THE INTERSECTION OF PR AND SOCIAL MEDIA

When I started this blog a while back, it was part of my decision to leap off the social media cliff into the swirling waters of Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn et al. As you may recall, I was inspired to make the leap after attending a conference that explained how online resources and social media can be used as tools in the practice of public relations.

So here I am today--six months older, a whole lot smarter than when I started, but still looking uphill at all the stuff yet to be learned. That's one of the amazing things about this social media thing. New tools and resources spring up every day. New applications for making better use of existing tools appear overnight. You could spend 24/7 doing nothing but checking them all out.

As a public relations professional, you might say I've drunk the online/social media Kool-Aid. In fact, believe it or not, I've become such a missionary for integrating social media into a broader public relations effort that I'm now invited to speak at various client meetings on this subject. Obviously, I can't promote myself as a full-fledged expert because my social media knowledge base is still pretty limited. But I now have enough experience with Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn to know how valuable they can be as part of a comprehensive communications campaign.

One thing I've learned, and this is a principle that extends across virtually all of the social media tools. The art of "getting your message out" has changed in a profound way. In the old days, you'd send out a press release and hope for pick-up by mainstream media who usually had much more important news to cover. It was an impersonal, one-way process--hierarchical and, in retrospect, maybe even arrogant. We gathered information about our reputations or our corporate "images" through polls and surveys--rows and rows of tiny little numbers, cross-tabbed, requiring a magnifying glass and an advanced degree in statistics to comprehend.

Those days are long gone. Want to get your news out? Post it on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. Wonder how your customers feel about you? Monitor key bloggers, and look at Twitter "hashtags" to see what people are talking about. It's a new world out there, for sure.

I'm off today to meetings in Wheeling, West Virginia, and later Santa Fe, New Mexico. I'll be speaking to my clients about how online communications and social media can help us reach our PR goals. I don't have all the answers, that's for sure, but I'm happy for the chance to share what I've learned.