I am currently working with the latest group of interns at the office. Some of the brightest young minds in PR (Seriously, I’m intimidated) are jumping face first into the world of PR and digital media. I got to meet with them today and we talked a bit about the importance of how you are perceived by your peers and the influencers you work with.

Brand your personality

Yes, I know, we don’t like the phrase “personal branding.” But it works. We know what it means, so I’m going to use it. If every interaction you have with an influencer is a pitch, how does that affect all future interactions? I think that it is important that a PR pro’s relationship with an influencer, from Kara Swisher to a hyper-local news blog, be symbiotic.

If both parties are benefiting, then the relationship is much more productive. This is especially crucial in direct-to-consumer efforts when you may be working directly with an influencer throughout an event or media tour. Your personality becomes one of the most important aspect of your professional repertoire.

Be yourself

I do my best to be myself around an influencer that I will be working with in the future. But what else can you do to help maintain your place in the wide world of PR? Here’s my ideas:

• Walk the walk. Start a blog, learn about SEO, go shopping, become a PR Geek. The point is if you share the passion and excitement of a product you want your influencer to share with his or her audience, it will be far easier to tell that story.
• Be seen. Get out and meet the people you want covering your clients. Be part of the community. Be active and engage with them.
• Be genuine. Hopefully you end up representing clients you like and getting involved is easy. On the off chance you are stretching yourself daily, I think that sometimes it is OK to admit you are learning the space or learning the products and admit you are not an expert.
• Reach out and touch somebody. Once you establish a relationship. Maybe it was a successful placement of a pitch; could have been a cocktail hour. Whatever the start was, it is up to you as the PR pro to continue the relationship. Tweet them, comment on posts and maybe even give a phone call.
• Have an opinion. In this industry, it is important to be forward thinking and it’s not OK to put that opinion out there. Start a blog or even ask me (or somebody far more popular) if you can guest post.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on the type of persona you think a PR pro should have. Tell me in the comments and let me know!

As public relations professionals, part of our job is to monitor and influence our clients’ reputation. All one needs to do is set up a news or blog alert for “Insert client name here” sucks. In no time you will see a constant flow of detractors, fanboys of competitors and the occasional piece of valuable feedback. I had the good fortune to spend a day at SMX Advanced, a conference put on by Search Engine Land, which is a top influential outlet in the search space. The conference is focused at SEO/SEM/PPC, but there were some tremendous nuggets for PR as well.

Real-time search

We all tweet, facebook (yes, it’s a verb too), blog and text. We are surrounded by the real-time Web. It is alive and learning about us as fast as we learn about it. But to a search engine, it’s just data. Google announced during the show that its caffeine update was live. Google Caffeine is essentially a real-time index of any document pushed live to the Web. If it is publicly viewable, the Google bot is poised to index it and list it in SERPs in near real-time.

In addition, Bing (and soon Yahoo!) also cull social sites in real time. It has integrated the Twitter firehose to flow in public tweets. Remember, it’s available as soon as you hit send.

Real-time ranking factors

The real-time Web is all about content. Strong content published by authoritative users across active networks is content that search engines love. Search engines tend to skew toward relevancy over recency. Just because a post is new, it is not the best. With Google and Bing hooked directly into Twitter’s “firehose,” both are constantly evolving how they parse this data.

Here, you can see how Google is handling tweets, blog posts and other recent content for SMX Advanced.

The links on the right are dynamic and change to reflect not only current trends, but also authoritative pieces of content. Engagement does not appear to be a major factor in establishing authority for real-time ranking. For some accounts, it is able to rank high because people RT, click the links and otherwise interact with its content.

Author quality, quality of the site being linked to and the “freshness” of the content on that site all have an effect on how links being shared rank.

Other possible factors that affect real-time rankings:

• Recent activity: An active account is a crawled account. This means using it for more than just sending out your news. Sharing other content will keep it spider fresh.
• Keywords in user name: This can be hard for groups such as Education. But a possible best practice is to establish two accounts. One for engaging and one for broadcasting.
• Age: Well-established accounts tend to rank higher.
• Tweet quantity, ratio of follow/followed and lists: These appear to have limited influence on some algorithms but are important to consider.

Real-time content strategies

This is about getting your content found beyond when you have an announcement. We have been championing a digital strategy that utilizes multi-media content when pitching a story. But a blog should not just be a pitch vehicle.

