth estate." As brands become more like publishers every day, we have to start asking ourselves if there is a higher level of responsibility for participating in the public discourse - a responsibility beyond that to shareholders and investors.

I don't know about you, but I still find myself in a post-Sandy hangover. I realize that makes this a prolonged condition, but today's reason is the little Nor 'easter, which, while David to Sandy's Goliath, still dumped enough snow around here last night to delay the start of school until 10:30 a.m. As if having no school all of last week wasn't enough! Side query: Does playing endless games of Monopoly count as math drills?

Many of us feel as if our lives revolve around social media -- that the lines between work and personal are nonexistent. For Jason Sadler, founder of IWearYourShirt, this is actually true. Since 2008, Sadler has been using social media to help businesses gain attention, attract consumers, augment search results and garner research. Here is an Insider look at the crazy brain of a social media entrepreneur.

Remember how quaint it used to be when rock stars like Kurt Cobain used to do a live "unplugged" set on MTV? It almost always felt more visceral than when the musicians actually plugged in all of their amps, guitars and wah-wah pedals and turned up the volume. Turns out it doesn't feel the same when Facebook goes, well, acoustic, courtesy of everyone's favorite hurricane, good ol' Sandy. Once our power went out at about 6:30 p.m. Monday night -- thankfully, it came back at about noon today -- I needed Facebook more than ever, even as accessing it became …

The unfortunate reality is that we need to be more prepared now than we were 10 years ago -- no matter what part of the country we live in -- in the wake of more flooding, ice storms, earthquakes, blizzards, and tornadoes. Whether a national brand or local business, you have to be prepared for how your business, your employees and your customers will be affected by Mother Nature.

So, remember that thing about Facebook's mobile problem, way back, say, six months ago? It's gone! Like that! Courtesy of Facebook's Q3 earnings report, which surprised the world into actually buying the stock. The next day, it hit a high of $24 share, about 25% higher than it was before the announcement.

With so many metrics at our disposal, it's incredibly easy for a social media marketer to simply focus on metrics instead of return on investment. But few of us get paid for good stats alone. Our businesses want us to make them money. Go figure. And yet, again and again we turn to stats that mean nothing when it comes to ROI. Most companies can only guess what a Like is worth or the value of a Pin. I even had a client a couple years ago have us take OUT any metrics that showed how we contributed to the …

Before I begin, forgive me for often being more into social memes than social metrics. But although I find it fascinating that a study released today says only 6% of alleged fans of a brand on Facebook actually interact with it, I'm actually more in the mood to talk about binders. Oh, sheesh, binders? That's so 36 hours ago.

Social marketers need to be event marketers. As a social media professional, if you don't have plans for event marketing in your 2013 budget, you'd better lower your projected metrics for the year.

After all this, is social really coming back back to the old adage, "A picture is worth a thousand words"? Or maybe I should embellish a bit: "A picture is worth a thousand words -- and lots of money if it has an e-commerce button attached"?