The following is a Storify collection from the discussion by Raschanda Hall.

If you're a journalist, what upsets you about PR people? And if you're a PR person, what behavior by journalists gets under your skin? Sound off in the comments.

UPDATE: The folks at Muck Rack tell us they will be having more PR/journo Twitter chats, including one this Wednesday at 11 am ET about how journalists want to be pitched on social media. More info here.

Raschanda Hall is the global media relations manager for Business Wire, a Berkshire Hathaway company. In her role, Raschanda leads the largest dedicated, worldwide media relations team in the wire industry, leveraging their relationships with external audiences and influencers. Raschanda's focus is on strategies to further establish and expand Business Wire's media reach and advantage to both traditional and social media audiences. She works closely with journalism organizations and has served on the boards of the National Association of Black Journalists, the Black Public Relations Society of Chicago and The Publicity Club of Chicago. Prior to joining Business Wire, she worked as a Field Producer and Studio Crew Supervisor for Fox and WB affiliates in San Antonio, TX. Hall earned her BA in Mass Communications from Dillard University in New Orleans, LA. Raschanda currently lives in a south suburb of Chicago and is the proud mother of her 18-month-old son, CJ.

Some of you are moaning, "why does he need an app?" but others of you are perhaps "Entourage" fans, and an opportunity to get reacquainted with Grenier, who played Vincent Chase, is an exciting prospect.

That latter group is just the one that app developers are looking to as they launch a new kind of application -- the personal brand app.

Trevor Doerksen, founder and CEO of Mobovivo, said he's pretty confident that this new kind of personality app "is the right next step for a film and television celebrity." 

It's clear as more and more celebrities flock to the app model, it will become harder to stand out from the crowd. Developers and creators of apps will have to push themselves to pinpoint what is unique about their celebrity, sports star, comedian, politician, etc., in order to translate "personalities" into "brands" and then into digital interactive experiences in fresh ways.

For Doerksen, that means getting beyond just "chat" as engagement:

"Adrian is an indie filmmaker, and as a former filmmaker myself, I recognized what he was trying to do to engage audiences and tell more stories. Twitter has already created a good app for celebrities to chat with fans, but we need to go deeper than chat. Don't get me wrong, the human desire for communication is fundamental and chat features prominently in our platform. However, we all seem to need to satisfy a fundamental sense of curiosity and play as well."

Grenier and Doerksen gave a special keynote address to close Digital Hollywood's Media Summit earlier this month in New York, and I had an opportunity to chat with both of them about the "whys" and 'hows" of planning "Reckless Adrian Grenier."

controlling your own brand

There is an endgame to the personal app for celebrities. It offers a chance for them to control their own destiny in a way rarely seen with the Hollywood PR machine. With a movie star's box-office draw becoming about as predictable as blindly tossing chewed gum at a wall and hoping it sticks, building an audience base with a personal app is the equivalent of a politician getting out there to shake hands and hold babies to build his constituency -- the good old-fashioned grassroots way, albeit with digital handshaking and autograph signing.

Today social media and second screen experiences focus on making celebrities more accessible to their fan base. Grenier is already active on Twitter, with almost 227,000 followers, and Facebook with almost 114,00 fans, but by creating a personal app, he's not just further brand building "Adrian Grenier" -- he's also cross-branding with Reckless Productions, his production company. He's bringing the HBO Entourage audience into his antonymous world. Despite Grenier's personal fame, Reckless Productions, best known so far for "Teenage Paparazzo," fits into most indie film models. Indie film companies need funding, and investors like metrics and analytics. A dedicated and active audience of "Reckless Adrian Grenier" users can be directly marketed to with push notifications and other directives, a comfort to today's film investors with marketing budgets ballooning out of control.

(The "Reckless Adrian Grenier" app is free to download, but there are charges for certain features and items for purchase. Currently, all proceeds will go to the SHFT, an eco-conscious multimedia platform co-founded by Grenier. Focused on design, SHFT won the Best Green Website at the Webby Awards last year.)

q&a

MediaShift: What made you decide to create an app?

Adrian Grenier: I'm a modern guy and just like anyone else I'm looking to explore the possibilities of storytelling and connecting with my audience independently, not always having to rely on the bigger production companies and distributors to control everything I do. It is a real blessing in this day and age to have that opportunity and to be on the cutting edge of technology; we are explorers in a lot of ways. I've had several app ideas over the years and not all of them this good. This is the one that really made sense and ultimately Mobovivo was able to create it.

When did you first realize the value of connecting with your fans as an artist?

Grenier: I always realized the value, but maybe I was a little lazy at first because it is a lot of work, at least to make that engagement authentic and real and true. I don't have a company doing my social media for me. It's all genuine.

How does the Reckless app assist you in making a unique and genuine connection with your fans?

Grenier: If you use a website, you always end up having to go to another program to connect. If you want to reach out to your fans, you have to send them an email or create a video and send it to them, and maybe they will comment, but that's on YouTube. This is a really direct connection; this is the bridge directly from me and Reckless to people who want that content. And it's beyond that -- it's leveraging casual encounters that I have with people every day and allowing them to become a very personal interaction. For example, I'm on tour with my film "Teenage Paparazzo." It's an educational tour, and we are going to colleges around the country. Every time I want to share something with them, I have to say, "Send me an email, sign up or whatever," but in this case, they can download the app and boom, we're already off to the races. In 2.0, (he laughs) I'm already excited for 2.0 ...

Trevor Doerksen interrupts: The Apple Store hasn't even released 1.0 yet.

Grenier: We have big ambitions and big ideas, and that's what I'm really excited about. This is really just the first breath.

Your existing fans will be interested in the app, but how do you anticipate the Reckless app will create or build a new fan base?

Grenier: The medium and the format are really just the tool. It is about the personal voice of the artist that makes it unique. Twitter is only 140 characters, but it is the unique voice of the individual that allows people to differentiate themselves. I can see the Reckless app being more than just a platform for me. I can see other people using it to connect with their audience, their fans and their friends. I don't know how much we need to reinvent our wheel; we need to spread it and share it.

How is this "sharing" done on a technical level?

Doerksen: I think how you do this is you get the market. That is what is wonderful from a technology point of view -- that there are so many things given to us today, from cloud computing to Apple SDK to the App Store to these new devices. (He holds up an iPhone.) This is a neat canvas to take advantage of. One of the things that will be an input to what we do next will be what we hear from what we do first. So I think getting the market is key to finding out what people like and what they would like to see in the future. That is going to happen with an app more than perhaps with another platform -- it's what's in your pocket.

We have a brand like "Reckless," a user experience where it is in your pocket, under your arm, on your desktop. To find a bookmark, you don't have to go searching; it is a click away. That engagement as we move forward is going to happen on television, maybe even on toasters. For now, we are excited to get feedback on 1.0.

I only saw the trailer for "Teenage Paparazzo" on the iPad version of the app. What other video content will be available for users?

Grenier: We have a lot of video content coming, but we feel like it's best to get out into the water and get our feet wet instead of waiting. It reminds me of surfing. I'm not a surfer, but I've been a couple times. You put the surfboard on the sand, and you practice jumping up. That's easy; anyone can do that. But you put it in the ocean and the waves are coming, and it's a whole other ball game. We wanted to get out there and get our sea legs.

Doerksen: You're like I am on these things, as are a lot of other people. It's an app put out by a film production company and people will ask, "Where's the film?" That's coming, too. Engaging content and entertainment is coming and, of course, more social.

How often can users expect new content to be added?

Grenier: Definitely every time we do an event at a school we will update the snapshots of the students. We have a ton of content -- especially with short form, the turnaround is much quicker. We are always creating short videos.

I see that as the most fascinating part of an app. It's almost a living, breathing entity. It isn't a film, which is finite. It grows and changes. How did you know the app was ready for release?

Grenier: That is something Trevor has been shepherding me through because I am a perfectionist but he's like, "Just relax." There's a learning process in release as well, in letting go.

Doerksen: One of the nice things is not just being about content, which is kinda a broadcast medium. We had to make it engaging. That's what we talk about constantly. If we had 85 films to put in the app -- what would the app be about? You'd be watching 85 films eventually? We've created a true fan engagement set of tools; that part is exciting -- and marrying the viewing experience to that, whether it's in front of the television as a second screen model or in a theater or with Adrian at the airport. Now that I have the app, I see the Twitter scroll and I know where you are all the time. (He points to Grenier.)

