The other big way social networking can assist public relations practitioners is that they can make connections with other professionals all over the world. People can connect through social networking sites, such as facebook and linkedin, blog posts or RSS feeds. They can follow professionals they are particularly interested in and start an online relationship with them. You never know when your contacts will come in handy when you’re looking to get your story out there, find a job or get a recommendation.

Facebook especially is a huge tool used in the public relations field. There are pages, groups and ads for companies everywhere. Although it may seem weird at first because facebook started as a site just for college students, it is important to recognize this shift and use facebook as a professional tool, too. Jean Pitzer raises the idea that facebook may not be around forever in her blog. She questions the future of facebook:

As Facebook becomes more popular, it will attract the same kind of attention from advertisers and spammers that MySpace has. One of the things people love about Facebook is how personal it is, but its growing commercialization could make it lose its appeal. This begs the question, is this effort to transform Facebook into a business tool a hex to the service and a wasted effort? Or, is it possible to learn from the mistakes of Facebook’s competitors and effectively break into this space?

Heather Yaxley has a great article on her blog about how to use the internet and networking to your fullest advantage as a PR practitioner. Some of my favorite points are: remember to engage in conversations (leave comments), track what is being said about you using an alert system, think multimedia and “build your google juice”. The full list can be viewed here.

The New York Times featured an article, How to Use Social Networking Sites for Marketing and PR, that discussed the importance of keeping your profiles on these sites professional. One tip that I found particularly useful is “check out their public profile before engaging them in a conversation. Chances are you might have a connection, whether it’s a college, a personal interest, or a shared skill such as speaking the same foreign language.”

The important thing to remember about using social networking for PR is to remember to always keep it professional, and don’t be one-sided about it–comment, follow and build relationships using online sites created for doing so.

Public relations practitioners have recognized this new desire for alternative media. This site allows you to create an online press release using a simple wizard that allows you to encorporate videos, photos and other file sharing tools. Prxbuilder can also distribute your releases uses non-traditional media outlets.

Here is a quote from Kevin Dugan that I think says it all:

“News can be targeted by community participation, posted to a blog, included in a podcast and a variety of other means, you don’t need to blanket the world. Use the right medium, audio, video, print, mash-up, others to convey the story…You are your own media outlet, create a channel like blip.tv, blog, podcast, slide share, and make it easy for users to share with others. Video is not limited to TV, fully integrated multimedia news organizations may well be the right target for a pitch that was previously considered the realm of television.”

It is important to recognize the change from traditional media to new media and embrace it. If you try to run and hide from multimedia tools because you are technologically shy, you will only fall behind and lose audience members.

The first important thing to do if you are planning on pitching to a blogger is to familiarize yourself with their blog. It is best if you can start commenting and linking to their blog before you need something from them. Then, you are already on a more personal level, which is part of what blogging is about. Bloggers are aware of PR practitioners discovering this new medium, and generally will not welcome a PR pitch with open arms. Jeff Pulver provides a nice example of what I’m talking about.

Bloggers do not like to be generalized. They blog about unique and various subjects, so it is never recommended to pitch in a way like you would deliver a press release to hundreds of journalists. It is very important to know your blogger and what they write about, or else they will just be annoyed with you. You should address them personally and include some brief information about yourself, including reminding them of any communication you had with them in the past. You should also make it clear in the beginning who you work for, what you want from them, and the benefits they can receive if choosing to blog about your idea. More information about this can be found on Darren Rowse’s blog.

In Dan Schawbel’s blog he suggests using social media in your pitch. This is the kind of stuff bloggers appreciate and they may find your pitch more beneficial to them. Using new technology is more appropriate than when pitching to a journalist who doesn’t want to receive any extra attachments or links. When pitching a blogger, the traditional rules are thrown out the window.

However, this does not mean you should not follow general media relations guidelines. Of course you still want to be polite and professional, but without using too much PR jargon. Jim Lodico has some very valuable advice on how to get a blogger interested in your pitch. He discusses the importance of offering access to events, contest prizes, valuable content without copyright limitations, and even an affiliate relationship.

It is important to recognize that bloggers as well as PR practitioners are becoming familiar with this new practice of pitching to the blogger. PR practitioners cannot expect their pitches to go over well unless they realize they must make some changes in their method of delivery to catch the bloggers interest.