Based on this, it makes sense to counsel your clients to use their digital properties to generate discussion on their respective sites. Coverage is great, becoming an influencer is better. Unify your content and make your blog or your FaceBook page an on-going discussion hub.

Accomplishing this requires one thing: Content. Well, not just content. Content that people want to read. Content that adds value. Content that solves a business problem. So, how do you make sure that you are creating quality content?

• Monitor hot trends. Tools such as Google Insights and Bing xRank can show evolving search trends, who is sending traffic to your site and even what site broke a story so you can be sure to link to those sites.
• Get your fans/customers to share your services. Using solutions such as ShareThis, visitors to a website can quickly share your your content across multiple networks. The discussion point here is, should higher emphasis be placed on niche sharing sites such as the Bing blog being shared on Sphinn?
• Employ content that appeals to social-savvy audiences. The adage “Brevity is Beautiful” applies here.
• Don’t update multiple accounts on Twitter. Instead, utilize the old method of “retweeting.” Establish a main account and let others RT that.
• Don’t create content that is keyword saturated. Some Web crawlers view this content as Spam. Also, spammy-looking tweet streams will be eliminated and using multiple hashtags will cause an account to be flagged
• Don’t use same IP address for many accounts. This is a technical concern. I don’t know how it affects people in the same office using Tweetdeck as an example.

The real-time toolbox

Of course, these tips, tricks and hints would be useless if I didn’t give you the methods to use them, right? Below is a huge list of some great apps and tools for monitoring various social networks, social sharing sites and even forums (yes, forums).

List of apps for monitoring and interacting:

• Google Insights: Custom search trends
• Rowfeeder: monitor Twitter and Facebook conversations based on keywords. Import into a Google Spreadsheet
• Social Mention: pull out mentions and other metrics
• ScoutLabs: Paid solution that combines Social CRM with tracking/monitoring.
• Twitter widgets: Customizable Twitter widgets that can be embedded on any website.
• Friendorfollow: Establishes your follwers/followees for mutual relationships.
• Klout: A standardized measure of a Twitter account’s influence/
• Wildfire: manage contests and promotions. Can track the FaceBook fan ID and allow you to followup.
• Knowem: Username check across multiple social networks
• Digg Alerter: Notifies you when you get votes or hit the Digg front page.
• di66.net: Digg stats
• Big Boards: monitor message boards and forums.
• OMGILI: bulletin board and forum search engine.

For more tools, check out Tony Adam’s presentation from SMX Advanced.

Wow, that’s a lot of information. And I have more. I am more than happy to answer questions as best as I can. There are a few more points I would like to pontificate on at a later point. But for now, let me know what your real-time strategies are.

Special thanks to Stew Langille, Vice President, Marketing, Mint.com; John Shehata, Director of SEO & Social Media, Advance Internet, Inc.; Chris Silver Smith, Director of Optimization Strategies, KeyRelevance and Danny Sullivan, Editor-in-Chief, Search Engine Land for their presentation at the conference.

But when things are busy, it’s hard to be timely. So, I want to run a little experiment. I want you to tell me what to write. Yup, simply fill out the form with something PR related that you would like to see my perspective on. I’m not a big name, but I’m honest.

Oh, and comments welcome.

Old tactics, new results?

This post originally appeared on PR Breakfast Club. Enjoy.

In the business world, thinking outside the box is the unofficial motto. In public relations, we’re tasked with being creative thinkers. Our clients want us to find different ways to get in front of influencers and, ultimately, customers.

But we are so quick to focus on what’s next, sometimes we do it at the expense of what’s current.

ADOS

Peter Shankman says he suffers from ADOS: Attention Deficit … ooooh shiny! And I think that as PR people we’re guilty of it too. Our clients sometimes push back on us with the charge to be “more creative.” But what is the cost of creativity?

It comes down to a simple ROI calculation. If clients value a mention in a metro print publication more than 50 tweets, perhaps your creative thinking time is best spent taking the metro writer out for coffee or trying to line up a desk-side meeting. If the time you spend trying to be “creative” outweighs the rewards of the action, then it is not worth it.

Defining creativity

I’ve embraced this newfangled “Internet” thing. I know how to hand-code a blog entry, complete with some SEO tricks and I know about metrics in the social media space. But I also know how to dial a phone, send an email or go to an event to connect.

My point is that depending on your goals, news or message you’re trying to send, each of those tactics could be called creative. What some of us consider a de facto tactic in any PR campaign, others would consider it experimental and risky. Again, it all comes down to knowing your client and its goals.

