Now, I’m not here to say that PR is dead. Far from it actually. But the old school version of it has to be put out of its misery. It is simply no longer relevant.

If your company is still only leveraging a traditional PR and media relations approach (relying heavily on the media) to connect with audiences you are missing some great opportunities to connect with your customers in meaningful ways.

In PR one of our main goals is to get our company’s (or client’s) story told in the best way possible to the most relevant audience possible.

Companies may feel that they are getting full value out of public relations activities, but if you are not strategically leveraging social media within your PR activities you are only getting a fraction of the possible outcomes.

And this means your company may be missing the cool aspects that social media can offer.

We all now have the tools to find the right audience and share stories with many, many people in direct and meaningful ways. Plus you can create an ongoing instantaneous two-way dialog with key existing and potential customers. That’s hard to beat.

But what does this really mean?

This process isn’t as simple as loading a clever Wordpress blog theme and writing up a piece about your company’s latest press release.

To create an analogy – PR 1.0 only offers the pre-game promotion and commentary for Sunday’s big football game.

PR 2.0 allows us to offer the pregame stuff as well as during the game play-by-play action and the post-game recaps and storytelling. All of the during- and post-game “coverage” can then be told and retold and will give people that didn’t attend the game a feeling that they missed something and that they will want to do everything they can to be there next time.

So let’s think about it. If you buy a game ticket and you only get the pre-game activity, are you really getting what you intended to pay for? Probably not.

I’ve been searching to find some examples in the public space for companies that have leveraged this kind of a strategy, but I haven’t come across a lot. Do you have any examples?

One company that I have seen use this a bit is Trek Bicycle and the Lance Armstrong Foundation with 2009’s The Bikes of STAGES project.

Concept: Use Lance Armstrong’s race bicycles as canvases painted by some of the today’s best contemporary artists (Shepard Fairey, KAWS, Damien Hirst, Kenny Scharf, Marc Newson, Nashitomo Nara).

After a long season of racing the bikes all over the world, sell the bikes at auction in a New York City art gallery (The Armory) to raise funds for and spread the message of the Lance Armstrong Foundation’s global fight against cancer.

Pre-event: Lance Armstrong, fans, Trek Bicycle, the global media and bloggers used social media (Twitter, Twitpic, Facebook, flikr, blogs and other platforms) and traditional media to spread photos and the story of the campaign across the world.

Trek also leveraged this site: The Bikes of STAGES as a central gathering place for the project to show some of the images from around the world…telling the public version of the story, as well as the behind the scenes elements (behind the curtain) that most people don’t get to see.

During-event: Trek, Lance and others used Twitter, Twitvid and other channels to cover the auction live.

Post-event: the same The Bikes of STAGES site continued as  the central gathering place for the project….in addition to blogs and other social media sites around the world.

Results: The effort raised $1.3M for the fight against cancer. The secondary results included the ways that Trek Bicycle was able to position its bikes and Project One, a custom paint and build program as among the world’s best.

By leveraging PR 2.0 social media elements, companies (like Trek Bicycle), organizations (like the Lance Armstrong Foundation) and other groups are able to provide a much deeper and richer experience for more complete storytelling that stretches from pre- to post-event.

Have you seen any good examples of this happening?

If so, we’d love to hear your favorites.

Do you disagree? Let me have it.

*Photo #1 – Trek Bicycle
*Photo #2 – Velonews

One NFL Sunday, some friends and I decided to go out for dinner. We decided to sit in the bar to watch the game and the host informed us to grab any table we’d like and a server would arrive shortly. With eyes fixed on the big screen, five minutes flew by with still no greeting from the waitstaff. Our internal alarms were buzzing, but we were entertained by the game. After a delayed arrival to our table, our server asks us, “What can I get you?” one of the cardinal sins in hospitality, especially when we didn’t even have menus or waters on the table yet.

