A lot of the best practices (for a lack of better words) of contacting bloggers has come from trial and error – resulting in blacklisting – advice from bloggers, and practitioners starting to “just get” how you reach someone online as part of a normal social setting. Generally, you wouldn’t talk to a person/prospect friend about car parts at a party when you know they hate cars. It doesn’t make for good conversation and nobody benefits from the inevitable awkward silence.(I realize this does happen…)  Now traditional social circles are finally playing a role in online interactions thanks to growing blog communities and Facebook.

I came across a blog post by Alex Wilhelm (thenextweb.com) that delivers the point about pitching to tech bloggers. The post is full of sound advice in a clear message that every one could benefit from when preparing to contacting a new blogger. The scenario doesn’t have to be tech bloggers only, and industry applies because the post gives social context to interacting with bloggers. Like it or not bloggers are like you and me – they have social interactions and circles of friends. They are more that happy to interact with you if you take the time to understand their interests, provide valuable information, and treat them with respect. Interesting how that sounds more and more like building a bond/friendship, well ultimately it is.

This issue has been around for a while now, but like mentioned earlier progress in evident. Thanks Alex for a great post.

• As professionals we tend to get stuck in the weeds; and
• Raising the question “What do MOST clients care the Most about?”

Now, these are simple thoughts and most would say they always care about what the client wants. However, these two points are constantly looked over and take a back seat to getting things done and the ever diminishing time factor. You may think this doesn’t apply to you or your organization and if that’s the case I challenge you to quickly define your clients needs. Then define how your team practices consistency to reach those needs. Does your plan increase productive output for client objectives?

Often our thoughts as practitioners involve complicated tactics with innovative processes and crafty theatrics, but does the end game result in the clients true care?

While hacking through the weeds break throughs come and excitement and possibilities spark. But before getting to far into the tactical mapping, remember to ask the simple question: Are the weeds impairing the vision? How will this impact my clients MOST important need?

Happy clients mean objectives are being met which in return means you’re producing good work which ultimately mean more clients and recognition.

I let you read for yourself, but I’m guessing this will be an attractive offering from Mashable to anyone who uses Twitter. Thanks Mashable for the great tool.

No apply what was just said their to your enterprise. People don’t live and die by your products or performance, but they become attached to it and talk about it as if they were apart of the corporate work force. These are the people you need to reach. They are want to tell people about big news, achievements, and opportunities happening in your environment they just need an easy way to consume and propagate your news. Enter social media strategy.  The original post listed out why NBA teams are using social media as part of their overall strategy and the list is very similar to an enterprise list of why they should engage fans. So, let’s turn away from sports and apply what you do to the list in the original post.

- Generate fan participation and discussion; (Does your Enterprise have fans/customers?)
- Establish control over team messages and news; (Do you want to control your message/news?)
- Announce signings, injury updates, or other breaking news; (Do you have breaking news and corporate updates?)
- Create relationships among fans, athletes, and coaches; (Do you want a relationship with your fans/customers?)
- Provide fans with “inside” information and product promotions; (Do you have the insider opportunities to offer?)
- Boost traffic to the official team website; (Do you want more people to visit you website?)
- Sell more tickets! (Do you want to sell more goods and services?)

 Now these may seem like dumb and obvisous questions, but odds are you answered yes to all of the above. Now you have a basic strategy for a social media program. What you have to do is find out how you can interact with customers and build the bond of trust and transparincy to complete the strategy. Of course that is the hard part, this Q&A shows how a plan from the NBA can be twisted into something viable to your program.

A couple of weeks ago he created a series of blog posts covering the intersection of PR and SEO. This link takes you back to post 5 and you can visit the previous four posts, but the links at the bottom I found useful. Definitely worth a click though and a brief scan to see if you are up on the latest SEO opportunities and tricks.

In implementing some of Lee’s strategies combined with my own ideas of utilizing SEO the power of search really is yours to take advantage of. There is infinite potential for a finely optimized blog, press release, or even Flickr account. I would suggest taking some of these tips to heart and give them a shot and see what happens of time with the searchability of your asset. The results can be surprising.

These programs have the enterprise covered in their social networking endeavours inside and out, but what if you are a band? (Here is my favorite part) You are a rock band and because every smart band knows you have to be on a social networking channel, if not multiple channels, your bands music needs to be available on MySpace, Facebook, Blip.FM, and Last.FM etc. And like any other good enterprise you want to know what to know what your return is and what your listeners are saying about you.  There is a brand management tool for you called RockDexwhere they (as they put it) show you how much you rock by searching social networks, blogs, micro-blogs, and music sites to bring you what people are saying about you.

The output value is a number between 1 and 100 on four basic criteria social buzz, social media, Fans, and Listens. When their numbers are combined the band is issued a RockDex score out of 100. The scoring systems seems a little thin, but an interesting concept especially in a time where the landscape of the music industry is on the brink of major changes. I would suggest checking this site out - it’s cool and a fun way to see where your band and bands you like are being socially fueled from. Which always spurs the questions: How much does my enterprise rock?

It’s a quick read and is applicable to all. Go check it out. http://mashable.com/2009/04/07/social-media-career-success/

Here is a good post on BusyEvent.com that sums up using Twitter at conferences. http://www.busyevent.com/blog/?p=91

It sounds like a note to a grade school crush, but the reality is there is no definitive answer. The answer generally ends up as, it depends.

In a blog post by Shannon Paul, she lays out questions that you’re company must honestly answer before leaping into social media participant. A lot of the answers still follow the traditional preaching of you need to be where your customers are. Are your customers on Facebook, Twitter, networking communities, or other various s

ocial sites. If you can answer yes to any of the mentioned sites than you should be listening to what the customers are saying about you.

Once you have established where your customers are and what they are saying about you – now what? Well, you need to answer more questions:

How can you benefit the conversation?

How open are you willing to be with your customers?

Can you produce the content to make the experience beneficial?

it seems easy enough, but these are the steps you need to prepare for when the time comes to sail off into social waters. The tolerance level is not as high as you would expect for poor conversation, poor content, and lack of transparency.

Social media resources are great assets to a company that can use them right and can add real value to the conversation. Your customers will appreciate it and they will make sure other appreciate it to. The key – be honest with yourself.

In this state of media college students can’t afford to miss out on an important social media skill set. When everyone is expected to be an expert of social media and understand the proper uses the up-and-coming work force needs to have a leg up. Then I came across an article on Social Computing Magazine that gives a good introduction to pass along to the learners of the PR trade. It’s not comprehensive, but it can give a foundation to learn and research from and hopefully gain understanding.

Hopefully I will have another chance to talk with these particular students and see how they move forward. I am even more hopeful the University will see what is being missed and add social media to the curriculum, so these students will join the workforce prepared.