In order to define creativity, you need to be aligned with your client and its goals. Pretty simple stuff, right?

The creativity plateau

I think we might be in a creativity plateau. Hosting a blogger dinner is no longer innovative. A campaign to comment on influencers’ blogs is not cutting edge. SEO for public relations (see what I did there?) is an established industry.

I think we’ve hit a temporary plateau. And that’s OK. It is OK to use established and effective tactics to generate reliable results. It is not imperative that every PR campaign feature a door-to-door singing telegram for every reporter in New York. Actually, maybe that’s not a bad idea…

What do you think?

Social Media is a noun, not a verb.

Social media is something you use. It is not something you do. I’ve talked before about my tool box metaphor and how each type of person has a different use for social media.

Businesses want to be social

From Realtors to restaurateurs, from financial planners to former journalists (that’s me), businesses are looking to be “social.” They want to connect and interact and share content. Which is great. But all the talks about content creation and sharing made me start to wonder about reaching a saturation point.

Thinkers vs. doers

One of the reasons I wanted to go to SoFresh was because the speakers were the doers. They were the faces behind the brands. They were implementing the tactics they were educating the rest of us on and they were successful with it.

We’re all learners

I have a tendency to be a skeptical jerk when it comes to conference sessions. I find myself yearning for tactical breakdowns of best practices or metrics rather than the messages that some call “social media 101.” But sometimes getting back to basics can be a good thing. Such as when Peter Shankman, aka @skydiver, said “Good writing will save society.” That rocked.

What would lead you to call a conference a success? What makes you like the sessions? Share them in the comments!

On to the photos:

Shauna Causey shows us how her work/life balance.

Blue Sky Factory at Social Fresh Portland.

Vik & Monica showing their Social Fresh spirit.

If you want good pictures of you speaking, remove the objects.

Bryan Rhoads from Intel.

Peter Shankman and Jason Keith get ready for the afternoon keynote.

Peter Shankman and Jason Keith

Hard at work before the afternoon keynote.

Here in spirit.

Shauna Causey and Carri Bugbee kick off a panel at Social Fresh Portland.

Panelists at Social Fresh Portland.

@karianne multi tasks at Social Fresh Portland.

Ready to learn.

Lots of great content at SoFresh.

@cspenn educates @vikdug about Blue Sky Factory.

The Radian6 folks discuss SoFresh Portland tone.

@jakrose gets ready to kick off Social Fresh Portland.

Seattle was in the house at the Social Fresh Portland party.

Something must have been hilarious at the Social Fresh Portland party.

The Social Fresh Portland party at West Cafe

So, I was quite humbled when I was asked to contribute to one of the up and coming communities of bloggers at PRBreakfastClub. For an idea of why I am so excited to do this, you only need to look at the other bloggers on the site.

What do I bring to the table? I’m hoping a lot. I will be focused on a few of the things that I talk about here: federally regulated industries, B2B public relations, technical how tos and other best-practicey topics. To anybody who has found me from #PRBC, welcome here. I promise I’ll post regular content here to.

In the meantime, what do you want to see? What topics would you like to see me cover here or at PRBreakfastClub?

So, there I sat. On a plane. In a town car. In a drive through at In-n-Out. In the Lobby of the Las Vegas Hilton. And then it started…

Hanging in the speaker room before the session.

I started seeing people. I first saw Gregarious “Greg” Narain and Brett Petersel. I saw Lucretia Pruitt, AKA Geekmommy. I saw Aaron Brazell. And, I saw myself. I saw myself in all the new people I met. I got to see some of the “new media” minds that are going beyond social media 101 and into the Ivy Leagues of “Prove it.”

I’m still not terribly sure how to express the thoughts and ideas from the experience. I think the best way is to highlight a couple of people and have you read their words. For now.

Mark Story. Not enough words can be said about this guy. Mark is the Director of New Media for the SEC and was he savior of our panel. He is a smart guy with a personality as big as I am. Mark, many thanks for helping out with the panel and for your words of wisdom and encouragement.

Doug Haslam. Doug is a PR idol. He works for Boston-based SHIFT Communications.

Jason Falls. Falls made this happen. Thank you for letting the motley crew talk about PR and new communications practices in a federally regulated world.

Aaron Strout. All-around good guy. Glad to meet you. And destroy you in the Fatburger eating contest.

