How to evaluate a social media partner

What’s the biggest bandwagon for marketing/communications firms in 2010, covering the span of Web developers, creative and advertising agencies and PR firms alike? No shocker here: it’s social media.

Having worked in social media for a few years now with a wide variety of clients, and hearing how different “gurus” sell themselves, there’s no doubt it pays to evaluate as well as ask the tough questions. Here are a few from our perspective that any skilled social media pro would not only be willing, but eager, to answer:

Do strategies and tactics always start with listening/monitoring?
Social media is the equivalent of joining a conversation at a cocktail party. You wouldn’t just burst in and start talking without first listening to know who is there, what topics of conversation are being discussed and what perspective you might be able to lend. Gauge your approach with these questions:
• What industry-leading share of conversation tools have they used, what do they recommend and why?
• How is monitoring information analyzed, shared, reported and utilized?
• Is it considered top priority before embarking on any effort?
• Are recommended strategies based on listening?

What’s the depth of experience?
Social media strategy is much more than deciding when to start a Twitter handle. Consider:
• The variety of brands, products, efforts, projects and the ability to spark word-of-mouth movements utilizing the right combination of solutions is a gauge.
• Determine how long social media has been an integrated core competency (beware if it’s just recently been tacked on).
• Find out what combination of experience the hiring manager prioritizes for the social media team.

How deep is the knowledge about your brand, tone, voice and priorities?
Social media gives voice to a brand. Does your partner understand what tone to take?
• What depth of experience is offered when it comes to knowing internal and external protocol, products and offerings?
• How integrated is your social media partner with the rest of your organization?
• Is there a willingness to team up, help educate and share best practices with internal partners who may be best suited to represent the company?

How are long-term plans/management realities considered?
It’s one thing to start a social media initiative, it’s quite another thing to keep it going.
• What is the game plan for not only building, but maintaining and partnering for the long run?
• What experience is there for not only starting, but fostering and building communities over time?
• Are ongoing costs in terms of time commitment/budget impact factored in up front?
• Does your partner think in terms of social media “campaign” spurts or long-term customer engagement?

Are PR best practices and principles integrated seamlessly?
At the heart, social media is simply a form of how your brand relates to and interacts with the public.
• What experience is offered for building communities, generating news and sparking word-of-mouth movements?
• Is top-level print and broadcast journalism expertise for content generation offered?
• What experience is there for handling online crises/issues?
• Are quality user-friendly ideas and content that compels and attracts audiences prioritized over developing tools, apps and channels?
• Is the philosophy to treat people like people, not marketing categories–tapping into audience passion points and interests vs. simply pushing marketing messages?

How are social media solutions weighted in terms of the overall marketing mix?
Social media should be part of an integrated marketing effort to best reinforce brands and to determine what the most effective communications solutions may be. Find out:
• Will social media be evaluated objectively and appropriately balanced as part of the larger, overall mix? How will this be accomplished?

What’s the biggest challenge/biggest success you’ve experienced?
Social media is a relatively new frontier, and it is evolving all the time. Anyone who tells you they have it all figured out isn’t being transparent (a must for social media, by the way).
• What is the biggest lesson you’ve learned when it comes to projects you’ve worked on?
• How do you set objectives and measure success?

Finally, does the approach follow overall marketing best principles?
Be wary of any social media plan that doesn’t start with research, strategy, objectives, audience identification, tactics, measurement.

Social media isn’t a bandwagon, it’s an increasingly important part of the mix and a great way to build relationships with audiences. We’re interested to hear your perspective on how you’ve vetted the right partners to help build your brand’s presence.

More than anything this year, the 2009 International PRSA conference hit some emotional nerves that have been sparked by an industry in the midst of a complete and utter transformation.

There were flashes of brilliance and forward-thinking from leading innovators ready to speed toward the new era. There was also denial, filtered through the lens of disbelief. There were those just now coming around to realize the industry they’ve known for years is undergoing a change that is deep, permanent and real. The collective question overall: how will this change the world we’re living in and how do we get prepared?

Time and again, every presentation involved the idea of challenging the norms of the past. But in addition, it was striking that some fundamental truths remain self-evident. Here’s my own perspective on the various conference presentations about which traditional PR and marketing ideas still have solid legs and which are being demolished right before our eyes.

Live by new rules…

Turn over your brand.
The days of one company, one agency defining what a brand or a product means in isolation are over. A brand is now made up of collective thoughts and opinions from the public - people increasingly engage and express opinions about who you are and what you do. Be ready to embrace and empower those who are inspired by your brand; and work just as hard to listen to and win over those who are not.