First impressions matter, not only in a restaurant but especially in the professional world. This principle has been instilled in my mind ever since my first restaurant job at Pizza Hut. How you present yourself to a client or a customer sets the tone for the conversations to come. A strong handshake and genuine smile doesn’t only sell entrees and drinks but can build a trusting relationship with a client.

From my experience, first impressions are also important in the realm of social media. Past employers have Googled my name or read my previous tweets. When I set up my mother’s Facebook account a couple years ago, I told her she wasn’t allowed to judge what she saw. Now, whenever I post an update, I think about what she will say when she reads it. If I think it will make her blush…it’s probably not appropriate. Having this in the back of my mind has been a great benefit. (Thanks Mom!) Learning that filter can go a long way in establishing a professional social media presence, which can only lead to more positive things.

Has anyone learned this lesson the hard way?
My background is food service. How does PR translate to other industries?

Since then, it’s been impossible to attend a business-related conference that lacked a social media panel discussion or presentation. I’m certainly not complaining. This trend has been very good for Comet.

We have been adding new staffers and as we’ve planned for their roles it has led us to think a lot about the skills that are need to be successful working in social media. So, I thought I’d share a bit of a list here:

1.Research - It is our belief that the first step toward great communications results is research. This is no different in social media. In order to develop a holistic social media plan or a simple tactic, good research will inform your decisions and make everything you do much more successful and meaningful.

2. Business acumen – Access to C-Suite level discussions and decision making is only possible if we can offer well-rounded and strategic business recommendations. This ability can only come from experience and practical knowledge. We need to be able to look at a business and figure out what it needs to grow and help make that happen through social media.

3. Strategic thinking and planning – Although social media seems like it’s a wild frontier filled with random tactics, Tweeting and posting to Facebook, the businesses that want to make an impact on the right groups of people need to be strategic about their approach and plan for it. Because of this, it’s important to think beyond singular tactics and instead about how all of the tactics can work together and build upon each other to achieve objectives.

4. Strong journalistic writing and storytelling – True success in social media is fostered by great communication and social media gives businesses and organizations the opportunity to tell their stories directly to the people. Although you can anoint yourself as the best A, B or C since sliced bread, it doesn’t mean you should. Social media platforms give us so many opportunities for great storytelling and doing it right starts with journalistic storytelling. Is your message meaningful to your audience? Is it timely? Will the right people care? If we stay true to age-old journalistic ideals, we’ll all benefit.

5. Video production - The social web is fueled by engaging and relevant content. One of the most attractive forms of that content is video. It is such a rich tool for dynamic storytelling. The caveat here is that video for the social web needs to be very good, but it does not have to be great. Frankly, the slicker the video looks the less authentic it feels and the less accepted it will be on the social web. Because of this, we don’t need to be super-duper Grade-A class video producers, but we need to be pretty good.

6. Quick thinking, responsiveness and problem solving – Activity in social media happens every day of the year at all hours of the day. To be successful we all need to be attentive to the activities that will impact our business or the businesses of our clients. Because of this, we all need to be able to think on our toes and respond in meaningful and appropriate ways. At times we also need to think about the people (bosses, clients, etc.) we need to get involve if and when issues arise and how to respond in a timely manor.

7. Taking advantage of opportunities – The  positive side of the previous point is being able to take advantage of opportunities that pop up in social media. Keeping a watchful eye on what is being discussed and what’s happening can make a big difference and can help create unexpected wins. Beyond this, it is important to be able to skillfully leverage the various opportunities that can build success. Sometimes, though, opportunities can take time to develop. Be patient.

8. Relationship development – Much like public relations, social media is powered by relationship development, conversations and giving relationships what they need to be most successful for all involved. However, social media relationship development is not about figuring out what others can do for you; it’s about the value you or your brand can bring to others.

9. Get into character – You hear it in Theater and from Hollywood actors all the time- getting into character is very important. The same holds true in social media. I don’t mean that you need to adopt a fake persona, but if you are running social media programs for a client, you need to get into their mindset and get as involved in their activities as they’ll let you become. Knowing how they operate can give you a lot of insight into helping their customers experience the cool inside elements of a business that could really make a difference.

