They’re proud to be opinionated, they aren’t constrained by the politics of the newsroom or by journalistic creeds, and there are millions of them with more popping up every day – they are bloggers, and reporters are increasingly seeking them out as sources on every topic imaginable. If you’re a PR pro and you don’t have a blog, you may be missing out on interviews with print and broadcast media.

Blogging acts as a complement to a traditional media relations campaign, allowing you to reach out and connect directly with customers, peers, and journalists. When you target a journalist, you’ll be a more attractive source if she can check your blog and see that you have an established following and an engaging style.

Your clients, too, need blogs—unless they want to be left behind as their competitors are discovered through search engines and social media. Nearly anything a client is promoting can be promoted through a blog. Keep the following three tips in mind, whether you’re blogging about your own work in PR or helping a client create a blog:

1. The best blogs are tightly focused. Just like you would when writing a press release, start by finding an interesting angle. Look for a niche that isn’t too crowded. You don’t want to spend weeks on a blog only to find that you’ve got no hope of making it into the first page of Google search results for your topic, thanks to hundreds of competing blogs that are older than yours and already have an active, engaged audience.
2. Err on the side of more honesty, not less. Don’t worry about turning readers off by admitting that the author of the organic cat care blog you’re promoting is your client, who sells organic cat litter. Blog readers want to hear from experts and they’re smart enough to differentiate between content and a sales pitch. Furthermore, if you want your blog to get noticed by the media, showcasing your client’s experience in the blog’s niche can only help you.
3. Be discoverable. So you wrote a brilliant post featuring 25 case studies of companies who are succeeding in social media. What good is it to you if a journalist researching a story on that subject can’t find your blog? Learn about basic SEO, participate in the blogging community by leaving substantive comments on similar blogs, maintain a responsive Twitter account, and use resources like HARO (Help a Reporter Out) to reach reporters directly.

This article is written by Mickie Kennedy, founder of eReleases, the online leader in affordable press release distribution. Download your free copy of 7 Cheap PR Tactics for Success in Any Economy.

As the social media bandwagon continues to gather momentum, Quest PR is linking up with social media experts globally to hear their forecasts on what the future holds.

In this post US social media guru Gini Dietrich – a top Vistage speaker and PR consultant –  shares her fascinating insights.

• Foursquare: Retailers are going to figure out that consumers are checking into their locations and giving them all of their information. So if I check in at, say, my local Mexican restaurant, they now know that I am there every Friday, that I like salt on my margaritas, and that I always order the chili con queso. They also know that I live around the corner, that I’m female, and that I tend to bring at least three friends with me. So let’s say they participate in Foursquare as well. Now they can send me a message inviting me to bring in friends and for every three that check in, I get $10 off my bill. Or similar promotions and contests.

• Every business will embrace social media at some level. Some may only have policies in place. Some may only lift their firewalls that now prevent their employees from using the social networks at work. And others will use the tools as part of their larger communication, marketing, customer service, HR, and sales strategies.

• Email will begin to be used less and less for business. You’ll see tools such as Google Wave used for collaboration, Yammer used for internal/employee social networks across offices, and the social tools for quick answers in real-time vs. waiting for an email to be opened, read, and response.

• Everyone (not just certain Starbucks locations, Flixster, and Amazon) will begin to accept mobile payments. Create an account to the retailer on your phone, input your credit card number, and every time you visit that location, you just enter your PIN number and pay for your purchase on the spot. No more cash. No more checks. No more credit/debit cards.

• The social media “experts” who don’t practice what they preach and pry on business leaders to get rich quick will be found out and the cream will rise to the top. Those who are at the forefront of social media will change and a new crop of thought leaders will move to the top. Expertise, thought leadership, and credibility will change constantly.

• The “return-on-investment” of social media question will continue to be defined as the tools age and agencies and companies, alike, figure out how to track efforts directly back to increased sales.

• Twitter will die because they won’t figure out how to monetize the brand.

Gini Dietrich is the founder of Arment Dietrich, Inc., a Chicago-based firm that teaches companies how to use online communication for business growth. She has a passion for Global Domination and cycling.

As CEO, Gini works with c-level executives on using online technology to develop and foster relationships for better and more efficient communication. Her team works to develop strategies that build communities, generate leads, cultivate those leads, and convert them…all while tying efforts to improved profitability.