Change your idea of the traditional agency model.
If your agency hasn’t recognized that the one-to-many model is crumbling right along with the old icons of the mass media, proceed with caution. No longer are traditional lines being drawn between PR, media, digital, advertising, etc. Today, it’s more about listening, strategy development, content creation, community builders and recruiters with small, nimble, knowledgeable strike forces that go after and build relations with influential audiences using the latest techniques, not the big, mass mentality. If your agency is still thinking in the old silos and the lines aren’t crossing, it’s time to blow up the model.

Remove strict boundaries.
It used to be that PR results were clippings, shared in a book that gathered dust on the shelf of the marketing head’s office. That’s how companies determined how we were being talked about. No more. Share of conversation, Web analytics and real-time reactions and opinions are going on between real people; they need to be captured, analyzed and shared with business decision makers including R&D, management, marketing – even legal and HR. Direct consumer feedback is readily available and it’s not just about metrics for the marketing department, it’s about strategy setting for the entire organization.

Focus on content and context.
Quit thinking short-term “campaigns.” Today, it’s about creating movements that empower your customers, encourage them to take ownership, inspire them to engage with your brand, help spread the word to others and get results. They don’t start and stop, because the conversation really never starts and stops. Be ready to engage consistently, offer ongoing value and work to keep building.

But keep the old…

Listen up
Again, listening is the most valuable tool marketers and businesses have today. Good PR and marketing initiatives have always been based on research. The good news is, it’s easier than ever to tap into what customers are thinking real-time about brand, services and marketing initiatives.

Make strategy paramount
It is as it always has been. Marketing without a strategy is garbage – a complete waste. Strategy helps you be relevant, reach the right people and engage in ways that are meaningful and generate results.

Be tactically selective
This goes back to marketing 101 – this step comes third not first. Good tactics are the meat of any plan, but launching the latest tools, rushing headlong into trying to do it all just because it’s new, shiny or available, without taking the first two steps is just plain silly.

Put measurement into practice
More important than ever, this is what it’s all about. Did we turn the dial? Did we have an impact and meet our goals? Luckily, it’s also easier than ever to measure in more meaningful ways, and then refine the strategy and re-engage.

For me, this year’s conference was great reinforcement for the direction CMD’s Earned Media team is going, and it’s reassuring that we’ve not only embraced the latest thinking, ideas, tools and techniques, we’re also staying grounded and true to principles that are the basis for exceptional results.

The top public relations campaigns from Oregon were on display last night at the PRSA Portland-Metro Chapter Spotlight Awards. This annual event serves to recognize strategic initiatives that produce great results, and we’re proud to say that our Earned Media team picked up four awards during the course of the evening.

These awards showcase the reasons behind why we’ve transitioned from CMD’s Public Relations team to the CMD Earned Media team, which better describes our approach for seamlessly leveraging both social and traditional PR practices. To us, earned media is the attention, reputation, credibility and awareness that is earned organically by non-paid means through the value of the information and the merit of the interaction you have with the audience/public. That includes a strong combination of solid PR thinking and the ability to tap the latest opportunities social media presents. It embodies our commitment to remain on the forefront of emerging trends in communication while continuing to deliver great results.

Thanks go to our clients who work day-in and day-out as our partners in these campaigns and allow us the freedom to concept solutions to meet their business objectives. Here’s a brief recap of CMD’s work that received 2009 Spotlight Awards:

JELD-WEN Contest Scares up Terrifying Utility Bills – Spotlight Award

Situation
With rising energy costs and a growing interest in environmental concerns, energy efficiency is top of mind with homeowners.

Strategy
The CMD team created the JELD-WEN Scariest Utility Bills Contest to tout the importance of home energy efficiency and find a real-life example to prove that efficient windows and doors can help homeowners save money.

Results
The contest was wildly successful, nearly doubling the contest objectives and earning placements in publications including the Chicago Sun Times and Houston Chronicle. The U.S. Department of Energy even expressed interest in using JELD-WEN’s contest winner as a case study of its own, positioning JELD-WEN as the expert on reducing energy costs.

