We are less than a week away from our February 23^rd #PRStudChat with our very special guest @ChrisBrogan, co-author of Trust Agents. Chris joins us that night at 9:00 p.m. ET (please note the time change as we usually begin at 8:30 p.m. ET) for our Twitter discussion on the PR influencer and how to build trust online. We are looking forward to Chris’ insights on the topic and the dynamic discussions with Chris and our community.

We also announced earlier this month that we have an exclusive sponsor that night.  Ruder Finn, is sponsoring the chat session and their sponsorship will go toward several lucky community members receiving Chris’ book.  We’re going to post a question on the PRStudChat blog that night (related to influencers and building trust) and ask our community to answer the question.  A random drawing will select community members to receive the book, Trust Agents, all made possible by @RuderFinn.

We are very excited to have Chris join us on February 23^rd and can’t think him enough for being our special guest.  We’re also very happy to have @RuderFinn as the sponsor of this session, which is designed to educate PR and communications professionals on the topic of the PR influencer. There’s still time to post any questions that you’d like to ask Chris about becoming a Trust Agent or building trust online. Feel free to post them in our LinkedIn Group.  Hope to “see” on you on February 23^rd at 9:00 p.m. ET, for a very dynamic discussion.

A little more about our sponsor, Ruder Finn:

Ruder Finn, Inc. is one of the largest independent integrated communication firms in the world. Through offices and affiliates worldwide, the agency serves the global and local communication needs of more than 250 corporations, governments and nonprofit organizations.

The key to building an effective social media policy is to customize the guidelines to meet the needs of your organization. A well developed policy will guide your employees in the many ways that they engage in social communications. The best practice approach requires that your organization invest the time, resources, and effort to plan and build a policy that empowers the organization, allows people to understand the value of social media and helps them to see how they can better participate as internal brand champions.

I had the pleausre of working with PRSA to assist in the development of their social media policy, which was rolled out today. It was a great exercise because of the intricacies of an organization that serves more than 21,000 members. It’s a comprehensive policy, one that sets the standard for social media participation, gives guidance on engagement, and offers social media best practice resources to employees, volunteers and leaders. PRSA’s policy will grow and evolve as the organization extends its social footprint.

A best practices approach to creating the PRSA social media policy included the following steps in the development process:

• Finding a champion (in this case the PR manager) to spearhead the effort, corral the team and manage the process from start to finish.
• Building a coalition or core team that developed policy objectives across the organization so it would not only guide employees, leaders and volunteers, but also PRSA chapters, sections and districts. The coalition consisted of PR, marketing, executive leadership and the PRSA legal team.
• Conducting an in-depth audit to evaluate the current state of PRSA social media and to help standardize and promote better brand guidelines connected to social media participation.
• Encouraging participation and not stifling communication, going well beyond just the do’s and don’ts of social media. The policy also carefuly reviewed situations specific to the Society, and focused on where the organization needed to convey stronger messages, including legal concerns like privacy, intellectual property and disclaimers.
• Covering employee participation on behalf of PRSA, as well as including a statement on personal use. Understanding that employees will participate during their work hours and their own free time, it’s important that employees know the type of representation, responsibility and respect they must have for PRSA at all times.
• Considering several key areas in the policy, including access, account management, acceptable conduct and the rules of engagement, content, security and legal issues.
• Introducing leaders and members to the draft policy, asking them to evaluate usefullness by participating in a survey prior to launch. Feedback from the survey was incorporated into the social media policy to create an even stronger set of guidelines.
• Including other organizational policies — the PRSA Code of Ethics, the PRSA Branding Guidelines, the PRSA Style Guide and the PRSA Media Policy — fully integrating these policies into the social media policy, as they now relate to social outreach.

This is only a starting point for PRSA and its new social media policy. The Society’s policy will continue to evolve as the organization grows its social media presence and identifies increased opportunities for engagement.

It’s critical that the process of policy development continue throughout every phase of social media planning. PRSA will continue its best practices approach by implementing an organization-wide social media plan that allows departments to tailor it to their goals and strategies;  re-evaluating its policy during the strategic planning phase each year; and sharing the direction of its own social communications with leaders, volunteers and members.

