Jon Schmid is the managing partner of Cook + Schmid, a San Diego-based marketing and public relations firm. Before founding his company, Schmid worked as a reporter and editor at a number of publications, most recently the Chicago Sun-Times. His freelance writing has been published internationally. Follow him on Twitter @jschmidpr, or read his blog at www.cookandschmid.com

Penguins get a bad rap.

Hurricane Sandy and other recent natural disasters have demonstrated that social media are an important part of an effective communications strategy, particularly during times of crisis. The public has come to expect public agencies’ Twitter, Facebook and other online channels to be updated regularly with valuable information in the wake of a major event.

It’s election time, and the tweets are flying fast and furious. The second presidential debate alone generated 7.2 million posts with traffic spiking at 109,000 messages per minute (the Twitter count for the third debate was slightly lower).