Be sure to check out this year’s Utility Bill Bailout Contest. It just might win you new JELD-WEN ENERGY STAR qualified windows and doors and an appearance on an upcoming episode of the nationally syndicated show, “Today’s Homeowner with Danny Lipford.”
http://www.jeld-wen.com/bailout/

JELD-WEN Lighthouse Campaign – Spotlight Award

Situation
JELD-WEN Windows and Doors needed to raise awareness and directly link its products with reliability, a crucial factor for homeowners, builders and remodelers when considering which windows and doors to purchase.

Strategy
The CMD team created a campaign that helped JELD-WEN walk its reliability talk and prove product performance by helping restore highly visible landmarks, America’s lighthouses, which also face some of the toughest climate conditions in the world.

Results
The campaign has helped build JELD-WEN’s image of reliability, created strong product performance proof points, and generated millions of media impressions, all while fostering tremendous goodwill.

The CMD Earned Media team also received two Award of Merit honors for “An Exploration into the Digital Frontier for Intel and Lenovo” and “Building the HealthCareGoesMobile.com Virtual Community.”

Having attended the Conversational Marketing Summit held by Federated Media in NYC, June 1-2 – a virtual “who’s who” of the latest digital marketing thought leaders – I originally planned to write about all the cool digital trends taking place right now.

After all, hearing how companies such as American Express, Intel, Lenovo, GE, Blackberry, Microsoft and more are approaching social media and the latest thinking when it comes to subjects such as search strategies was incredibly eye-opening.

But what really hit home were a few of the not-so-technical points that had more to do with social interactions vs. the latest digital know-how. The first was this perspective on social media from one speaker that made everyone squirm in their chairs just a bit:

Once you have people’s attention, be prepared for them to come after you.

The point was that certainly, social media is a fantastic marketplace of different opinions, viewpoints and personalities. But that also means, no matter how altruistic, authentic or well-intended you are, you will likely encounter a myriad of individual opinions, including some that question your credibility and your motives. And the more exposure you seek, the more likely this will be true.

The second related point that caused a few of the PR folks in the room to grimace slightly was that in this new communication world, while everyone has the freedom to express their opinions, that doesn’t mean companies have to give everyone who has an opinion equal treatment. According to what’s considered by some to be “best practices” of social and PR, that’s sure to raise some hackles, as we’ve all been coached to respond – and to respond as quickly and as thoroughly as possible. But the point was this: If you’re dealing with an individual who’s hell-bent on questioning your every move, broadcasting false or damaging opinions, and you have done your best to share your point of view, clarify and communicate, sometimes the best way to win a no-win situation is to end the engagement.

For all that is good about social, there are individuals who are simply looking to pick a fight, or whose strategy is to grab attention by being controversial. But that doesn’t mean they get to set the rules. Just like you probably wouldn’t spend your entire evening at a cocktail party with the most abusive, negative or obnoxious person in the room, neither are you obligated to do so in a social media setting.

All companies cringe at the idea that they might encounter public criticism. But should the possibility of encountering a negative situation via social media be a reason to avoid it all together? Not at all. Every company represented at the summit agreed that the very fundamentals of how we communicate have already changed, for good. Trying to deny or hide is not a solution and won’t do anything to solve a problem or stem the tide of potential criticism. Doing so only makes you look unaware and out of touch – not to mention the opportunities you might miss to clear up misinformation, educate, tell your story and express your own point of view.

So what do you do when faced with someone who is trying to flame you on social media? Here are some things to keep in mind:

- Listen closely and consider the spirit of the communication. When it comes to email, everyone understands now that it’s easy to misinterpret intent. Something written lacks a lot of what makes communications effective, including body language and tone. Although responding quickly is essential with social media, it’s also important to be sure that before you fire off a response, you take the time to digest the possible meanings and motivation behind the message.

- Consider when and how to engage. If possible, find out a little more background. Is the criticism justified, is it accurate or is it coming from someone with an axe to grind? What’s the best, most timely and appropriate way to respond?

- Take it off-line, if possible. For how “social” media now is, it also provides a cover for passive-aggressive behavior, as it’s much easier to criticize and take potshots indirectly vs. face to face. If possible and it makes sense given the situation, pick up the phone, have a conversation or arrange a meeting to talk it out to see if you can solve the problem and clear the air. Don’t allow talking through the semitransparent shield to take the place of real live human contact.

- Remember, no one individual “sets the rules.” Social media is a relatively new form of communication. As far as I know, there are no official laws governing social media conversations (besides the obvious anti-criminal laws and rules of engagement established by Facebook, Flickr and others for appropriate conduct). Social media is a great form of self expression – don’t be afraid to try some things, find out what works and admit your mistakes when things go wrong. If your intent is good and you have other people’s best interests at heart, the vast majority of the response will be positive. There are many self-appointed experts, so take their social media “finger-wagging” with a grain of salt. Don’t allow it to squelch your creativity or the opportunity to utilize these powerful channels.