******

It will be interesting in the coming months and years to see how app creators push personal apps to new frontiers, finding out what celebrities, not only from the entertainment industry, but sports and beyond, can do with the new tools to harness and connect with their audiences. Let the branding race begin.

Amanda Lin Costa is a writer and producer in the film and television industry. She writes a series called "Truth in Documentary Filmmaking" and is currently producing the documentary, "The Art of Memories."

Welcome to the 32nd episode of "The Mediatwits," the weekly audio podcast from MediaShift. The co-hosts are MediaShift's Mark Glaser and Rafat Ali. We're back from our holiday break and ready to tackle more media news. The big news of the new year is a new CEO (again) at Yahoo, this time PayPal president Scott Thompson will try his hand at turning around the Net pioneer. But most pundits say the odds are long on Thompson being successful because he has little discernible experience running a media or advertising company.

Our special guest this week is Edelman PR exec/pundit Steve Rubel, who is working on a new e-book via Tumblr called "The Clip Report," where he will give visual takes on the future of media in scrapbook-style. And finally, we turn to one new prominent Twitter user, @rupertmurdoch, and what appeared to be a new verified account for his wife, @wendi_deng, that ended up being a fake. What does that mean for the credibility of the Twitter platform and its lack of transparency in verifying accounts?

Check it out!

mediatwits32.mp3

Subscribe to the podcast here

Subscribe to Mediatwits via iTunes

Follow @TheMediatwits on Twitter here

Intro and outro music by 3 Feet Up; mid-podcast music by Autumn Eyes via Mevio's Music Alley.

Here are some highlighted topics from the show:

Intro

1:00: Mark's visit to Disneyland and the MouseWait app

2:10: Rafat is all work and no play over holidays

3:05: Rundown of topics on the show

Yahoo's new CEO

4:00: Yahoo hires Scott Thompson from PayPal; is he the right guy?

6:10: Could Thompson secretly be a media genius?

7:50: Rafat: Why should we care about Yahoo?

Steve Rubel's Clip Book

10:10: Special guest Steve Rubel

12:45: Rubel: I share some intelligence publicly and some internally at Edelman

15:50: Rubel will look at 5 companies that control content online

18:20: People are relying more on visual information, infographics

20:50: Rubel: Two tiers of content: quick-bite snacks and in-depth long-form

25:45: Richard Sambrook's role at Edelman PR teaching companies to run newsrooms

Fake @Wendi_Deng

28:15: Rupert Murdoch joins Twitter, but his wife's verified account was fake

29:10: Does this hurt Twitter's credibility?

30:10: Twitter has a bad track record on being transparent

More Reading

Yahoo Stakes Future on Accountant-Engineer Who Is Unproven in Media at Bloomberg

New Yahoo CEO (And BoSox Fanboy) Scott Thompson Speaks: It's Still Early Innings at AllThingsD

Yahoo Finds New CEO at PayPal at Wall Street Journal

The Key to Yahoo's Long-Term Health? Data, Says New CEO at AdAge

Steve Rubel's Clip Report

Trash your old media eulogies, The Clip Report details its future at the Next Web

Why Twitter's verified account failure matters at GigaOm

The Case of the Unfortunate Underscore: How Twitter Verified the Fake Wendi Over the Real Wendi at AllThingsD

How did fake Wendi Deng slip through the Twitter net? at the Guardian

Weekly Poll

Don't forget to vote in our weekly poll, this time about how Scott Thompson will do as Yahoo CEO:

Mark Glaser is executive editor of MediaShift and Idea Lab. He also writes the bi-weekly OPA Intelligence Report email newsletter for the Online Publishers Association. He lives in San Francisco with his son Julian. You can follow him on Twitter @mediatwit. and Circle him on Google+

We were under a hacking attack. Suddenly, it was time for damage control.

I hope you never find yourself or your organization in a similar situation, especially at midnight on a holiday weekend, but in this era of high-profile hacking, everyone needs a plan in case your site, publishing systems, servers or social media suddenly fall under someone else's control.

For any organization, such an incident would be a pain. But for one that doesn't have a 24/7 staff, it's especially prudent to have a plan and react as quickly as possible.

In others' past crises, such as a flub tweet from the Red Cross or one of Southwest's planes skidding off a runway, just to name a couple, I've been impressed by social media responses.

So how can you protect your organization's reputation and put your best face forward if your site is compromised and/or false information is spread?

While a full response to a hacking incident should include your IT, legal and management teams as quickly as possible, here are six techniques we used in our social media response during those critical first hours, and six things you could do to prepare for a similar incident.

6 Tips If You've Been Hacked

1) Don't Panic

It might be very tempting to freak out. Stay calm, especially in your online presence. The sooner you realize it could be a bumpy ride for a while, the sooner you can start making things right.

Having your site hacked is an invasive feeling. But regardless of what's racing through your mind, having a meltdown on Twitter or Facebook will only make matters worse and potentially fan the flames of the bad actors you've encountered. Punch a pillow, shake your fists, have some ice cream, just keep it offline.

2) Be Quick

PBS NewsHour is responsive to daily breaking news, but generally in a more pensive, analytical manner. There are some excellent Twitter accounts that specialize in minute-by-minute breaking news. However, should your site suddenly become the news due to a hacking, you must respond as quickly as possible to minimize the harm. Until some sort of Twitter correction mechanism comes along, this is the best you can do to save face and serve the public. As a news organization, understand that you want to be the one quoted in the inevitable articles and the primary source that gets retweeted the most.

Be quick, coherent, professional and straightforward in your responses.

3) Be Personal

Your first response could be as simple as tweeting "Yes, something is going on. We're working on it and we'll get you more details soon. Thanks for your understanding," and including your initials, or using your personal account to respond. If people can connect a real person to a brand on Twitter, they're generally more likely to forgive anything from typos to corrupted servers, in my experience. I went to my personal account to update others so our @NewsHour timeline wasn't flooded with "No, it is not true." That was an effective way to get some retweets, which helped get the message out that it was a hoax.

4) Cover All Accounts

Sure, Twitter is the best way to send out several updates, but don't forget your other social media accounts. Posting a message on Facebook allows you to provide updates and answers within a single thread. Lead the conversation as much as possible instead of playing catch-up.

To see if false information is spreading other places that might merit a response, be sure to search kurrently.com, search.twitter.com, facebook.com/search and Google.

5) Repeat, Repeat, Repeat
Repeat your updates as much as needed. Reword as the situation changes, but remind everyone that you are aware of the problem, working to fix it, and appreciate their patience.

But remember, keep it simple, short and stay on message: Our security has been breached and we're working to fix the problem.

6) Know Your Limits

So after all that repeating, retweeting, Facebooking, Googling and more, you're starting to wear out. It is important to know your limits and stop before you make a dumb mistake. (I called it quits around 3:30 a.m. ET, after a coherent sentence seemed like a distant memory, and I am very happy I did.) Tell your editor that you're wrapping up. Let your followers and fans know that you'll be back on the case in a few hours.

6 Tips to Plan for a Possible Attack

This incident has taught me some lessons as well. Here are six things to consider before a crisis, and ways to plan ahead.

1) Keep Contact Information Handy

I didn't realize how much I rely on texting, email and Gchat until I was stuck searching for home phone numbers for our IT chief. Knowing "I have it somewhere..." is not quick enough in the moment of a crisis.

2) Realize the Die's Likely Been Cast

No matter how quickly you remove any intrusive content, you should realize that someone has probably already tweeted a screengrab or uploaded your page to an archiving site such as Freze.it faster than you can say Command-Shift-3 or Alt-Print Screen. Once it's on your site -- no matter how briefly -- it pretty much belongs to the web and there's likely no pretending that it didn't happen -- as much as you might want that to be the case.

In the same vein, remember that technology can let you down. Normally on weekends, I turn on a feed to @NewsHour from our Rundown blog just in case I'm not able to get to a computer or cell phone if breaking news is posted. When new posts are found, it updates once an hour.

Even though I turned off this feed as soon as I could after the hack, the technology took over and a tweet with the Tupac story was sent from @NewsHour. As I was already in the middle of crisis control, it was a quick delete, but it does cause me to reconsider the use of RSS or Atom feeds at all for our Twitter accounts.