She spreads her “communication through one-on-one relationships” message at numerous conference keynotes and panel discussions, company training, the Fight Against Destructive Spin blog, and her own intense social networking.

Gini is one of few female business owners who speak on the subject of social media and communication. She is @ginidietrich on Twitter.

A storm was kicked up this month when Google launched Google Buzz.

It is seen as their attempt to enter social networking, an area traditionally occupied by companies who not long ago were mere saplings compared to mighty the Silicon Valley oak that is Google.

While the web is bursting with bloggers deriding it as an intrusion in to their email, a bigger issue is privacy – and one that highlights the need to be wary about jumping in to social media.

Many were alarmed that, before they had even started to play around with Google Buzz, the system had taken upon itself the duty to add their Google Mail contacts to their profile’s buddy list. A list that is marked from the start as open to the public. I don’t have anyone on my Google account I’m ashamed of, but in my opinion this is taking intrusion to a new level.

One act of ‘digital creepyness’ includes a user reporting the system for adding photos taken from their Android phone that they hadn’t even uploaded yet.

I also have concerns about the mobile Buzz app. Users who log on to the system through the application are given the option to share their location. Thankfully this can be declined but the option to remember the choice is already checked, so anyone too eager to read the note could spend the rest of their time unveiling their current location, post by post.

The location issue is a big one at the moment with the likes of Foursquare and Gowalla meaning that social media junkies are alerting the web of their location way more than is advisable. A friend of mine recently altered Twitter to the fact that she was ‘home’ using Foursquare, it didn’t give her full address but enough that the internet now knew what street she was on. For more on these new kids on the block, see my last post.

As Google Buzz looks like being a launch worse than the iPad, how useful it is for marketing and personal use will take time to decide. What is obvious though is that if Google doesn’t change it soon they will loose the key to social media success – users.

Before venturing into the world of PR when I was in my first year at University, a friend who lived in my halls exhorted me to join Facebook.  “Please sign up,” he said “I need more friends!”  I did so – and my relationship with the social networking site began.

In 2006, when opening my account, the site was only accessible to students from certain Universities.  Many of my school friends were excluded because their institutions weren’t on the fateful ‘list’. The creators of Facebook realised they were missing a trick and over the next couple of years the website became all inclusive. It now boasts 300 million people worldwide.

At the risk of sounding like some sort of reclusive computer-reliant super geek, I really don’t know how I would conduct my personal life without Facebook.  Now all my friends (and their friends) are members, it provides an excellent tool for all things social. I can count on one hand those who don’t use it in my peer group – a couple of whom found it was prohibitive to studying. For me Facebook is undoubtedly the mother of all procrastination tools. If you have work to do, you will invariably find yourself launching into a lengthy discussion on group page about how great slankets are (FYI they are great, I don’t agree with Grazia for once), or some other equally pointless topic.

With regards to social planning, take the housewarming party we had in December.  I created an event on Facebook, invited my friends, my housemates invited theirs and I sent a message reminder out a few days before the party. The result was a great mix of approximately 60 people and the most excellent night of fun I have had for a long time. No fuss, no costly texts or calls and no confusion about where or when to attend.  All the information was easily accessible in the pages of Facebook.

For regular users, it is so useful when planning your social life, sharing photos and generally keeping in touch with your ever evolving circle of friends. A recent surprise to many (including me), was its power in airing views on a recent AQA A Level biology paper that many candidates thought was unfair. We know that Twitter can get the national media going, but Facebook, the preserve of the young and time rich? Hmm, I was not convinced.

I am the first to admit when I am wrong. On the day of the exam, a group was set up protesting that the questions weren’t relevant to the A Level biology syllabus and, crucially, what students had been taught in the classroom. To date the group has over 13,000 members and the story has been picked up by the national media. Coverage has prompted an Ofcal qualifications watchdog to call for a report on the concerns and AQA has promised that the marking and grading process will take into account the anxieties of unhappy candidates.

So, Facebook helped some disgruntled teenagers to publicly air their displeasure at the general unfairness of life, the universe and everything. Five years ago, such protests would have fallen on deaf ears because there was no forum for a collective complaint.

Now all this got me thinking. We are fast approaching a time when a generation of adults will exist who don’t know what the world was like before the internet was widely used. I feel privileged; being the age I am I vaguely remember the way things were before we relied on the web for conducting every minute aspect of our lives. I recognise the huge difference it has made, and can imagine where we would be without it (probably on holiday somewhere rubbish with a camera prone to faults – thanks).