- Tough as it is, take the high road: When under attack, it’s easy to want to defend yourself by fighting back, which can quickly make matters worse and become a time suck for everyone involved. One company at the summit said it follows one simple rule: respect different points of view and don’t say negative things about others via social media. A simple, but effective guiding policy.

- Beware of baiters: Some people just like to stir things up and get a reaction, even if it’s negative. Others use it as a way to call attention to themselves and promote their own agenda. Weigh individual criticisms carefully before engaging – if they are a legitimate concern, an accuracy question, a misperception or a false fact, it’s a good idea to clarify, as other social media spectators may have the same impression. If they are simply personal opinion without basis of fact, consider whether or not you’d have a realistic chance at changing an individual’s point of view or if by doing so, you’ll simply be adding more fuel to the fire.

- Set your boundaries: There are three ways to engage–deep engagement, minimal, or not at all. Consider the source, the issue at hand, and make a decision. Keep an eye on the situation and change your method as needed.

Social Media Monitoring for Your Company’s Online “Health”

What’s worse than no online chatter about you or your company? That’s easy: when the chatter is all about your competitors. Ultimately, both are bad. The former means you might be irrelevant. The latter means your competitors are eating your lunch.

Whatever your situation, you need to start monitoring social media, and you need to do it now. I’ll walk you through the why, the when, and a few tools to consider.

Monitoring social media informs strategy

Social media monitoring is a “listening” practice that gives you insight into what is being said online about you, your competitors, or your industry. This practice is becoming increasingly important because the talkers out there are shaping the readers’ opinions. If they’re talking about topics you care about, it’s very likely that these groups are your customers, and the pressure is mounting to keep up with their needs. Regular monitoring gives you the information to respond and interact with these influencers in a timely manner. Once you have a handle on what is being said, you can develop a highly targeted social media strategy that takes you directly to the places your customers are gathering online.

Nightmare scenario

Picture this: You’re a VP of sales. One of your top distributors has called to say her customer saw a discussion that positioned your company as cruel and uncaring. That customer is threatening to stop doing business with your distributor. It is at that moment when knowing what is being said about you online spells the difference between losing income and protecting it. If your competitors aren’t already out there trying to chat up your customers, they soon will be. Online, you can be right there pacing them blow for blow.

Proactive response

When you employ social media monitoring, you become aware of where conversations are happening and what is being said. With this knowledge, you are able to develop and implement relevant responses, direct the responses toward the most impactful channels, and evaluate the results of your efforts. For one of our clients who undertakes daily monitoring, our team regularly identifies something as small as a tweet that deserves a response from the company. In the next day’s monitoring, we see exactly how a 140-character post can cause a ripple effect through Twitter, blogs and other channels frequented by the targeted audience.

I strongly encourage you to plan how you’ll measure the results of your actions before you execute on them – how else can you tell if you’ve succeeded? Measurement might be as simple as questions asked and answers given, or growing numbers of followers for your Twitter account or Facebook fan page.

Okay, but no one is talking about me. What now?

The fact that no one is talking about you is an opportunity to act just waiting in the wings, and social media monitoring can help. But before you jump into the deep end and start tweeting, commenting, making videos, or performing some other activity, it’s important to know who is saying what. Social media monitoring can help you identify who the influencers are and where they are conversing. So equipped, you can determine how best to proceed with a proper social media plan that might include a simple tactic such as commenting on external blogs of interest.

What tools can I use for social media monitoring?

Good news: There are plenty of free and paid tools to choose from. They all net similar results, but the paid tools will save you a tremendous amount of time.

Some examples of free search tools are Google Blog Search (http://blogsearch.google.com), forum search tool OMGili (www.omgili.com), and Twitter Search (www.search.twitter.com). Depending on the size of your organization, industry, and online audience, using free tools to compile a comprehensive social media monitoring report requires running them all and harvesting their results in a single session that can take anywhere from 30 minutes to several hours. Even after you’ve harvested the results, you’ll have to compile and evaluate them using metrics tools in order to determine how influential a blog or Twitter user is.

The paid tools trawl all of the sources (and some additional sites) of the free services, and give the results to you in one place. Each paid tool is different, and the companies behind these tools are constantly updating and tweaking their programs.