3) Watch Your Words

If you unwittingly made big news, you should assume that your tweets will be quoted. Out of the dozens of posts and articles mentioning our response in the past week, only three people contacted me directly for further comment. Instead, bloggers and reporters quoted tweets from my account and @NewsHour. Some did not include the context regarding other tweeters and the specific questions they asked. For example, this tweet in response to a long conversation was quoted here.

4) Make Friends

Make sure you know your fellow journalists on Twitter, especially those who report on your beat or specialty. They can become allies and also tip you off when something may have happened to your organization or beat. (The first tweet I saw was from a very tuned-in journalist, Anthony de Rosa.)

5) Have a Back-Up Plan

Don't let your site going down stop you from creating content while you work to get everything back to normal. The news doesn't stop. Neither should you. We used Tumblr, and PBS MediaShift used Facebook. Have something set up just in case. (Poynter's Jeff Sonderman wrote in more detail about what to do if your site goes down or has significant troubles.)

6) Keep Perspective

Remember, things could almost always be worse. Hopefully in a few days this too shall pass. (Remember fake reports of Steve Jobs' death? Dan Gillmor did). Fix as much as you can as fast as you can. Then make sure your organization rebounds smarter and stronger. Trust that your audience will understand your plight and hopefully admire your steady, straightforward approach to fixing a brief anomaly.

Teresa Gorman is the social media production assistant at "PBS NewsHour." Before reaching NewsHour, Teresa spent time as a community journalist in upstate New York. She first caught the public media bug as an intern at NPR, and hasn't looked back since. You can find her on Twitter @gteresa.

Business content on MediaShift is sponsored by the weekend MA in Public Communication at American University. Designed for working professionals, the program is suited to career changers and public relations or social marketing professionals seeking career advancement. Learn more here.

Fifty million people. One trillion dollars in buying power. Ad spending up 164% since 2001 to $3.88 billion. Hundreds of Spanish-language TV stations across the U.S.

Those eye-catching numbers represent the immense, and largely untapped, scale and wealth of the Hispanic-American media market. Put into greater perspective, if Hispanic-Americans comprised their own country, it would be the fifth-largest, by population, in the European Union. And this demographic is growing -- rapidly.

Despite these figures, one component is still missing in the media industry's quest for greater diversity: Hispanic leadership in the executive suite at media companies.

As a Hispanic-American executive, who also happens to be female, I have seen first-hand the immense growth and impact diversity is having on the American economy and culture. Media executives, marketers, communicators, lawmakers and all of America are hurtling into an era where the business and marketing of diversity -- particularly the Hispanic-American market -- will be at the forefront of the American conscience.

Where Are The Hispanic Execs?

And yet a wide divide still exists between this reality and the promise for greater diversity in the ranks of media, PR, and ad agencies' senior management.

"The future of our nation depends on what happens in [the Hispanic-American] population, a segment of Americans that have not always gotten the opportunities," they deserve, said Manny Ruiz, founder of Hispanic PR Wire and Hispanicize.com, in a recent PRNewser interview.

This lack of opportunity has led to Hispanic-Americans being underrepresented in corporate boardrooms. According to the 2009 Hispanic Association for Corporate Responsibility Corporate Inclusion Index survey, only 4.8 percent of all Fortune 100 executive- and director-level positions are held by Hispanics. Similarly, Hispanics account for only 6 percent of representatives on Fortune 100 boards.

It took my own professional organization, the Public Relations Society of America, 48 years before Luis Morales became its first Hispanic president in 1996. Fifteen years later, I'm the first Latina to serve as chair and CEO.

My question is: Why was there a gap in years for the PRSA to select another Hispanic leader? I also wonder, why aren't there more Hispanic-Americans, whom I know are succeeding in the business world, stepping forward to executive and board positions across the media and PR industries?

More Questions Than Answers

Is it an issue of being the "token"? Nearly 20 years ago, I remember looking around the boardroom and finding that, not only was I the only woman in the room, I also looked different from everyone else. Feeling like "the only one" didn't stop me from finding common ground with my colleagues, and it shouldn't be an impediment for greater diversity within media's C-suite.

Is it an issue of language? Many times, people assume that all Hispanic-Americans speak Spanish and prefer Spanish. That is as much a myth as is Spanish fluency for those who do speak Spanish. There are Hispanics, like me, who are just as comfortable communicating in Spanish or English because of our bi-lingual fluency. But, there are just as many who are only truly comfortable in one language -- English.

Is it cultural? Business development and growth is part of the Hispanic-American spirit. Our culture thrives on entrepreneurship. Hispanics aren't fond of sticking to the "way things have always been." We're living proof that change is the only constant; thus we prefer acculturation instead of assimilation.

Slow Progress

I'll admit, the level of diversity within public relations has progressed significantly in recent years. For example, 14 percent of PRSA members are self-described "diverse;" that's an increase from 7 percent in 2005.

But we still have quite a ways to go in order to meet the global business community's diverse communications and marketing challenges.

Playing a leading role in conversation development across societal, economic and ethnic variances has always been one of PR's strongest areas of focus. A key factor in continuing a surge in value will be the industry's ability to generate two-way, conversation-themed strategies. And this can only come from the inclusion of non-traditional hires, such as bloggers, social-media influencers and analysts that come from a variety of ethnic and racial backgrounds.

Diversity is Worth Trillions

It's quite simple, really: Diversity within PR will be crucial to agencies' success in years to come, as businesses continue seeking a more global perspective to their communications.

That means it is the responsibility of the PR industry -- along with the media companies that use our services -- to place an immediate focus on the business value of diversity and a diverse boardroom. Businesses must be prepared to tap into burgeoning and increasingly diverse markets for new revenue and growth. And having a more diverse executive suite, which reflects the modern ethnic makeup of the U.S., will better prepare the media industry to reap the immense financial rewards of a modern and very diverse America.

In today's stagnant economy, can any media company -- and the PR and marketing firms working within that sector -- afford to go without the diverse leadership that could help it tap into a $1 trillion market? Not likely.

(A tip of the hat to Julian McBride, whose excellent MediaShift post on fixing the tech PR industry's diversity issues inspired this post.)

Rosanna M. Fiske, APR, is chair and chief executive officer of the PRSA. She is also director of the Global Strategic Communications master's program in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Florida International University in Miami. With more than 20 years of experience, Fiske began her career as a journalist, and then moved to marketing and corporate communications. She has held senior communications counsel, marketing and management positions in agency and corporate settings.

Business content on MediaShift is sponsored by the weekend MA in Public Communication at American University. Designed for working professionals, the program is suited to career changers and public relations or social marketing professionals seeking career advancement. Learn more here.

For those who may have missed it, the dialogue was sparked by Retha Hill in an Idea Lab post about the lack of minorities at new media conferences. Mark Glaser expanded the conversation from the comments section to a wider audience on Twitter with a MediaShift #mediadiversity chat. And Hill has followed up with a post on the need for media innovation in minority communities.

All this got me thinking about my particular media niche: technology public relations. What's so special about tech PR? Well, for those loosely familiar with the PR sector, imagine it as music. Entertainment, fashion, beauty and sports PR are akin to pop music.

Tech PR is more like opera. It requires a slightly different set of skills and media approaches. How many people of color in opera can music-lovers name? Aside from the great Kathleen Battle, not many come to mind. Unfortunately, this dilemma also rings true for tech PR. Persons of color are an untapped market that many PR agencies have not yet explored. Looking back at my six years in PR, I can count the number of brown colleagues I've worked with on less than two hands.

Why are minorities -- especially those of black and Latino descent -- largely missing from the tech media landscape? Inspired by this new-found dialogue on diversity in media, I want to talk about my career as a publicist representing and working with digital media and technology companies and offer some suggestions for remedying the tech PR industry's diversity deficit.

How I got here

When I was about 12 years old, I accompanied my father, who is a professor, to a wrap party for a film project where he served as an academic advisor. At the celebration, I remember one of the producers telling me that I'd be "good at PR" when I grew up. Back then, I didn't know what the producer meant. But that seed of advice remained in the back of my mind as I graduated from Rutgers College (part of Rutgers, the state university of New Jersey), studied and lived abroad in Europe and Brazil, and completed a master's program in marketing from the Bristol Business School in Bristol, England.

