It’s no secret that social media has become a business imperative for both B-to-B and B-to-C companies. Clients come to us everyday seeking counsel on social media, wondering where they need to be and how to get started.

I admit it; I wasn’t so excited when Twitter came along. I wasn’t the first one to sign up for a Facebook account. Heck, I didn’t start IMing until around 2000. So years ago when one of my colleagues stood up and said we need to know about social media…MySpace, Linked In, Second Life…I scoffed and reluctantly got up to speed, figuring I would learn what I need to know by reading, exploring but would never fully embrace it.

As an agency we push ourselves to be ahead of the curve through education and by adopting social media practices. We take pride in our expertise and for anyone who may be wondering how to gain a better understanding of social media here’s my sage advice. There’s no better way to increase your understanding of social media than to join the conversation. The beauty of it is you just need to be yourself: create your Facebook account, get tweeting, join a message board.

So have I fully embraced social media? Ten years later…I start my day by checking in with Facebook and a message board. I scan blogs both professional and personal. I have two Twitter accounts, one for my personal interests (yes, I follow Snooki and Pauly D) and one for professional interests. I maintain a professional network on LinkedIn that I literally would feel lost without. And now, I am blogging.

Anyone who has ever sat or scrolled through a “Twitter 101” is probably familiar with two of social media’s top rules: 1) be authentic 2) share worthwhile media assets/content. It’s often struck me as funny that these best practices are being tossed around as something new for PR.

Sure, the type of asset shared might be slightly different than it was 10 years ago, whether it be compelling video or a multimedia slideshow, and we might be forced to show how genuine we are in only 140 characters – but the role of a PR person as a reliable source of accurate and interesting information remains unchanged. I’d take this a step further and say that operating as a sincere individual with appealing things to talk about not only makes you a good PR professional, it makes you a good friend, dinner companion, date, drinking buddy, (insert role here).

Not only does this just feel instinctively true, research indicates that creating valuable resources is more effective than algorithm chasing as it pertains to SEO, a vital aspect of measuring a PR campaign or even the worth of a single press release. With sophisticated, ever-changing formulas for determining Google rankings, I say the best bet for keeping your clients top-of-mind (and top-of-index) is to tell a winning story and just keep it real, man.

I’ve always been a strong writer; growing up, my mother was very strict when it came to school work, especially written reports. I remember countless hours spent at the kitchen table, writing and re-writing book reports, history papers and science projects while she coached me:

“That sounds too confusing – what are you trying to say? Okay, then write that.”

“Hold on…if you have to take a breath in the middle of a sentence, it’s too long.”

“You’ve used that word way too many times…find another way to say that.”

“That sounds great…except you didn’t address your teacher’s actual question.”

I learned to write well, to write with style, to write with personality. I learned the importance of grammar and punctuation and story-telling skills, even when writing something objective. I was a straight-A student and when I got older, I took writing classes for fun. But my biggest challenge was always brevity – then and now. I can be a very verbose, long-winded guy. My New Year’s resolution for 2010 is to continue to improve my self-editing skills.

When I was in school, I could count on my mom to review my work before it was turned in. In college, my writing classes, journalism seminars and PR courses typically involved a fair amount of group work, so I benefited from my peers editing me. Throughout my numerous internships and even my first few years at a PR agency, nearly everything I wrote passed through a supervisor, teammate or a mentor who would help fine-tune my pitches, press releases and article drafts. I learned that despite my being a talented writer, it was equally important to have a talented editor on-hand. Of course, now I realize it’s even more important to hone those skills and edit myself as much as I can.

Short. Concise. To-the-point. Direct. Succinct. All of these words run through my head when I’m writing a blog entry, drafting a press release or readying an email. Instead of taking a second look before sending, I’ve been training myself to take a third or fourth. If you scroll through the “Sent” folder in my Outlook account, you’ll see that my emails and subject lines are shorter than they were a year ago. While it’s true I am making a concerted effort to self-edit, the truth is this: the reason I’m getting better at reducing my word count is in large part because of how much time I spend on Twitter. Constantly trimming sentences down to 140 characters or less has forced me to do what for years seemed like the most difficult task of all.

If you’re not very active on Twitter or Facebook, I urge you to try to be in the new year. Not just because these are useful and efficient networking and news-sharing vehicles, but because embracing social media and new tools can often have unintended consequences, like what I described above. They force us to think quicker, shorter, even more creatively sometimes.

And with that, I’m going to sign off. Because another part of self-editing involves knowing when you’ve said enough and it’s time to just press save, send or publish.

Have a great weekend, all!