I have yet to find the perfect paid tool, but each one can benefit a company in its own way. CMD has chosen to use Radian6 as the backbone behind our social media monitoring program. Radian6 has great reach, and the interface is intuitive and easy to use. We have tested many paid tools, but none seem to come as close to the total package as Radian6. There are tools that use an algorithm to determine whether a blog post is positive, negative or neutral, but these automated programs still seem to have kinks and can’t quite pick up on linguistic nuances, such as sarcasm.

In the end, regardless of the tools you choose, your results will only be as good as your strategies, which will in turn only be as good as your information.

Just like “no elbows on the table” is a dining rule, people should also mind their manners in this social media space

Poke. Poke. Tag. Poke. Tag. Poke.

Oh, the Facebook poke. Do you poke back? Is poke code for “hello”? What’s the difference between a poke from a friend and a poke from a co-worker?

All this poke talk and no idea what you should do? Here’s the best solution to deal with the pokes: ignore them. It’ll save you embarrassment. You don’t want a co-worker announcing at the next meeting, “I poked you!” Instead, send the person a private message or add them as a friend (if you know them, of course). Unless you poke someone with your finger in person, you should resist doing it with a mouse.

According to research compiled by Orange, an international telecommunications company, almost two-thirds of people on social networks (such as Facebook, Myspace or Bebo) are frustrated and confused by online etiquette. Also, more than a quarter of those surveyed were uncertain about how to respond to unwelcome “pokes” or messages.

With more than 150 million active users spending three billion plus minutes each day on Facebook, this social media application has become part of our daily lives, and manners can’t be an afterthought just because it’s an online tool.

Below are 11 Facebook etiquette rules that users should follow to ensure proper, courteous and respectable use (reference: Debretts and Orange):

1. Wait 24 hours before accepting or removing someone as a friend. During that time, decide if you feel comfortable sharing personal information with that person.

2. You don’t have to become friends with people you don’t know. Think before you poke or request someone to be your friend.

3. Don’t upload profile pictures that you wouldn’t feel comfortable appearing on the front page of the New York Times. This space can be just that public.

4. #3 applies to posting photos of friends too. Ask for their permission before you do.

5. For important events, don’t only rely on “virtual” cards. Virtual cards tend to get buried in e-mails, and you don’t want someone to forget a special occasion.

6. Block your profile so that only your selected friends and co-workers can see it. Click “privacy” toward the top of your Facebook page and you’ll have the ability to change your settings. You can decide who sees what.

7. Even if you think you’ve blocked what you needed to, double check and have a friend check from their profile. Potential companies looking to hire you will search and go out of their way to find someone who can access your full profile to see if you’re hiding any inappropriate behavior that may risk their company’s reputation.

8. Don’t agree with a news article, photo or Web link that someone posted? Refrain from posting a harsh comment on Facebook for all of your friends and theirs to see. Instead, write the person a private Facebook message.

9. Don’t spam people with invitations to participate in an online game unless you’ve asked them personally or they have asked you. Sorry, but some people don’t believe that throwing a staple at an alien is the best use of their time or attention.

10.Keep your profile updated and visit often. Take the time to read what people and friends are posting and writing on your wall. Don’t be blind-sighted if someone suddenly asks, “So you went and partied in Cancun last week?”

11. As with public relations, the best policy is always honesty, but it is also essential to show restraint and realize that broadcasting your opinions, point of view and personal feelings can have unintended consequences both positive and negative.

Have questions? Still debating if you should poke your boss and request them as a friend? If so, let us know.

Visit and join CMD’s Facebook group: click here.

Congratulations. You’ve taken the first step on the business networking site LinkedIn and created a profile. Your picture is posted and you’ve listed a few previous jobs from your past. Maybe you searched for a few old colleagues and friends. Now what do you do?

For many of our clients at CMD who ask how their companies can use LinkedIn, our recommendation is to make a plan with goals you want to achieve, designate a spokesperson who can represent the company, and start participating.

Think of LinkedIn as a networking event at your local chamber of commerce. After you walk into the room, what do you do? Do you stand by the wall and not speak with anyone, or do you make connections through conversations? Is your goal to get five business cards at the event? Well, try to do the same thing on LinkedIn.

Overall, it’s best to plan a strategy for using LinkedIn and getting your brand recognized. Part of that plan should include being active in groups.