I have said it before and will happily say it again; it is time for us all to jump on the digital and social media bandwagon, because soon enough there will come a point when our clients can’t remember a time when such tools didn’t exist. If we don’t get in on the act we risk being left behind, scratching our heads and wondering when it was that we missed the boat.

As a poacher turned gamekeeper who specialises in conducting media training sessions across the UK, it was surreal to see myself back on the telly in an ITV Wales programme which reviewed major news stories.

As highlighted in my previous posts, I was interviewed about covering what appeared to be a fairly innocuous story about a man reviving local cinema. The man in question later turned out to be a serial killer – and I was sent out to report on one of his gruesome murders!

I am now critically assessing my performance and referring to my own tips on how to conduct a television interview. As mentioned in a recent Tweet, more Quest clients are now seeking training in how to present a video blog. With posting videos key to attracting google’s attention, are you up to speed with filming and editing to catapult your business up the search engine rankings?

Above all, remember that content is King (and Queen!) so, whether written or spoken, produce great content if you want to reach your target audiences and open new doors to drive sales.

Back when I was doing my degree one of my first (and most basic) journalism seminars covered the subject of the ‘five Ws’. It was hardly rocket science, but it is still a fundamental part of journalism and PR and one that is just as applicable to social media.

Until recently social media has been focusing on four of these Ws:

Who – Whether it’s using @tags on Twitter or simply referencing someone on Facebook.

What – The key to most tweets, updates and blog posts.

When – Whether you pay close attention to trending topics or not, nearly all posts are time stamped.

Why – Often the question is ‘why would you post that?’ But it doesn’t take long to find social media avenues jammed with people asking for advice and opinion or in a lot of cases offering it, whether asked for or not.

As 2010 gets in to full swing the social media focus is going to move from the four Ws above and on to the fifth, ‘where’.

Two of the biggest buzz names in social media right now are Foursquare and Gowalla. More than anything they want to know where you are and both look to enter the mainstream as the year moves on.

The idea behind both services is that users (through GPS) earn rewards for being in certain places, offering advice based on where they are or have been. Say you arrive in Japan and want to find a nearby restaurant; services like these will be able to tell you if your friends have been there already and what they thought of them. This is just one example, but as with most social media, the true application of the services are decided by those that use them.

It’s not all about recommendation engines. There is also the fun and addictive (according to some) element of being rewarded with medals and items for visiting certain places. This part of the service is what will gain it mass appeal, where as recommendations could prove the most useful element.

It isn’t just a new wave of applications that is driving the ‘where’ question. Established social media application Tweetdeck recently added geo-tagging to its mobile application, allowing tweets to be mapped. If we go back to ‘snowmaggedon’ in early January the UKsnow hashtag dominated Twitter as the country tweeted about levels of snow and affixed postcodes to them.

As the latest incarnation of the iPhone starts to sell more units, the inbuilt compass should drive applications to use augmented reality, like Wikitude did last year and not only make where you are important, but what direction you’re facing too.

How quickly these services are adopted as marketing tools depends not only on the marketers and PROS but also their uptake by the public. While Gowalla, Foursquare and others are proving hot topics in media circles they will need the same kind of exposure that was lavished on Twitter in 2009 before they can become relevant.  In the meantime, it’s always good to stay ahead of the pack, so why not download some of the most popular now, before BBC Breakfast News starts talking about them.

Gowalla

Foursquare

Yelp

Wikihood

Wikitude

Tweetdeck

Ah the steep learning curve of the fledgling PR career path; if you’re not doing a minimum of 10 things simultaneously (and brilliantly) at least 90% of the time, you’re really not trying hard enough.

Those of you who are regular and attentive readers to the blog will know that I am fairly new to this occupation. The eagle eyed among you may have spotted that I wrote a blog post back in the summer about being on work experience with Quest. Well, I am happy to say that I am now a bona fide member of the Quest team and a PR account executive in my own right!

Of course, now the hard work truly begins. In reality, having a foot in the door is only the beginning. Sometimes I sit in awe and listen to the rest of the team on the phone to various important people, and I wonder if I will ever sound so knowledgeable and self assured. I read journalists’ blogs about heinous and unforgivable PR faux pas, and pray that I will never constitute one of these posts. And every single piece of advice or information that comes my way I carefully file away, in the hope that it will make me better at my job.