Your e-mail should be written in a professional manner. It is very unprofessional to use abbreviations such as: 2, u, ttyl, thx, lol, etc. Your e-mail should follow proper grammar rules and be spelled correctly. If spelling is your weakness, use the spell check–almost all e-mail services provide this! If you do not do these things, it looks like you do not care about detail and are a lazy person, which are never perceived as good qualities.

You don’t want your e-mail to be too formal and stuffy, so try to word it like a conversation. You don’t need to use big words, but you also shouldn’t write like an uneducated adult.

If you need to send the same e-mail to multiple people, use blind carbon copy (bcc) so your recipients can’t see all of the other recipients e-mail addresses. This is also to keep the e-mail clean looking, because it doesn’t look neat or professional when you get a fwd e-mail with 50 addresses at the top. The proper way to do this is explained on this website. This is just a part of showing respect for your recipients. Another way to show respect is to ask before forwarding an e-mail from someone.

If at all possible, it is best to avoid sending attachments. If it is short enough, it is best to copy and paste whatever you are sending directly into the body of the e-mail. If it is longer, it is okay to provide a outline and ask if it is okay to send an attachment. Many people do not like attachments because they can carry viruses. Also, they take up space on the computer’s hard drive, so if the person does not know what you are sending and why it is important they look at it, they will often just delete the whole e-mail.

The best e-mails are short and to the point. The reason for the e-mail is specified in the first few sentences and the entire e-mail is no longer than a few paragraphs.

The most professional way to end your e-mail is with a signature that includes your name, title, contact information, and possibly even a website (this could be your blog!) This information and additional tips are expanded on in Guy Kawasaki’s blog.

When I came across Albrycht’s article, I realized that the article was part of a project regarding blogs and public relations. If this is something that interests you, I would recommend exploring this site.

Another very important thing to understand about blogs is their power to reach the masses. Blogs have become an additional medium for communicators. I came across a fantastic article with some great quotes from blogging and social media expert Don Crowther. Here is one that really stuck out to me:

“What the traditional media doesn’t recognize is that many bloggers, though unrestrained by traditional journalistic methods and ethics, have audiences and actual readership larger than many newspapers, television and radio shows,” Crowther said. “Plus this audience is often more loyal and able to be influenced than that of traditional media, giving bloggers tremendous power to shape opinions, actions and purchasing behavior.”

These days, major companies are contacting bloggers in hopes to win their approval and be mentioned in their blog. Some even go as far as sending free samples, or providing free tickets/press passes to an event, hoping that the blogger will cover it. It is certainly cheaper than advertising, and possibly even more effective because consumers realize that bloggers are real people, which creates a certain level of trust. I would highly recommend checking out Crowther’s website if you are interested in learning the latest PR trends.

Several big companies are catching on and creating their own blogs. For example, Procter and Gamble has experimented with this. Click here to see one of the blogs for yourself.

Controversy usually surrounds topics of new interest, and this one is no exception. I, however, certainly believe that blogs will open many doors for PR practitioners.

Social media is particularly useful for PR practitioners because of PR’s focus on relationships and communications between people. Social media was basically created because of people’s desires to get closer to one another, and more involved in different aspects of one another’s lives. Social media allows creation of distinct communities.

Public relations practitioners can use social media to examine communities, which may also be categorized as target audiences. They can study similarities of people in these social media groups. Joseph Thornley expands on these ideas in his blog.

Some different types of social media are: blogs, wikis, RSS feeds, Facebook, Myspace, Flickr, YouTube, Delicious, Twitter, LinkedIn, Digg and Slideshare. An interesting social media website I came across strictly for PR practitioners is myragan.com.

Social media is definitely the next big thing for PR practitioners. Those who don’t choose to learn about it and use it to benefit their practice will certainly be putting themselves at a disadvantage in the profession.

The second tip listed was to allow and respond to comments. It said that if you disable comments, you are disabling Web 2.0 communications, which is an essential part of a blog. More tips from this site can be found here.

A tip I found mentioned on nearly every site was to keep blog posts short and to the point. A common word count is 250. One article I read said to never go above 1,000 words, and if your post is long, to use subheadings.

Posting regularly and networking with other bloggers are two other important points I came across while researching blogging. On this website , it said to thank a blogger if you see that they have mentioned your blog on their post. The article also suggested ways to monitor links, traffic, comments and mentions of your blog by using different websites.

I found a lot of these blog tip websites stressed the importance of a domain name and using a site that will let you create your own. I even found a recommendation to create a logo on this website.