A short while back, Keith Trivitt wrote a thought-provoking post entitled Are Your Clients Ready for PR 2.0? We had an interesting conversation that started in the comments and worked its way offline to an agreement that whether a company liked it or not, they needed social media. I would love to be able to say that I am omniscient, but who am I kidding? So instead, I’ll simply speak from experience.

Now that that’s out of the way, we’ll start with how social media fell into my lap and turned me into an evangelist for keeping it clean and in the hands of the company’s communications team (PR, MarComm, agencies, etc.). About two years ago, our team was pulled into a meeting and told that the search team was going to use and manage Facebook and LinkedIn, and that it fell under Web 2.0 (remember that term), so we were to leave those sites alone. Read the rest of this entry

When a client hires a PR pro they are relying on a number of different traits that that person (or firm) projects during the RFP or pitching process. These will vary from sector to sector but certainly include strategic thinking, writing skills, relationships with press (or influencers), etc. Perhaps chief among these are the person’s trustworthiness. The client wants to know they can inform the PR pro of upcoming notable company events or newsworthy announcements – everything from news of employee cuts to earnings reports – and be secure in the knowledge the pro will keep this information close to their chest. Read the rest of this entry