What is your best practice approach to social media policy development and how has the overall process helped to create a strong set of guidelines for your organization?

You may have heard me say this before, but it’s really important to read everyday to stay on top of the trends, news and industry information.  There are so many great resources for professionals to keep us in the “know.” However, we also need to set up a daily reading regimen to peruse interesting articles, blogs, newsletters, etc.

Here’ my video blog on my personal reading regimen and the magazines, email newsletters and blogs that keep me up to date on industry and business news.  What are your reading resources and how do you stay on top and in the “know?”

When Traackr reported the Top 25 PR Influencers, I thought it would be fun to quickly find out a little more about some of the bloggers on this list (beyond the “Footprint” that was provided). I decided to take a few of their blog posts and drop them into Wordle.net, turning them into beautiful word clouds.  You can tell a lot about these influencers, their interests, critical issues and what they love to share with their communities. Now, remember copying three or four recent posts into a word cloud tool is only a brief snapshot of what could be years of blog posts and PR information.  Keeping that in mind, here five of the top 25 influencers and their word clouds, selected randomly.

Before you go to visit the influencer’s blog community, take a look at each one’s word cloud to help you understand the community focus and how you can engage the right way by sharing relevant information.

Here’s the list of a few of the PR Influencers from Traackr, with their word clouds below:

#2 Lee Odden: TopRank Marketing Blog

#12 Sarah Evans PRSarahEvans.com

#13 Heather Whaling: prtini.com

#21 Peter Himler: The Flack

#25 Katie Paine: PR Measurement Blog

On January 19^th, we announced a very special guest for our #PRStudChat February session.  @ChrisBrogan, co-author of Trust Agents, joins our Twitter discussion to enlighten our community on the PR influencer and how to build trust online. Today it’s very important for PR and communications professionals to realize that they are moving from a liaison role to an influencer role, as they become bloggers and educate through democratized media.

Chris is an incredible influencer himself, and the perfect person to share his thoughts and experiences in building trust with people online.  Through his writing and his work, he’s been helping professionals to understand what it takes to create relationships and business opportunities.  Here’s is more information on Chris and his scope of expertise:

Chris Brogan consults and speaks professionally with Fortune 100 and 500 companies like PepsiCo, General Motors, Microsoft, and more, on the future of business communications, and social software technologies. He is a New York Times bestselling co-author of Trust Agents, and a featured monthly columnist at Entrepreneur Magazine. Chris’s blog, [chrisbrogan.com], is in the Top 5 of the Advertising Age Power150. He has over 11 years experience in online community, social media, and related technologies. Here’s a link to more information on Chris: http://www.chrisbrogan.com/about/

In the spirit of Chris’ book, Trust Agents, here’s what we’ll be discussing with Chris and our community the night of February 23^rd:

• What does it mean to be a Trust Agent?
• Why is so important to become an “Agent Zero?”
• How long does it take to become a member of a community and what steps do you take?
• What are the characteristics of an influencer?
• Who are some of the great influencers that have built trust with their communities?
• Do businesses need to have their employees build trust online to be more successful?
• What is your advice to students and professionals with respect to becoming an influencer?

One more special announcement for our February 23^rd session …We have an exclusive sponsor that night.  Ruder Finn, is sponsoring the chat session and their sponsorship will go toward several lucky community members receiving Chris’ book.  We’re going to post a question on the PRStudChat blog that night and ask our community to answer the question.  A random drawing will select community members to receive the book, Trust Agents.

We are very excited to have Chris join us on February 23^rd and can’t think him enough for being our special guest.  We’re also very happy to have Ruder Finn as the sponsor of this session, which is designed to educate PR and communications professionals on the topic of the PR influencer.  If there are any questions that you’d like to ask Chris about becoming a Trust Agent or building trust online, please post them in our LinkedIn Group.  Hope to “see” on you on February 23^rd for a very dynamic discussion.

A little more about our sponsor, Ruder Finn:

Ruder Finn, Inc. is one of the largest independent integrated communication firms in the world. Through offices and affiliates worldwide, the agency serves the global and local communication needs of more than 250 corporations, governments and nonprofit organizations.