Groups are a big benefit of LinkedIn. Joining groups gives you the chance to be part of the conversation, which is really what LinkedIn is all about. Are you a marketing professional? Join marketing groups. Are you looking to engage with customers? Join groups that your customers are members of and participate in the discussions. Answer questions to show your knowledge. This is where visibility will be your ally, raise your LinkedIn presence, and get a few more people to know who you are and learn what you can do for them. For example, here’s a little tip I read from a LinkedIn expert that can send people to your Web site to learn more about your business:

when you leave a discussion comment, you can put your URL in and have it converted to a hyperlink. So, if you put your email signature in, like this:

Darcie Meihoff
Managing Director/PR, CMD - http://www.cmdagency.com

then it will make that a clickable link. Just having the link to click might get a few more people over to your website to learn about what you do. Be sure to ask the group manager if it is OK to do this first, as some might consider it advertising and ask you to leave the group. When in doubt, ask first.

If you don’t find groups that meet your needs, or engage with the right audience, start your own group. Take the initiative and invite your customers to join your group and participate in discussions that help their businesses. We started a CMD Agency Pros LinkedIn group for CMD employees, CMD customers and potential clients to talk about topics of interest, like social media, marketing, advertising and branding.

We want our customers to join our group and look at CMD as a resource that can answer questions and provide feedback. Imagine having an entire integrated marketing agency read your question. Someone is bound to have an answer, which helps you and establishes CMD as a reliable source. We invite you to join our LinkedIn group at CMD Agency Pros. Feel free to pose a question, supply an answer, or share a link to a relevant article that deals with today’s marketing climate.

That’s the beauty of LinkedIn – you’re part of the conversation.

There’s been a lot of discussion recently about where social media should reside within the marketing world. And because it’s the hot topic that so many corporate marketing divisions and clients are buzzing about, everyone is vying for a spot at the head of the table.  Is it advertising, PR, direct, customer service – or a totally separate form of marketing that needs to be off on its own, while coordinating with other more traditional avenues?

Creating a separate social media “division” is a bit out of touch with reality – not only when it comes to the best ways to approach it, but also with what most companies can afford to do. For one, these tools will soon not be new anymore – they simply make up the world we live in and are part of a company’s overall communications strategy.  Because of that, isolating social media as its own area of expertise isn’t a sustainable long-term approach.

To maximize social media, it’s obvious that it must be driven by smart strategy, be well-managed and implemented, and live in tandem with other disciplines, as it touches many different areas. But first and foremost, it needs to be spearheaded by a fundamental sense of community, information sharing and the desire to foster long-term, ongoing relationships, directly with the public (which applies whether you’re talking B2C or B2B).

I’m a PR person, so my viewpoint is admittedly pretty biased, but I think there are some very good reasons why social media needs to be steeped in a solid public relations perspective:

• Most importantly, the objective and strategy must be the priority (before leaping straight to tools). Following the latest, shiny new tool is distracting. The PR discipline has always emphasized setting strategy and measurable goals before delving into tactics.
• The emphasis is on audience-centric content that attracts and compels, not pushes. In PR, if you don’t have something of importance to offer to the public or the press, you’re dead.
• There is a fundamental need to build leadership, credibility and reputation in order to maximize exposure. As it has been since the beginning, reputation management is core to PR discipline.
• Social media allows you to “become the media” for your audiences. It’s about great content, and essentials of journalism apply. The best PR practitioners are trained as journalists as well as marketers, and have a nose for news. In fact, many are former reporters.
• The basic PR practice of community relations – how to interact, conduct yourself, deliver on-point messages, and relate to publics at deeper, more meaningful levels – is paramount.
• Like any solid PR initiative, social media takes time, effort, planning and commitment to gain momentum and traction. It is not a flash in the pan approach.
• Generating goodwill and influence means listening to input and becoming a credible, responsive and reliable source of information.
• Proactively monitoring, spotting and responding to issues before they turn into crises is essential in PR, as it is in social media.

Now, I know a lot of people will say PR has no business in social media, as it’s about anti-spin and authenticity.  But keep in mind that social media is a very self-policing form of communication.  Similar to traditional PR practices, the bad apples will quickly get weeded out if they use these channels to be sneaky, self-serving or aggressive, put themselves and their own company’s interests before the public and the community, or behave unethically.  Those kinds of practices are and always have been shunned by the best in the profession. That said, smart PR practices: solid community relations abilities, corporate social responsibility sensibilities, and an eye for issues management and crisis communications as well as journalistic ethics and integrity are very much at home in social media.