Upon finishing my master's program, I gravitated back to where my friends and family are from -- New York City, the so-called Silicon Alley of innovation -- and sought to finally discover what this PR thing was all about. Within a few months of my arrival, I landed an entry-level position within the technology practice of Euro RSCG Worldwide PR. It was there that I met my mentor, Ana Cano Nennig, a female of Mexican-American descent. With her encouragement and guidance, I have navigated my way through the close-knit and competitive world of tech PR, representing some of the most innovative and respected companies -- from startups to established brands -- that are advancing the tech and digital media industries.

As Nennig evidences, I'm not the only person of color to succeed in PR. Minorities, especially African-Americans, have done well in sub-sectors of PR such as entertainment and sports where persons of color have played starring roles. This history stretches as far back as 1957, when the United Artists movie studio A.S. "Doc" Young to publicize an interracial love story, "Kings Go Forth."

New opportunities for Tech PR

When it comes to persons of color in technology and digital media PR, history may still be in the making. And, considering that minorities have led the way for technology adoption and innovation, I think a larger role for minorities is manifest destiny.

Take social networks and mobile technology, for example. New media and technology are widely embraced and used by minorities. According to a Pew Internet report [PDF file], 18 percent of Latinos and 13 percent of black adults who are online use Twitter; that's significantly greater than the five percent of white Internet users who tweet. Blacks and English-speaking Latinos were found to be more likely to use the various smartphone features such as web surfing and mobile shopping, according to Pew.

Given this history of early technology adoption and today's rising dialogue about minorities working in media and technology, I'm excited about what's in store. Smart business strategists hoping to increase their multicultural market share would do well to get on board.

How to promote diversity

In addition to continuing the dialogue of #mediadiversity, I want to include a few constructive ways to address the shortage of minorities within tech PR.

• Weave diversity into everything you do. This is particularly crucial for PR agencies. One way to do that is by actively recruiting qualified minority talent, leaders, and mentors.

• Create programs to help tell and preserve minorities' history in communications, as well as revitalize the role minorities play in the broader field of marketing communications. PR agencies can create an award or scholarship program to achieve this.

• Educate minority youth on the opportunities in tech PR by partnering with minority communications professionals, entrepreneurs, journalists, and related organizations.

The reason I enjoy what I do is because of what technology and media represent: advancement and innovation.

In order for the industry to live up to the ideals it represents, diversity needs to be realized not just at the consumer level but at the corporate level as well. More personal dialogue should be encouraged regarding what it's like to be a minority in this industry.

But more importantly, action is required by the leaders driving the PR industry. PR agencies that serve technology and digital media companies should encourage diversity in both personnel team-building and marketing initiatives for clients.

Such steps will help to create stronger and more creative technologies and media that are reflective of our nation's and world's undeniable diversity.

Julian is an account supervisor at the Horn Group, where he has worked since November 2009 to execute PR strategy and manage media and analyst relations for marquee clients. Julian has regularly secured national feature placements for clients in Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Forbes, Adweek, GigaOm and Computerworld, among many other mainstream business, advertising, and technology publications. He is a martial artist and comes from a family of writers, including his father Dr. David McBride, a widely-known educator and researcher at Penn State University and his uncle James McBride, who chronicled their family in the New York Times and the international best-selling memoir "The Color of Water."

4MR is sponsored by Carnegie-Knight News21, an alliance of 12 journalism schools in which top students tell complex stories in inventive ways. See tips for spurring innovation and digital learning at Learn.News21.com.

In this week's 4MR podcast I look at the problems Apple has been having with its iPhone 4. The infamous "death grip" issue meant you'd have dropped calls if your hand went over a certain part of the phone's antenna. Apple brought out Steve Jobs for a press conference today where they offered free bumpers to solve the issue, and would refund anyone for their iPhone if they weren't satisfied. I talked with Chicago Sun-Times tech guru Andy Ihnatko for his take on the press conference and Apple's non-apology apology.

Check it out:

4mrbareaudio71610.mp3

>>> Subscribe to 4MR <<<

>>> Subscribe to 4MR via iTunes <<<

Listen to my entire interview with Andy Ihnatko:

ihnatko final.mp3

Background music is "What the World Needs" by the The Ukelele Hipster Kings via PodSafe Music Network.

Here are some links to related sites and stories mentioned in the podcast:

Apple to Give Away iPhone Case at WSJ

Live iPhone 4 press event coverage at gdgt

Apple Has Verizon Cell Sites On Campus, Possibly For Testing CDMA iPhones at Cult of Mac

iPhone 4 Press Event - You're All Getting Cases at the Apple Blog

Apple's iPhone 4 Press Conference Disappoints at the Mac Observer

In the end, Apple gets iPhone 4 antenna dilemma right at the Chicago Sun-Times

Apple's Free iPhone 4 Cases Come with Pinch of Scorn at PC World

Apple Knew of iPhone Issue at WSJ

Also, be sure to vote in our poll about how you think Apple should fix the iPhone 4 issue:

Mark Glaser is executive editor of MediaShift and Idea Lab. He also writes the bi-weekly OPA Intelligence Report email newsletter for the Online Publishers Association. He lives in San Francisco with his son Julian. You can follow him on Twitter @mediatwit.

4MR is sponsored by Carnegie-Knight News21, an alliance of 12 journalism schools in which top students tell complex stories in inventive ways. See tips for spurring innovation and digital learning at Learn.News21.com.

At that time, Wikipedia's internal structure did not match the widespread success and attention it was beginning to enjoy. I found myself working in a thrifty "rent-by-the-month" office building with three other employees: An administrative assistant, a fundraiser/hardcore Wikipedian, and a CFO. I was told that most tasks, including the communication projects, were carried out by a large network of international volunteers.

I immediately began to review the public relations materials available to me, and almost immediately went into panic mode. There was no polished press kit, press list or, dare I say, communication strategy. In fact, the majority of individuals on the communications committee had little to no public relations training, and were more intellectual and techie than the average PR practitioner at that time.

Crisis Mode

A few weeks into the job, with little training and a very primitive understanding of the wiki ethos, I encountered my first PR crisis. A hardcore and well known Wikipedian, Essjay, had lied to the New Yorker about his credentials. Not surprisingly, the years of crisis communication training I received was useless in the context I found myself in. For a brief moment, I honestly thought that my career as a PR specialist had come to an end. The New Yorker, in my mind, was the bible of the media world; there was no way that our online encyclopedia was going to survive the PR damage.

In the midst of my concerns, I soon became a believer in the power of collaboration. That crisis was the moment when the new media landscape unfolded before my eyes.

The volunteers took charge. They created a Wikipedia entry that documented the event in gruesome detail. It was honest, direct and, amazingly, had no PR spin. In fact, for most Wikipedia members, the biggest concern was that Essjay had used his false credentials in content disputes. It was apparent to me that there was never any malice or hidden agenda. Essjay himself had revealed his real credentials on his user profile when he was hired by Wikia, a company owned by Wikipedia founder, Jimmy Wales. In fact, in the months that followed, I found the community became self-correcting by encouraging the use of real names and identities. It found a way to help prevent this type of issue from happening again.

At the time, some critics argued that the incident ruined Wikipedia's reputation. Of course, this was the farthest thing from the truth. Since then, the site has grown both in content and in language versions. (My husband is a philosophy professor, which means I regularly meet academics who are quick to point out how "surprisingly accurate" the site is, and how fascinated they are with how it has impacted how our society views information.)

Learning From Collaboration

As someone who identifies herself as a bicultural New Yorker who specialized in cross-cultural communication in college, I was not a stranger to collaboration. In fact, that was my biggest criticism of American culture -- we were too individualistic and not group focused enough. But nothing prepared me for the wiki world. I learned some valuable lessons about collaboration and how to make it work. Below are some of the key learnings.

• Trust the Crowd; Its Smarter than You -- The sooner you trust the group and empower it, the sooner it can produce high quality results. The group can make up for any weaknesses you may have as an individual. The idea is to bring out the strongest skills and downplay the weakest in each person.
• Diversity and Creativity Are Intrinsically Connected -- Creative brainstorming is significantly improved by diversity. Individuals not only challenge each others' ideas, but they also inspire each other as well.
• Collaboration is Messy -- When Jimmy Wales said "[Wikipedia is] like a sausage: you might like the taste of it, but you don't necessarily want to see how it's made," he wasn't kidding. Chaos, in many ways, seems to be the spark of great collaborative endeavors.
• Be Open to Receiving and Giving Criticism -- When working collaboratively, it is important to let go of your ego. Learn to not take things personally and be honest about what you think without being disrespectful.