10. Design and user experience – The importance of the technology side of social media shouldn’t be understated. It’s huge. We all need an understanding of web programming/development so we can communicate with programmers to drive creative and user experience. It would be ideal to know some coding ourselves, but a lot can be said about having someone who is truly skilled take the lead. As blog and social platforms continue to evolve and become easier to use, we still need to have an understanding to communicate changes or the ability to make tweaks and changes on our own and to drive new ideas.

11. Personal working knowledge of social media platforms - Knowing about all of the social media platforms because we’ve read about them on Mashable.com is a great, but it doesn’t really teach the How, What’s Possible or What Happens If scenarios. We all need to be testing applications and watching the trends to find new platforms and tools. There are many lessons that can only be learned social media by doing it for ourselves. There is no better teacher than personal experience. If we aren’t out there writing blogs, doing podcast/videocasts and growing a community for ourselves or our own agencies/companies, all we can do is talk. If we are doing all of these things, we are learning every day and those learnings can then be used to drive strategy for our clients and others.

12. Proving results – If we can’t prove to our clients or bosses that the social media programs we are running for them are worth it, then it’s not worth a heck of a lot, is it? We have to show proof, proof and more proof. Just remember results can mean many different things for various businesses. Building a community on a Facebook Fan Page with 1,000,000 fans might net zero results for a business. Be informed and strategic about what success really means.

13. Restless Curiosity - Within every industry, there are people who are constantly restless and curious about what they do. They lead the pack. These people are always keeping tabs on new developments and finding new ways to do things. It’s simply in their DNA. The moment we become comfortable and satisfied with the current state of things in social media, that’s the exact moment to be significantly concerned. We should always be thinking about what comes next and evolving what we do.

14. What’s Next? Making it all dance together – Although there are many individual platforms and tools out there that get a lot of buzz and work very well (Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, Wordpress, Tweetdeck, Tweetie 2, Filtrbox, Shoutlet, etc.) social media success hinges upon the strength of the individual parts of the mix you use. What if you could harness the individual strengths of each platform for a gloriously choreographed holistic social media dance that strategically drives conversion? We feel that dance should happen on your Web site while it’s happening on the playing field of the individual social media sites. This is the end game we are working toward.

While this isn’t exhaustive, this is a list of the things that I feel are important and relevant.

What would you add to the list?

What would you remove?

What a surprising and cool thing to discover in our Mint Web Analytics last week. Catalin Zornini (@zorzini), writing for Noupe.com, did a cool review and round-up of Web sites from interactive studios and social media agencies that she deemed “fresh” and included Comet Branding among the 50 they featured. Thanks, Catalin! Let us know if you ever have plans to travel to Milwaukee and we’d love to buy you a drink in gratitude.

Here is the post itself.

And here are screen shots of the part we like best about the list. See if you can figure out why…

Perspective

So here’s the interesting part about the whole thing, from my perspective. A Web site is a labor of love and a reflection of an organization’s personality, if it’s done correctly. So when you spend enough time looking at it and tweaking it you inevitably lose perspective on what’s cool about it vs. what needs fixing.

Bias

We were just recently talking about how we might want to change up our site a bit. For a number of reasons, it makes sense. However, partly the logic is that we were kind of getting sick of looking at the same design. As we talked about it, we acknowledged that we look at it far more than anyone else does and that maybe our perspective is biased and jaded. Just maybe.

Objectivity

And then this post came out. I’m not saying this is the definitive list of Web site design, but it certainly reinforces some things that are hard to keep in mind when you’re too close to something. Objectivity is incredibly valuable, yet elusive.

It’s flattering that someone halfway across the globe (Bucharest!) happened upon cometbranding.com and deemed it fresh enough to include in this list, among some fantastic and innovative designs.