Gawker is one of my favorite blogs to read – it’s snarky, it’s fun, it’s informative and usually it’s right on the money. The other day though, I was a little surprised to read an entry on “The Laziest Journalists on Twitter.” In the post, Ryan Tate called out BusinessWeek’s Douglas MacMillan, WSJ’s Jessica Vascellaro, Wired’s Priya Ganapati and Fortune’s Jessi Hempel, calling them lazy for tweeting requests for sources when working on stories.

Now, I realize Ryan may have been teasing more than shaming, since he acknowledged Gawker itself tweets for sources all the time. But I was surprised anyone would consider a journalist tweeting for help getting in touch with sources to be lazy behavior. On the flip side – it’s a smart and resourceful use of a really effective (and efficient) social networking tool. Reporters have been using tools like Help A Reporter Out and ProfNet to find sources, and no one criticizes those tactics. More old-school journos keep a database of their PR friends and past sources and when they are in a bind, they shoot out email blasts soliciting pitches on a particular topic. Using Twitter, Facebook and any other mode of communication to accomplish the same thing should be a non-issue. I’m proud to admit I’ve responded to numerous “calls for pitches” on Twitter over the past few months – for everyone from Doug to a local news station in New Hampshire and just the other night, another BusinessWeek reporter (Rachael King).

Mainstream media should be encouraged to use the newest tools and networks to do their jobs better – not chastized for it.

Related reading: “How can journalists use Twitter?“

As PR pros, we’ve been following the shrinking media market and modifying our strategies with new ways to get coverage for our clients despite a dwindling audience. Pursuing traditional media coverage will often be top priority, but as the number of journalists and outlets lessen, we have to get more and more creative with our messages and find new audiences.

Yesterday, Ad Age noted that one way companies have modified their strategies to the changing landscape is by creating content for and pitching directly to consumers. While Twitter is old news to some people, many companies are only just diving into social media to reach consumers. Many of us have found that one of the best ways to reach new audiences is getting our clients active on Twitter.

Twitter is one of the easiest and fastest growing ways to broadcast news about your client while creating an engaging relationship with consumers. We just launched a new Twitter account for one of my clients and I am excited to see the new audiences our tweets will reach and the conversations they will create.

How are you finding new audiences and engaging consumers?

Last month, I read a post on Webware about two Australian girls who were trapped in a storm drain. Instead of dialing the Australian equivalent of 911, they asked for help by using their cell phones to update their Facebook profiles. Nearly a month later, I’m still floored by the absurdity of the situation. Thankfully, the girls were rescued, but I continue to wonder why, with a perfectly good cell phone in hand, they didn’t think to dial for help the conventional way.

I’m quite certain that in the case of an emergency, my first instinct would be to dial 911; but the post did get me thinking about my own reliance on Facebook and other social networking tools. Am I, like the two girls, becoming too dependent on social networking sites? Are we, as communications professionals, turning to Facebook, Twitter and the like too often for research and pitching?

Undoubtedly the integration of such tools into our work is necessary and valuable. More and more, I personally am using Facebook and Twitter to connect with writers and editors, to share news about my clients and to stay on top of industry happenings. These days, I even find myself reading most news headlines on Twitter, pulling me away some from the news outlets I used to frequent. I think this is a normal progression in keeping up with the times, but every once in a while, I also think it’s worthwhile to take a step back to look at the bigger picture and ask ourselves how our use of social networking tools is (or isn’t) making us better at our jobs and leading to results for our clients. The story of the girls in the drain reminded me of this.

TheElectricWaffle provided some additional food for thought on this topic a while back: if social media failed to exist tomorrow, what impact would it have on your work? I’m truly interested to hear your thoughts.

In the meantime, as social networking continues to be an integral part of our daily lives, I hope we won’t forget to use the many public relations tools we have in our arsenal; social networking sites constitute just one variety.

Oh, and if you find yourself in an emergency, please just call 911.

It’s no surprise that at Matter, we have a lot of clients embracing social media. However, what’s interesting is the way these clients go about integrating it into their communications strategies. Over the past few months, I’ve been involved with discussions about how to best go about leveraging corporate blogs, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube with two separate clients, and they have very different approaches, both equally valid and interesting.

The first client has a very grassroots outlook on social media. Rather than living by a set of stringent rules, we know what we can and can’t say, and we don’t ever post anything questionable. Our focus right now is to use social media as a platform for educating, answering customer questions and handling the occasional product or shipping issue. Over time, we plan to add more structure to the program, but our efforts thus far have been appreciated and encouraged by our followers and fans.