Wikipedia still receives a lot of flack -- it's an easy target for institutions and individuals who are desperately trying to survive in a digital world. However, I feel grateful for having worked for a short time with the "free culture" trailblazers behind the project who are responsible for making the world a bit more open, democratic, smarter, and much more collaborative.

Sandra Ordonez calls herself a web astronaut who has been helping organizations navigate the internet since 1997. Currently, she helps run OurBlook.com, a collaborative online forum that gathers interviews from today's top leaders in the hopes of finding tomorrow's solutions. Since December 2008, the site has been conducting a Future of Journalism interview series. Sandra also heads up the Facebook page, "Bicultural and Multicultural People Rule." Previously, she was the Communications Manager for Wikipedia. She graduated from American University with a double degree in International Relations and Public Relations.

It seems a communications or social media conference now isn't complete without obligatory mentions of the "BP PR Disaster," complete with sly references to verbal gaffes by BP CEO Tony Hayward. The still-unfolding environmental disaster has already been fodder for reams of blog posts, articles and dissections.

Everything BP has done over the past two months has been picked apart and critiqued. From the retaining of outside PR firms, to the company's (lack of) use of social channels and the hiring of a Bush-Cheney-era communicator, BP has done little to impress the critics.

The move to hire Anne Womack-Kolton, a former aide to Dick Cheney, caused an Economist blogger to nearly blow a gasket:

The first law of disaster-management in the United States is that you appoint somebody from the "in" party rather than the "out" party. The second law is that you avoid anybody with connections to George Bush and Dick Cheney.

To top it off, some of the most effective critiques of the company and its clean-up are coming in 140 character bursts from the unknown acerbic voice behind the satirical Twitter account, @BPGlobalPR. The caustic and laugh-out-loud funny nature of the tweets sets off a chain of retweets, creating online waves that reach much farther and faster than the spread of the oil (or BP's message for that matter).

The general consensus in the public relations industry is that BP ran its crisis communications in the same ham-fisted manner they've run the clean-up operation in the Gulf. But are pundits being too hard on BP? And what can we learn about conducting PR in the digital age from this example? Below are my five suggested lessons, and a list of links to 15 must-read articles about BP's response to the crisis.

Five Big Lessons

It's become all too easy to knock around the communicators at BP. The harsh reality is most major corporations and organizations would have reacted in the same textbook manner. This spill has changed the way communicators will plan for and execute strategies around crises of all kinds. New questions are being asked and long-held assumptions are being challenged. Here are the top five communications trends I see coming from the BP Gulf spill:

1. Consider the ethics of social channels. BP makes a regular habit of turning off the comment function on social media channels and not allowing other views to be shared on its profiles. This is presumably to help control the message and avoid issues of liability -- but how should Facebook or YouTube react to this? Twitter said it wouldn't touch the satirical account mocking the oil company, but in early June it asked the author to make it clear they were not connected to BP. Are social networks simply platforms anyone can use to distribute a message, even if that message isn't 100 percent accurate or there is no room for response or debate?
2. One vs. many spokespeople. How would a Zappos, IBM, Starbucks or Dell (to use a few oft-cited examples of more open and connected corporate cultures) handle a BP-like situation with their brands? Classic communications strategy suggests to follow BP's lead and anoint a single spokesperson. But these go-to models of crisis control are challenged when hundreds speak for a brand, even if informally. The Internet is an organizational tool. If an organization facing a crisis is socially connected and understands the networks they have created, they'll know what to do. The clearest way forward is to ask your online team members to follow some basic guidelines about when and how to respond in the specific situation at hand. The three main tasks for the formal and informal social media teams are: Thank people, correct facts, and share updated information. Remember to keep responses short, accurate and polite, and to link to a place where aggregated information about the crisis can be found. Remind your online team not to apologize for the incident, never to debate or engage in defense or explanations.
3. Tactics are not directly transferable across mediums. A common refrain from many analysts is that BP ripped pages from an old playbook to use on the new field of communications. Good communicators understand that communications strategy must be tool-agnostic, but that tactics are tool-specific. In other words, BP used classic communications methods in new mediums. This dissonance was immediately seized upon by organizations like Greenpeace and the satirical BP account on Twitter.
4. The old paradigm of broadcasting to persuade is being challenged. BP's communicators took to YouTube and created what seemed like television ads. They would have been better served by attempting to stimulate a conversation, providing a realistic portrait of the work being done, or engaging in a live, viewer-centric Q&A session. Overall, the BP website and spokespeople lacked a human or colloquial tone.
5. Sometimes you just can't win. BP has failed to realize that sometimes trying to "win" PR battles actually results in an organization losing the overall communications war. Mitch Joel, president of Twist Image and the author of "Six Pixels of Separation" suggested in his Vancouver Sun/Montreal Gazette column that perhaps BP never really had a chance. "If the basis of social media is based on trust and credibility, how can BP be expected to engage and truly connect?" he wrote. "For now, it's hopeless. But that was probably also true long before a drop of oil ever touched the Gulf of Mexico."

15 Great Articles About BP's Response

In the course of reading over 100 articles about BP's PR response, I came across several pieces that offered valuable insight and information. Here are the 15 best:

1. Why social media won't help BP: Vancouver Sun
2. BPs woes start a the top: Globe and Mail
3. Failures made worse by PR mistakes: MSNBC
4. BP PR blunder carries high political cost: Reuters
5. BP and the long tail PR crisis: SMI
6. BP is attempting to cram the square peg of the traditional mass media into the round hole of social media: Derek Devries
7. BP can't tweet: Merriam
8. Adweek reports on BP's major social media push -- with disabled comments: Truthout
9. Do social media complaints make a difference to a brand?: ComMetrics
10. BP should fix the problem, not "join the conversation": OpposablePlanets
11. What BP should be doing with social media: Socialnomics
12. Review of BPs social media campaign: Bruce Clay
13. BP's Gulf PR disaster - give them a break!: PR Disasters
14. Social media won't help big, bad BP: Canwest
15. BP Social Media Response to the Spill: Social Technology Strategy slide show

Ian Capstick is a progressive media consultant. He worked for a decade in Canadian politics supporting some of Canada's most charismatic leaders. He is passionate about creating social change through communications. Ian appears weekly on CBC TV's Power & Politics, weekly radio panels, and is regularly quoted online and off about the evolution of public relations in a connected world. He describes his small communications firm, MediaStyle.ca, as a blog with a consulting arm.

There is an obvious shift in power, with athletes trying to find their own voice on social media, and fans getting to have their say online. Where does that leave traditional sports journalists? Having to adapt, both by monitoring social media for more news (and missteps from athletes), and using it to keep in touch with readers. We convened a special roundtable discussion and party for 5Across to celebrate the 1st anniversary of the show, with special guest Olympic athletes Natalie Coughlin and Donny Robinson. We talked about the shifting landscape for sports media, the balancing act for athletes sharing personal details with fans, and the faux pas that happen when you give a star a global megaphone.

5Across: Athletes on Social Media

athletestwitterfinal.mp4

>>> Subscribe to 5Across video podcast <<<

>>> Subscribe to 5Across via iTunes <<<

Guest Biographies

Andrew Braccia was one of the initial investors and currently sits on the board of SB Nation, the largest and fastest growing network of fan-centric online sports communities. He joined the investment firm Accel Partners in 2007 bringing with him a decade of experience at Yahoo. His primary areas of investment interest include consumer Internet and software businesses with a focus on web search, digital media, online gaming and online advertising.

Natalie Coughlin is an Olympic swimmer who has won 11 medals in the 2004 and 2008 Games -- winning a medal in every event she has competed in. She is the first woman to win back to back gold medals in the 100 meter backstroke. She was a judge on "Iron Chef" and competed in the show "Dancing with the Stars." You can follow her on Twitter @NatalieCoughlin or become her fan on Facebook.