Insight

I guess one takeaway from this is that constant improvement and fresh perspective on your Web design and its content is a good thing, but you shouldn’t lose perspective on what’s great about what you already have. As we continue to update and tweak our site, we hope to keep things in perspective.

Here’s what Noupe.com is about, in their own words:

About Noupe: Noupe passionately delivers stylish and dynamic news for designers and web-developers on all subjects of design, ranging from; CSS, Ajax, Javascript, web design, graphics, typography, advertising & much more. Our goal is to help you communicate effectively on the web with an engaging website or functional interface. Founded in 2007 by Noura Yehia from Egypt the site is now property of Smashing Media GmbH.

There is a company behind the magazine: it’s called Smashing Media GmbH. Our primary business is this magazine.

Feedback?

We’d love to hear what you think about our Web site and if you have any suggestions for improvements or tweaks, we are all ears.

So, I asked if he wouldn’t mind writing a guest post to share some insight about his experience that might help the many people who are working like crazy to get their companies or clients to leverage social media. Please read on.

Guest Post
By: LTC Gerald Ostlund
Army Reserves

We did it. You have no excuses.

So, you work for a conservative, slow moving, hierarchical organization and are thinking that a venture into social media is way beyond reach. Oh, and
you are subject to enormous regulatory oversight, your network administrators are behind cipher locks, there’s no “extra staff” to go
around, and when you bring up the subject, everyone around you cringes. Right?

That was the situation for the Army Reserve when a few adventurous souls developed our social media program not too long ago.

But we plunged into social media and so can you.

First, we started small. We had the opportunity to play with a topic we knew we could generate some excitement about – our Employer Partnership program
that matches employers who understand the value of military training with our Soldiers and their families. So, we created a blog, a Facebook page and
even a Twitter account. This allowed us to specialize for a while.and fly under the radar of most of the organization.

Second, we didn’t go get leadership approval first – that would have required us having all the answers, the process in place, and frankly, we had to make some of that up as we went. So, we took some personal risk and went for it.

Third, we made some mistakes, but were able to “lift and shift” (an artilleryman’s term) quickly because we hadn’t built this huge expectation internally about what we were doing or the bureaucracy to keep us from changing it.

Fourth, we stretched out into other platforms as opportunities arose, and as we got comfortable with the tools in our toolbox. Vimeo and YouTube, additional blogs and branded Facebook and Twitter pages for other programs and finally, the Army Reserve as a whole.

The 10+1 Rule that work for us:

1.    Real speak – no corporate talk. Nobody wants to hear about the “enterprise being reorganized into four pillars of excellence”

2.    First person – find a storyteller with a personality. For us, that means finding a soldier who is on scene.

3.    Make the fan/follower part of the story – give them a reason to respond, comment, or add their own experiences.

4.    Relevance trumps frequency – I’ve heard of some organizations having a goal of three posts or tweets a day, no matter what. I don’t agree. If the
content isn’t something your fans are going to really want, why waste their time. You wouldn’t spam them over email, would you?

5.    A great photo goes a long way – fortunately for us, we have soldiers doing great things around the world, so photos aren’t in short supply.

6.    Raw, messy, real video – a wmv from an inexpensive Flipvideo really does work better in social media than overproduced, professional video.

7.    Don’t edit out real life. Sh!t happens – and our soldiers are likely to blurt out a colorful word or two. That’s okay.

8.    Monitor and acknowledge comments – conversation stalls when no one answers.

9.    Robust rules of engagement – make it known what you will tolerate from fans on your social media platforms. If a rule is violated, take the comment down or block the user.

10.    Segment if necessary – but coordinate any segmented social media efforts. Fans do follow you in multiple places.

11.    Have fun. Why do it if it isn’t fun, right? And if you are having fun, your followers will too – and are likely to share their experiences with others.

So, if the Army Reserve can do it, you can too.