Jennifer Leggio. Jennifer is a super-smart blogger and commenter on many different topics. But her perspective on the security and privacy in social networks is priceless. Cuts a pretty mean rug too.

The Ken Yeung. Aloha, bradda! Thank you for your lens that does not filter out based on standing or celebrity. A-listers or E-listers, they’re all in your pictures.

I could really continue this list for a number of weeks. But I won’t. What I will do, however, is ask you to spotlight somebody you’ve met recently in the comments.

But I liked the title. I’ve just left the BlogWorld and New Media Expo in wonderful Lost Wages and I’ve come to a fun realization.

My life rocks. I got to meet all kinds of rad people this week and learn a few new things on top of it. I’m going to do an “official” summary when my brain recovers, but for now, just accept my thank you to everybody who made the last few days remarkable.

But here I wanted to share a bit about what the opportunity means to me personally. I have the opportunity to sit on a panel alongside Shannon Paul, Mark Story and a special guest I’ll reveal later. For those of you that don’t know, Shannon built and implemented the social media strategy for the Detroit Red Wings and Mark is the Director of new media for the SEC.

I am the unknown on this panel. I am the underdog in this story.

But that’s OK. I get to represent myself, my knowledge and my skills in front of an audience of bloggers, new media professionals and assorted Web celebrities.

The bigger picture

Speaking at conferences is a sort of currency in the new media world. And I am making my first deposit. I like saying that good ideas are not confined to the big names in this industry and this is my opportunity to prove it.

I have a few weeks to get over the nerves and prep my thoughts and get new cards made up. I have a few weeks to ponder what words I will use to describe my ideas facing the public relations industry. As I write this, Don Draper on Mad Men said “Our worst fears lie in anticipation.” I think that is a fitting theme for this post.

If you’re thinking about embarking on a new adventure, there is no time like the present to put your head down and charge into it full steam. Fear of failing is failure. If you are crippled by the possibility of what might happen, then you will never know what is possible. So, now’s the time to submit that proposal or write that post.

See you in Vegas…

Here’s the quick background: TechCrunch obtained multiple documents from an alleged hacker who had broken into Twitter employee’s email accounts, Google Documents (There’s a reason it’s not compliant, but that’s a different issue) and other documents and information. TechCrunch verified w/Twitter and its lawyers the accuracy of the documents and even interviewed them. Then they published some of the documents. They were even kind enough to redact personal information.

Journalism 101

From the days of muckraking and yellow journalism, obtained documents have been one of the best sources of great information for reporters. The methods and tactics used to acquire these documents range from the legal (Washington Public Records Act, Federal Freedom of Information Act) to the potentially unethical.

But here’s an important step that separates journalist from sensationalist: The journalist attempts to verify the information before publishing. The Sensationalist does not.

As a holder of an actual, real-life journalism degree, I sat through hours of press law and have filled out my fair share of information requests. I have also obtained information through anonymous sources or obtained information in other ways. And I used those documents. But after verifying on my own.

The right to publish

Now, the debate over whether or not TechCrunch should have published or not is broken into two parts:

• Is the information newsworthy?
• Is the information “off limits?”

The newsworthiness discussion is for another day. I am focused on the ethics involved in publishing the documents. TechCrunch absolutely acted within the boundaries of accepted journalistic ethics in publishing those documents. If it had simply published the entire .zip file without making an attempt to check facts or redact personal information, it would have been very out of line.

Instead, it looked for the information it deemed “newsworthy” and ran with it. To recap, it verified the information with Twitter, attempted to elicit on-the-record comment from Twitter and published the information that was applicable to the story it accompanied. TechCrunch even solicited comment from third-party companies named in the documents.

One could also make the argument that Ev and Biz and some of the Twitter team are “Limited Purpose Public Figures.” This means that some of their information is subject to federal and state open records laws and that their expectations of privacy are a bit different than the average citizen.

In this case, the combination of a good journalist and a good lawyer are difficult to beat.

Should they have published

Well, in my opinion yes and no. If TechCrunch wants to use this as a standard for applying journalistic ethics to its reporting (coverage?), then great. But the fact is that TechCrunch is a blog. Its writers express opinion and insert themselves into the stories they are writing. Independant sources are a rarity, as is interviews with the subjects they’re writing about.

I’ve written about the difference between blogger and journalist before, and I think it is completely applicable here. And this gets right to the heart of the debate. If the New York Times had published those documents, would we have even flinched?

I’m sure my opinion is different than some, so tell me what you think.