Award-winning columnist Ann Killion has been following the world of sports for more than two decades. She worked for many years at the San Jose Mercury News and is now a contributing writer for Sports Illustrated and Comcast Bay Area Sports Net. She is also communications director of Vivo Girls Sports, a social network for girls who like sports. You can follow her on Twitter @annkillion or read her blog here.

Hannah Patrick works at Sports Media Challenge where she focuses on training, consulting, and media analysis for major sports celebrity clients such as Shaquille O'Neal, Danica Patrick, and MotoGP World Champion Nicky Hayden. She also championed SMC's efforts with the innovative social media segment for SportsCenter's Blog Buzz segment. Hannah develops new media strategies for a wide-range of clients including the Big Ten Network, Conference USA, and ESPN Regional Television.

Donny Robinson is a professional BMX bike racer, having won a bronze medal in the 2008 Games, and a World Championship in 2009. He was the first man to win world titles in all four BMX classes. He lives in Napa, Calif., and you can follow him on Twitter @DonnyRobinson.

If you'd prefer to watch sections of the show rather than the entire show, I've broken them down by topic below.

Personal Details

Best Practices

The Numbers Game

Athletes Behaving Badly

Democratization of Media

Credits

Mark Glaser, executive producer and host
Darcy Cohan, producer
Charlotte Buchen, camera
Julie Caine, audio
Location: Vega Project & Kennerly Architecture office space in San Francisco
Special thanks to: PBS and the Knight Foundation
Music by AJ the DJ

*****

What do you think? Do you follow athletes on social media, and which ones do you think do it best? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

To see photos from the 5Across shoot and anniversary party, visit this Flickr set.

Mark Glaser is executive editor of MediaShift and Idea Lab. He also writes the bi-weekly OPA Intelligence Report email newsletter for the Online Publishers Association. He lives in San Francisco with his son Julian. You can follow him on Twitter @mediatwit.

This fast-paced evolution means many communicators are finding it tough to choose which tool best fits their needs. Sometimes, this wealth of options can lead PR pros to stick with the classic news release, while others advocate for more direct or social ways of distributing news. Others are simply refashioning news releases into so-called "social" products. It seems there's still work to be done in making the social media release a new standard in public relations.

Below is a look at the current state of the social media release, and a special audio report that discusses its place in the PR universe.

Where did it all start?

As MediaShift's Mark Glaser reported in 2008, influential Silicon Valley journalist and blogger Tom Foremski's now famous blog post was the spark that led to the creation of the social media release.

His post certainly hit a nerve, likely because he didn't simply trash the age old press release. He deconstructed it and suggested a reconstruction that would work for his sensibilities.

At the time, in 2006, the basic structure and intent of a media release hadn't really changed since Ivy Lee penned the first press release for the Pennsylvania Railroad in 1906. Foremski's post was the "shot heard around the wire-service industry," as one distribution insider described it (after requesting anonymity). It certainly resonated with Tod Defren, who cites the Foremski screed as his inspiration for creating the template for the "social media release."

Choosing the right Social Media Release

Defren is a PR veteran and new communications trailblazer. A principal at Shift Communications, whose portfolio of clients includes Club Med, Quiznos, Yelp, Novell and Wells Fargo, he is cited regularly as the "creator" of the social media release. Some have suggested this innovation heralds the end of the traditional release.

"Honestly, most PR pros despise press releases -- they tend to be overwritten, overwrought and rarely as newsworthy as the name implies," Defren wrote in an email. "I saw Tom's post as an opportunity to re-invent the format, at a time when social media was looking likely to upset many other media apple carts."

A social media release can be broadly defined as a single page of web content designed to enable the content to be removed and used on blogs, wikis and other social channels. In practice, social media releases (SMRs) feature multiple embedded links (a YouTube video, Flickr slideshow, SlideShare presentation etc.) and blocks of text similar to those found in traditional releases (spokesperson quotes, boilerplate and contact information). Here are a few examples of social media release services:

• MarketWire
• CNW
• Pitch Engine

Martin Waxman said that when new clients come to him looking for traditional media releases, he steers them in an another direction.

"[If] all they want us to do is issue a release -- and usually the word 'buzz' is also mentioned -- we ask them what their objectives are and often suggest other communications options, including social media," said Waxman, president of Palette Public Relations, a boutique Canadian agency serving clients such as Yuk Yuk's, Tide, Olay and Head & Shoulders.

"I think that smart communicators will look at their objectives and consider all the tools -- traditional and social -- when they're developing a PR plan, and then strategically select the ones that are most appropriate for the audience you're trying to engage," Waxman said. "One of the most exciting things about PR is that we now have many more channels in which to tell our stories. But we need to listen and get to know the influencers, customize our approach, talk in plain English and build relationships. That's the key."

Social Media Newsroom

Waxman is keen on the social media release, as well as its close cousin, the "social media newsroom."

"I do think that social media releases are the heir apparent to the traditional news release, if I can throw in a monarchy metaphor," he said. "Personally, I like to go one step further and encourage organizations to create a social media newsroom with all the information, visuals, video, background materials, story ideas and contact easily accessible and searchable."

Defren agreed with Waxman's assessment, citing a follow-up post written a few months after the introduction of the social media release, he calls the "social media newsroom" his "true and lasting innovation." Here's what he outlined via email:

I put the cart before the horse. Within a social media newsroom, the company can house all the multimedia assets, including pointers to external sites, in one easy-to-find place. The problem with outsourcing all of that content to third party sites is that you lose the thread of conversation that rightfully belongs on the corporate site. Why should you, as a marketer, surrender all the SEO benefits of having most of your content on your own website, for people to visit and link back to?

Social media newsrooms are more comprehensive than their cousin, the social media release. They allow an organization to host all of their social media releases, contact information and links to social channels in one place. This in turn allows the organization to leverage the search engine optimization value of the news being released. Defren's company created the first ever social media newsroom, which can be found here. Others quickly followed suit.

PitchEngine.com, a social media release provider, recently lowered their agency pricing on their social media newsroom product to encourage more brands and groups to adopt their system.

Go In-Depth on Social Media Releases

To get more in-depth about the social media release, I conducted a special audio interview with Fleishman-Hillard senior vice president David Bradfield and Mark Blevis, an associate vice president at the same firm. You can listen to our discussion below:

We spoke about how communicators can choose a the right tools for the job, and how best to approach social media releases with clients. We also talked about the three major choices in social media release distribution: Using a web application or service, paying a wire service, or creating a self-hosted "social media newsroom."

When asked the ubiquitous question "Is the media press release dead?" Waxman summed it up best.

"If you read Clay Shirky's book 'Here Comes Everybody,' it's clear we're in the midst of a communications revolution and no one really knows how it will turn out," he said. "That's a long way of saying I don't think the news release is dead. It's still a useful communications tool. But that's what it is: A device that helps tell a story. Will releases evolve? Absolutely. And hopefully social media will help rid them of corporate-speak and just plain bad writing."

Ian Capstick is a progressive media consultant. He worked for a decade in Canadian politics supporting some of Canada's most charismatic leaders. He is passionate about creating social change through communications. Ian appears weekly on CBC TV's Power & Politics, weekly radio panels, and is regularly quoted online and off about the evolution of public relations in a connected world. He describes his small communications firm, MediaStyle.ca, as a blog with a consulting arm.

"We push out news and information; we think that's valuable," Mike Taylor, Fairmont's public relations manager, told the Hotel Marketing Strategies blog. "We include package and rate offers. We don't see Twitter primarily as a distribution tool. But if we have something that's a great deal we're going to let people know about it."

In terms of results, it has seen hotel occupancy rates rise after tweeting "online only" discounts, and it's been able to reach out and promote its brand.

"Twitter has introduced us to people we otherwise wouldn't have a relationship with," he said. "So it's sort of that global neighborhood concept where these people wouldn't have reached out to us or vice versa if we were not participating."

Other Twitter PR success stories include Comcast, Dell, JetBlue and Shaquille O'Neil. They have all reinvigorated their brands using the service. All are near becoming social media case study cliches.

Some in the hospitality industry take it one step further: The Roger Smith Hotel, for example, is connected to every corner of the social web. But its innovative use of Twitter is where it really shines. The New York City boutique hotel attracts travelers based on its regular -- and charming -- use of Twitter.

"I really found the genuine ability to connect with people valuable," Brian Simpson, the hotel's director of social hospitality, told Techipedia, "and we have continued to use this as just one of many pieces of the funnel hopefully driving people to be more involved with us outside of just booking a room."