Scott Monty has achieved a level of status in the halls of social media that few others have been able to match. But, in the end, that’s not really the point and we are sure that this wasn’t Scott’s ambition, either.

We are very interested to learn from Scott how a company that a century ago helped revolutionize the way industry is managed and products are assembled is working to revolutionize how consumers engage with that same seemingly outdated car company. Especially in a year that most people aren’t really thinking about buying cars for more than a couple of reasons.

In our interview we will dig in to learn more about Scott, Ford, the Fiesta Movement and if he’ll loan me a car for a while, maybe a new Taurus. Because, you know, I’ll totally blog and tweet about it. Let me know, Scott – you know how to get a hold of me.

Here’s more about Scott Monty: “The best way to describe Scott is “Renaissance Man.” Friends and colleagues that know Scott from one facet of his life are very frequently surprised to learn of his interests and talents in other areas.

Scott is a marketing and communications professional focused on the digital industry — specifically on social media. His career spans a number of industries such as health care, pharma, biotech, travel, automotive, tech, and communications, and includes a wide range of clients, from start-ups to Fortune 500 companies.

Currently on the staff of corporate communications in Ford Motor Company, Scott heads up the social media function and holds the title Global Digital & Multimedia Communications Manager. He is a strategic advisor on all social media activities across the company, from blogger relations to marketing support, customer service to internal communications and more, as social media is being integrated into many facets of Ford business.”

LISTEN HERE.

Developing this summit was an interesting case study into leveraging to social media as part of PR right from the beginning.

For the event to be a success we knew it had to be packed with great content and we were fortunate to be able to offer a great mix of speakers.

The program was strategically developed for professionals and students by including presentations and discussions on a mix of social media and PR activities.

Presentations were designed to give insight into multiple case studies and approaches to using social media – whether you are at the top of an organization or just starting your career.

To promote the event the group specifically avoided using traditional methods to promote the event. We felt it was important to “walk the talk” in terms of using social media to drive attendance and interest.

There was no structured Web site and there were no flyers to speak of. Only Twitter, Twitpic, Facebook, BlogTalkRadio and LinkedIn were used.

The result? 290 people traveled to UW-Whitewater to participate in the daylong event and from the responses, it seems that everyone enjoyed it. Beyond this, hundreds of photos were posted to Facebook (here’s a batch) and over 1,000 Tweets were sent with the hashtag #PRSMS leading up to, during and after the event.

**If you attended, what was your favorite part? A speaker? A side conversation? The alumni luncheon? Share your thoughts below in the comments please!

The day was kicked off by Paula Berg, Southwest Airlines’ Director of Emerging Technology discussing her company’s approach to leveraging social media for customer response, promotion, crisis communication and service improvement.

Following her session, Alysha Schertz from BizTimes Milwaukee did an interview with Berg to learn more about Southwest’s approach to social media and her visit to Wisconsin.

And the day was capped off by Randy Sprenger giving everyone a picture into Harley-Davidson’s use of social media to engage with prospective and current customers. One of the coolest elements of Randy’s presentation was this video….yeah try not to get excited…I dare you.

**You can also download video of Paula Berg and Randy Sprenger’s presentations on iTunes from UW-Whitewater. Follow this LINK and search for Paula Berg or Randy Sprenger.

Between Paula and Randy’s presentations were some other great ones. Here they are with a little information about the presenters:

Susan Spaight is VP of Account Management and Digital Strategy at Meyer & Wallis and she presented on strategy in social media.

Web site | Blog | @suespaight

Sara Meaney and I offered a presentation on leveraging social media in public relations to help events and announcements live beyond the day/time they take place.

Andrew Wintheiser is a founding partner of Lightburn, an interactive agency in Milwaukee and he presented on using PR and social media to influence SEO.

Web site | Blog | @andywintheiser

Sarah Soczka is an assistant account executive at Boelter-Lincoln in Milwaukee and she shared a personal story about how professional and personal brands can collide in social media.