As our freelancer, Sarah Hone pointed out in a previous post, the job of a PR is not as easy as many (so many) assume. The skill set necessary is enormous, not to mention the breadth of knowledge about the sectors in which your clients operate. For example, I am constantly astounded by how much the team at Quest seem to know about everything, not to mention the fact that they are able to produce myriad different, but equally impressive, pieces of copy for virtually every sort of publication you can think of; all without any apparent effort.

When you count the endless creativity, quick wittedness, diplomacy, and general dogged determination, which are the minimum requirements of success, you can’t help but be a little in awe of any thriving public relations professional.

In short, a good PR makes it look easy, (which, by the way, it definitely isn’t!).  I am just thinking that if I hang around long enough some of the Quest magic is bound to rub off on me…

I was doing some bedtime reading a few days ago which summarised one of the ironies of this increasingly digital age.

The article reported research from Harvard Business Review Analytic Services, indicating nearly 80 per cent of 2,300 subscribers surveyed said in-person meetings were still the most effective way to sell business products and services.

Around the same proportion claimed face-to-face meetings were the most useful means of negotiating key contracts and many respondents said talking in this way quickly identified areas that needed clarification and brought negotiations to a close faster.

Superficially, this may seem a bit surprising. Here at Quest, we understand better than most that the internet is transforming the way organisations promote themselves. Potential customers now have a vast source of knowledge and opinions available about products and services, which is only a few clicks away.

This means that effective marketing is now often about providers having continuous dialogue with their market, rather than shouting at it, which is what used to happen. This new interaction is taking place via on-line communities, social networks, forums, review sites and blogs, among other means.

But the paradox is that this digital revolution means face-to-face contact, far from receding in importance, has never been more vital. This is essentially because all this knowledge and choice means success is now not just about products and prices, but shared values and satisfactory overall experiences on the customer journey, including the quality of the relationships established and maintained.

So people like us – and probably people like you too – still need to pay very close attention to things like body language, listening skills, dress sense and all the other means that convey an impression when you meet actual and potential clients face-to-face.

Now where’s that mirror that I once thought I could throw away?

There are people in many occupations that I have a great deal of sympathy for and one of these groups is photographers. In the recession and a time where even five year-olds own digital cameras their trade is one often deemed transferable to the first person who suggests ‘it’s OK, I’ll do it’ in place of hiring a professional.

Have you seen the lenses these people have? Some are worth more than a small car. I’m pretty sure they don’t buy them for fun; they do so because they get results, especially in the case of PR.

I’ve worked with many photographers and seen the results that come their work. A well managed shot can often be the difference between a nib (small news story) and a nice half or full page piece, which is valuable real estate in an industry where paginations are being squeezed for every penny. I understand that sometimes it isn’t a viable option, but when it is, the best photographers are worth their weight in gold.

However, the group I’ve the most sympathy for are local paper photographers, or to be more precise, those who take pictures of angry people. I was drawn to their plight when serial twitterer Peter Serafinowicz (all round funny man and the voice of Darth Maul) re-tweeted a tweet linking to a blog called ‘Angry people in local newspapers’. It isn’t the best designed blog in the world but, it has one goal, ‘celebrating excellence in the field of local newspaper photography’.

These people aren’t citizen journalists, or a young reporter with a camera, as the blog points out: ‘they are hugely skilled and poorly paid, and sent out to photograph miserable people pointing at dog turds.’

Their work won’t win any awards but they should. It’s their photos that make an otherwise moan-filled story in to one with an identifiable human angle and in some cases an absolutely hilarious viewing.

I should come clean. I have an ulterior motive for championing the work of these would be David Baileys, as I was once ‘an angry man with a kettle’. The link should tell you all you need to know about my plight, but in a nutshell I was without a gas supply and I had to get hot water from a kettle, something I was clearly not too happy about.

I’d like to emphasise that I’m not making light of the work featured on ‘Angry people in local newspapers’, far from it. Scan the blog and you will see that while many follow the formula of ‘angry person + offending article’ there are some that hint to the photographer trying to think outside the box – including: ‘shot from inside a tesco bag’, ‘massive hand’ and ‘shot through a sign’.

So, next time you have a photographer getting a bit flash with what you thought would be a straight forward shoot, bear in mind that a little creativity goes a long way and before they came to you, they might have spent the morning taking pictures of angry people.