These successes are well documented. However, many businesses, organizations and individuals have trouble converting the case studies of others into success for themselves. As it turns out, public relations thought-leaders suggest it's less about the tool itself and more about learning to adapt and adjust to the new medium.

Conversation is Key

Maggie Fox, CEO of the Social Media Group, suggests Twitter has become the driving force of the news cycle.

Her company has been Ford's social media agency since 2007, and claims status as "one of the world's largest independent agencies."

"From a PR perspective, Twitter is the circulatory system of the news cycle," she said when asked if PR practitioners can use Twitter effectively if only checking once or twice a day. "It is a constantly churning stream of scoops, updates and perspectives generated by millions of users and mainstream media outlets. Twitter interaction advances the story in realtime, as you watch."

She said knowing about Twitter is one thing, but engaging in conversation is what is key. "Twitter [usage] patterns are different for different people," she said. "Some tweet every quarter hour, others, every day. Whatever suits your style and objectives, go with -- as long as it's regular and consistent. I think the point is you have to use the platform to know it; setting up a Twitter account and tweeting once six weeks ago is not using the platform."

Dave Fleet, a well known PR blogger and the account director at Thornley Fallis, a national Canadian PR firm, said it requires more than just becoming a proficient user of one tool like Twitter.

"If you're able to connect with people through Twitter then great, but you can also make great connections through in-person contact, over the phone, through other online tools or through any number of communications media," Fleet said.

Customization is Essential

Edelman Digital's Steve Rubel agrees with Fox and Fleet's assessment, suggesting "it really depends on the individual PR professional's focus."

Rubel said "customization is key" for both clients and PR pros adopting Twitter as a business communications tool.

"Generally speaking, however, I believe that every PR professional needs some level of situational awareness about what is going on in a given community at a given time and will need to check into Twitter accordingly," he said. "In addition, those on the front lines will need to become increasingly visible online and offline -- including their client affiliations."

When asked how he advised clients to stay on top of the changes and evolution of Twitter, Rubel said, "I generally don't."

"There's way too much focus on the technology and tools," he said. "Instead I advise them to study audiences and trends and then identify tools that fit. Too many people start with the tools first. That's like buying paint before you have a floor plan."

Fleet said the same is true for PR pros.

"Most people don't need to stay on the bleeding edge of the latest tactical client," he said. "It's more important that they use the various social media tools effectively and strategically rather than looking for the next shiny object. With that said, part of our job as consultants is to stay on top of these tools, and to be able to recommend the best tools for our clients. So, part of that onus falls on us."

Ian Capstick is a progressive media consultant. He worked for a decade in Canadian politics supporting some of Canada's most charismatic leaders. He is passionate about creating social change through communications. Ian appears weekly on CBC TV's Power & Politics, weekly radio panels, and is regularly quoted online and off about the evolution of public relations in a connected world. He describes his small communications firm, MediaStyle.ca, as a blog with a consulting arm.

Public Officials who 'get it'

Some major official figures have genuinely embraced the medium. Karl Rove tweets prolifically, sparring with the Center for American Progress, and publicizing op-eds that he enjoys and with which, of course, he agrees. His Twitter behavior shows someone committed to the kind of conversation and community that typify the medium -- remarkably, he follows nearly as many people as follow him. As a progressive who enjoys intelligent debate, I regularly read Rove's op-eds in the Thursday Wall Street Journal. But until Twitter, the only public rebuttal I could make was muttering under my breath and shaking my head while riding the subway.

Admiral Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is another public official that has, I think, used Twitter very effectively. In some ways, Mullen hasn't really embraced the communitarian nature of the Twitter community; for example, his account only follows the high profile tweeters being indexed by WeFollow.com. It is also quite possible that a staffer rather than Mullen himself is uploading the posts. That said, the posts do seem to come directly from Mullen and expose an otherwise unseen side of the country's highest ranking military officer. His posts are chock full of empathy, enthusiasm and gratitude, doling out praise and offering candid status updates.

Here are some representative tweets from Mullen:

Recorded a video greeting to Gold Stars Wives of America. The network of support they offer each other and others in grief inspires me.

Arrived home last night, terrific trip! Rich in experience and feedback. Troops proud of difference they are making, and I am proud of them.

Neither of these men use Twitter to simply advance an agenda, show off their savvy understanding of digital media, or generate publicity for themselves. They use it for different purposes -- Rove for discussion and Mullen for dispatches -- but in ways that are appropriate both for their stations and for the medium.

Officials who don't 'get it'

There's a counter-narrative here, however. In March, political columnist Charlie Cook railed against public officials' use of Twitter:

I have yet to hear a single intelligent remark Twittered by an elected official... The vacuous utterances Twittered daily from members of Congress make me wonder how they have the time to spend keying in on such banalities and marveling over the narcissism implicit in their belief that anyone cares about their every single thought and reaction to contemporaneous events.

To be fair, the eloquence and insight of elected officials is pretty constrained by Twitter's 140 character limit. And there's a learning curve that representatives (and their staffs) have to grapple with when dealing with this new platform.

But if the way we communicate influences the way we think, how might a medium that encourages instantaneous, ineloquent and unsophisticated communication affect our legislators' deliberative processes?

I got a possible answer when I went to TweetCongress.org, which aggregates all of the Twitter feeds of House and Senate members. As I pored through the tweets, I found myself agreeing with Cook's worrying observation. Are our elected officials using Twitter to get around the traditional media filter and communicate directly with their constituents, something, as I've previously observed, the Obama campaign did well? I'll let them speak for themselves:

Paul Ryan (R-WI): Will talk with Brian and the Judge at 10:35 am ET. To listen live: http://www.foxnews.com/radio/brianandthejudge/

Barbara Boxer (D-CA): Gearing up to talk health care w/ Carlos Watson on MSNBC- 11:05am EST, 8:05am PST. Tune in!

Mike Pence (R-IN): I'm on my way to appear on @foxnews with @gretawire at 10 PM EDT to talk about the Democrat #healthbill, the gov't takeover of #healthcare

John McCain (R-AZ): Watch Hannity tonight -- on @ 9:00 pm discussing health care and the need for the right reform!

Christopher Dodd (D-CT): Headed to the Senate floor to speak about Health Care reform. You can watch live on C-Span2

There certainly are some good examples of public officials using Twitter to communicate candidly with new audiences. In addition to Mullen and Rove, the British Prime Minister's office maintains a fine Twitter account, as does Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Barham Salih.

But watching our elected officials turn their Twitter accounts into publicity outlets for their cable news appearances strikes me as a sort of redundancy ad absurdum. If our representatives continue to fail to use Twitter for its nobler purposes (like thoughtful, if concise, constituent communications), I'll continue to be reminded of this ominous quote from Ayn Rand's "The Fountainhead":

People want nothing but mirrors around them to reflect them while they're reflecting too. You know, like the senseless infinity you get from two mirrors facing each other across a narrow passage. Usually in the more vulgar kind of hotels. Reflections of reflections and echoes of echoes. No beginning and no end. No center and no purpose.

What government officials do you follow on Twitter? Which are your favorites and least favorites? Let us know in the comments below.

Mark Hannah has spent the past several years conducting sensitive public affairs campaigns for well-known multinational corporations, major industry organizations and influential non-profits. He specializes in issues and reputation management online. Before joining the PR agency world (v-Fluence Interactive and Edelman), Mark worked for the Kerry-Edwards presidential campaign as a member of the national advance staff. He's more recently conducted advance work for the Obama-Biden campaign. He is a member of the Public Relations Society of America and a fellow at the Society for New Communications Research, and he serves as an awards judge for both organizations. A graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, he's currently pursuing a master's in strategic communications at Columbia University. He is an independent communications consultant based in New York City and the public relations correspondent for MediaShift. You can reach him at markphannah[at]gmail[dot]com.

A recent piece in the New York Times detailed how PR agencies in Silicon Valley get their clients' news in front of the key influencers who drive stories within the entire blogosphere. In one scene in the article, a publicist named Brooke Hammerling discusses how she plans to get placements for a particular client:

Instead, she decides that she will 'whisper in the ears' of Silicon Valley's Who's Who -- the entrepreneurs behind tech's hottest startups, including Jay Adelson, the chief executive of Digg; Biz Stone, co-founder of Twitter; and Jason Calacanis, the founder of Mahalo.