The second client has been engaged in social media initiatives for a while now, and has even integrated elements into its annual customer conference. We’re currently expanding the program and our client contact is putting together a set of rules and guidelines for other members of the organization who want to participate. As I was reviewing this plan recently, it really struck me not only how different the two social media methods are, but also how equally effective they both are.

What also struck me was the different levels of “maturity” (for lack of a better word) of the two programs. The more structured program has been in practice longer, while the more casual one has just been initiated. My prediction is that over time, the more casual program will become more structured as the number of our fans and followers grows. But we have to be mindful not to over-engineer the programs, because if we do, we run the risk of ruining trusted and effective methods for reaching end-users.

What are your opinions on social media program structures? Do you prefer a set of rules, or would you rather use loose guidelines for social media outreach? What do you think end-users prefer?

Back in April, C.G. Lynch wrote about finding a balance between personal and the professional content when using Twitter. While discussing the difference between personal and private, he quotes Kirsten Dixson, “As an example, you don’t want to write that you’re ‘going to the gym,’ but it might be nice to say, ‘I just set a goal to run a marathon.’” The quote has stayed with me ever since. Whatever it is that you have to project to the masses, give it value. You’ll be easier to relate to, and there will be an actual intellectual or emotional benefit that you provide your friends/followers.

Obviously, the concept goes far beyond the world of micro-blogging. We see is everywhere in everyday life – it’s a key to building successful relationships, especially in business. And now, more than ever, it hangs heavily over the PR bubble, threatening to burst it wide open. PR blacklists and blackouts and the ever-spreading controversy about paid blogger reviews are forcing us to constantly re-examine our practices and become better Pros. It’s a lot of work, and it takes a lot of time, but it pays off. I have started many more conversations with members of press by politely introducing them to an idea, rather than a brand. I pitch them an article, rather than a product. I resist the urge to name-drop and flash famous logos in front of their eyes. And the responses have all been positive. Even if they ultimately decide to pass on the specific idea, I’ve established a valuable connection with someone that I’m perfectly comfortable approaching again in the near future (and perhaps is looking forward to hearing from me).

We all make it our primary practice to personalize our outreach and try to illustrate clear connections between our clients and media members, but we need to continue to take it to the next level. We need to be writers and columnists at heart. We need to present them with ideas that they can use – that they find valuable – and who knows? Someday, we could earn “We Heart PR Pros” week.

As the discussion of the use of social media in our field continues, a recent article on Ulitzer caught my attention with more commentary on exactly how social media strategies fit into the work we do on behalf of our clients. The article describes how social media further blurs the lines between traditional PR and marketing with a “push vs. pull” analogy. Where traditional programs are centered around pushing the news out to media in an effort to influence our clients’ customer base – social media strategies rely on the successful engagement of end users, potential customers and industry influencers by pulling them into these communities. I’d take this one step further, given sometimes we have to give a little push to certain clients in order to pull them into the world of social media.

Social media presents the opportunity to stretch as professionals into new mediums and makes us look long and hard at the messages we are getting out there – are they significant and clear? I think this makes our job all the more exciting – with opportunities to participate in conversations (be them via Facebook, Twitter, etc.), we have many more ways in which to not only get the story out, but get real-time, honest feedback from an ever growing number of people.

I was on the phone recently with a senior reporter from one of my client’s top-tier trade publications, and we were talking about Twitter. It turns out that his publication has a Twitter feed, but the reporter doesn’t have his own account or contribute to the pub’s feed. He claimed that he didn’t know what he’d use it for, but was still a bit intrigued by the communication medium. I saw the opportunity to offer him some information and suggestions outside of the normal thought leadership and company news I would normally pitch, and I promised to write up a list of ways he could use Twitter.

So I sat at my computer , unsure of what to say, and getting increasingly agitated at the unmoving cursor as it blinked away, mocking my inability to come up with the ideas I promised. Eventually, I figured there were a few basic things he could do, like tweet about his articles to drive traffic to them. I mentioned sending out appeals to his PR followers for sources for upcoming stories (I suggested this one rather selfishly – I thought it’d be clever to respond to one of his first tweets with a source). I also suggested he use Twitter to provide sneak peeks to upcoming pieces, and announce new webinars that were scheduled for the pub’s Web site.

And while I feel like my suggestions were helpful, especially for a person who wants to use Twitter but hasn’t before, he still hasn’t signed up and used it. Naturally, being the neurotic PR guy that I am, I worry that what I provided wasn’t creative or specific enough for him to become a full-fledged Twitter-freak like so many other journalists.

So I ask the larger PR community: How can journalists use Twitter to make their jobs easier? What are some of the ways we, as PR and communication professionals, would like the media to use this tool.