But how do these PR professionals identify the Who's Who in their clients' niches? And once they've identified them, how do they approach them for coverage? With nearly every major and minor industry spending more money on social media strategies, publicity professionals are scrambling to locate and develop relationships with those who they think will have the most influence in a particular field. But in a world with millions of active blogs, Twitter accounts, and social news users, how do they break through the noise to identify and persuade the key players?

Finding the big names

Jonathan Trenn, a consultant for Abraham Harrison, a digital marketing company in the DC area, said that if he's starting from scratch with a client he'll use free tools like blog search engine Technorati to locate the bloggers he wants to contact. Specifically, he searches for the tags that the bloggers use with their posts, because this is an indicator of whether the person writes regularly on a particular subject.

"It'll give you a list of blogs to look at," he told me. "You basically start clicking through, and it's essential that you read the blog and get to know it a bit, maybe start categorizing it or put it in a database. But essentially you want to get to know what they are about, see if they're updated frequently."

Technorati and other search tools allow him to then rank the blogs by authority. He said he begins with focusing on the most influential blogs. But he hastened to add that this is only a starting point, and that he can then begin clicking through these blogs' blogrolls or even approach the bloggers directly to ask them for more recommendations.

"Late last year I was doing some work with a company called ooVoo," he said. "They're a competitor to Skype, only they use video. They can have six screens at once...We came up with the idea of having a 'political day.' We reached out to prominent political bloggers to essentially hold their own chats for a day, or a series of days. With that I wanted to make it diverse, from political philosophy to demographic, so I reached out to different types of blogs. I asked them who else I should contact. We had 15 to 18 bloggers -- left, center, right, African American, Latino, what have you -- and they each had their own sessions."

Adam Ritchie, who works in brand promotion in Boston, takes a slightly different approach in deciding whom to target. He begins by identifying the competitors and other players in his clients' industries -- meaning people such as CEOs and publicity spokespersons. He then runs their names through news and blog searches to find which journalists and bloggers are already writing about them.

"So what you get from this is a list of outlets and actual articles; the writers who are writing them who are your most relevant targets because they're already engaged in writing about that space," he told me. "And by doing this you've already answered the question, 'Why would you care?' If you're starting a hardware store in DC, you would look at who's writing about Home Depot and Lowe's, because whoever is writing about them is writing about hardware."

When approaching bloggers, he said that he typically starts with blogs run by traditional media outlets, because these are "written by trained, seasoned reporters who usually know how to work the communications path" and who are "paid to produce good content." He then focuses on what he calls the "indie bloggers," whom he rates by quality of writing, frequency of updates, and how entrenched they are in other social media like Twitter and Facebook.

"For me, it's completely qualitative," he explained. "I want to see what they're writing about, rather than which of them has the biggest reach in terms of eyeballs. Which of them would tell the most robust stories about this piece of news? And that's what I care about the most. Because if it's really good, then the bigger ones will pick it up."

The New PR model

Ritchie explained that in the old PR world, the agency would simply place the news in traditional outlets and be done with it. But with the new model, once you've placed the story, you've opened a new phase of work -- and that's when the social media part begins. You then take that news story from a trusted outlet and begin trying to spread it into the blogosphere and social news sites, drawing more eyeballs to it than the publication's typical audience.

But how do they approach these bloggers and social media users? Almost everyone I spoke to for this piece immediately agreed that most bloggers think very differently than traditional journalists; they tend to shy away from the old methods that PR people have in the past used to engage reporters. Ritchie said that he hasn't sent out a press release in years, going so far as to say, "I don't believe in press releases."

"A lot of blogs will pick up a press release, and it's true that press releases have found new life among indie bloggers that are hungry for content," he said. "But quality writers for quality blogs aren't going to regurgitate a press release, and you're not winning in the long run by sending the press release to small and independent bloggers because you're not building personal relationships by carpet bombing them. We want to be on a personal basis with them, and sending them a press release isn't going to accomplish much for the next time you want to approach them."

Ritchie said that he sends a personal note with a "buffet of options" for the blogger -- whether it's a YouTube clip, a mainstream press article, or even an original scoop -- so that he or she can choose how to engage the story.

Christine Perkett, president and founder of PerkettPR, said that bloggers often differ from journalists in that they aren't writing about these subjects as a full-time job, meaning they will approach the story differently than would a reporter.

"I think for a lot of the niche bloggers, it's like a second job for them so they don't have as much time as a reporter would have to dedicate to that kind of approach," she explained. "They don't really regurgitate press releases, and I would say for the most part the consumer bloggers and niche bloggers have been really great; they give their opinion on the news, and that's really what they do. I think they do write up their own take on it, but they don't necessarily need an interview to go along with that, or they're satisfied talking to the PR person."

So while she might try to get an interview with a client's CEO for a regular reporter, many bloggers aren't really interested in that sort of thing. So she said it's better to hand them something that's easy for them to splice into a post, like a link to an already-written article that they can summarize and offer their own take.

One thing that PR professionals have found within social media is a tendency for badly run campaigns to backfire. If a journalist receives a bad pitch or poorly targeted press release, he'll often just ignore it. But it's not uncommon for a blogger to publish the press release or email on his blog, ridiculing the person or agency that sent it to him. But Perkett told me she thinks this is a good thing.

"They've got to be more careful," she said,"but you know what? It's OK, because it's making the PR industry better. Maybe bloggers are beating us into being a better industry, because one of the traditional problems with PR agencies, and especially large PR agencies, is the whole smile-and-dial thing. Not really researching or paying attention to what writers are writing, or what bloggers are blogging, and just using the same pitch over and over. It takes time to do it the right way, and that doesn't make a lot of money for the large firms. That's unfortunate, but we're being forced to change and I think it's making us better."

Simon Owens is a former newspaper journalist and an associate editor for MediaShift. You can read more of his writing at his blog or contact him at simon[.]bloggasm [at] gmail.com.

Profile

Steve Rubel

Age: 39

Hometown & Current Location: Long Island, NY

Favorite Websites: Gmail, Friendfeed, Posterous, Google Reader, NYTimes.com, Instapaper

Online Persona (all the places to find you online): Lifestream site, Facebook page, Twitter feed, Friendfeed page, Google Profile.

What Makes Him a Thought Leader: Rubel was one of the first PR people to take up active blogging back in 2004, and his Micropersuasion blog has been a must-read A-list blog since then. Rubel is now senior vice president, director of insights, for Edelman Digital, looking at technology, media and online trends. He has more than 27,000 followers on Twitter and writes a bi-weekly column for Advertising Age magazine.

What He's Doing Now: The biggest change for Rubel was mothballing his Micropersuasion blog and putting all his efforts into a lifestream site run through Posterous. He can now post more frequently and embed more multimedia easily into his stream. He told me the new site gets twice the traffic of his blog, likely because of the higher volume of posts, the curiosity of people who want to see his new site, and his experimentation on the site.

Q&A

I spoke with Rubel a couple months ago when he was visiting San Francisco for the Ad:tech conference. We met at B Restaurant near Moscone Center and I interviewed him with my Flip camera. We talked about his balancing act as a blogger/journalist/PR person, how PR is shifting with the advent of social media, and what lessons Edelman and Edelman's client Wal-Mart have learned from previous missteps online. Here's the edited video from that chat (apologies for the background noise), with notations below on particular questions and subjects if you'd like to jump to topics of interest to you.

01:48: Blogs losing their luster to Twitter and other online forms of expression.

02:52: Elephants (social media) and zebras (old media) mating, creating...?

03:58: What's the next big thing in social media?

05:44: Rubel got in trouble with PC Magazine by saying he doesn't read it anymore.

06:50: Social media has become an integral part of PR.

08:30: Will PR companies hire marketer-programmers?

08:58: What's the biggest mistake PR people make online?

09:55: Celebrities cut out the PR middleman by using Twitter, social media themselves.

11:05: What Wal-Mart and Edelman learned from past PR mistakes online.

12:30: Is the press release outdated, and should it be replaced with "social media press release"?

13:40: What's the best way for brands to track themselves on social media?

*****

What do you think about the changes happening in PR? Do you think social media has become an integral part of a PR person's daily routine? Share your thoughts in the comments below.