Before the holidays, a young PR/Marketing professional contacted me about helping him with his resume.  I reviewed both his cover letter and resume carefully and gave him some initial feedback. He was thrilled with the comments and immediately incorporated my suggestions. One conversation led to another and the next thing I knew he asked me a very interesting question: Would you be my mentor to help me in my job search.  I had never thought about a job search mentor before.  I’ve always said, “Find a really good mentor to help you to grow in your professional career.”  I think this is a great idea and I said, “Yes, I’d be happy to help you.”

I found his approach interesting, honest and refreshing. He wrote in his email:

“In regards to the job, right now I am finding it difficult to stay on track because I have no one to report to.  I am responsible for job searching, motivating myself, picking myself up when I have a bad job search day, as well as working at least 12 hours ….  I was wondering if I could send you a report of what I did for the week in regards to the job search this way I know I have to show someone exactly what I did.  If you had time and could give me a little feedback or ideas of other things I could do, that would be great also.”

Starting next week, my young professional friend will begin setting weekly job search goals including: How many networking events and Twitter chat sessions he attends, how many resumes he sends out, the number of professionals he speaks to on the phone or visits in person (i.e., the informal interview for knowledge on the PR profession), how many resources he’s scoured to find a job, etc.  Then, at the end of the week he will submit a report that reviews his goals and how much was actually accomplished.  We’ll chat once a week to review the report, but also discuss any of his challenges, if he has questions about anything he’s learned during his job search, and how to take his efforts to the next level the following week.

What’s great about the idea of the job mentor is that it comes at a critical point in the student or professional’s career. Whether you are just out of school and trying to find your way or you’ve been in PR and you are looking for a new and exciting opportunity, having  a mentor is an excellent way to keep you focused and proactive, at a time when you need energy and motivation the most.  And, if the job search mentor relationship works out well, there’s the potential for the relationship to expand into a full time mentor, as you learn to work together.  It will be easy to measure the success of the relationship by evaluating how many goals are accomplished and how much both of you learn during the experience (notice I said both of you because when you mentor, you learn a lot too).

As I prepare for the PRSSA job search chat on January 26^th at 9:00 p.m., I will be one week into my new relationship, and hopefully be able to share with the students information on how a job search mentor can help them after graduation, as they search for their first career opportunities.  Are you a PR job search mentor and have you ever thought of becoming one?

Last week, a friend from Switzerland reached out and asked me a few questions about blogger relations.  She was concerned with the time it takes to initiate and nurture relations with bloggers before you “need” them to write about a client.  But, at the same time, she realized that unless you are specialized in a certain field, there is no way that you can converse with all these bloggers.  I’ve heard this concern before and it is on the minds of many professionals who only have so much time in a day. I, too, have been asked by clients and prospective clients, “Do you know bloggers in our field.” It’s interesting, because I can answer this question in one of two ways.  The first way is to say that because I am a blogger, I have become the people I want to reach.  So, it’s very easy to engage another blogger, based on knowing blogger relations and proper blogger etiquette.

A lot of the relationships you build, let’s say on Twitter, for example, will come from following bloggers, joining in conversations with them, retweeting and sharing their information, adding meaningful or helpful information to their current conversations (could be a hashtag discussion), and learning more about them by researching their blogs including topics and the type of content they share with their community members.  Eventually, when a blogger sees you are contributing helpful information to benefit the community and you are chatting with them on a regular basis, the conversation can then move to a DM (which is more private) to emails once you have established a relationships with them.  And, yes these relationships do take time to grow and to build trust .  It’s about giving and helping, long before you receive.

However, there are times when you have to act quickly on behalf of client or a new project and when you might not have a personal contact or group of bloggers that cover a certain area or a specific region of the country. In this case, you DON’T just want to build a list and spam everyone on it. Rather, it’s best to take a grass roots approach to build new relationships. Let me give you an example of one approach that’s worked.  My agency needed to find food and mom bloggers in the five different cities across the U.S. (Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco and Washington, DC) who would blog, tweet and post to Facebook about our client’s new product, which was a gifted dining experience specific to those regions.  Our effort started with reaching out to personal contacts (whose networks, in some cases, were large and connected).  These friends, more so than not, were nice enough to provide the contact information to their blogger friends, because they believed their friends would be interested in what our client had to offer.  Our contacts also said, “Yes, you can use me as a reference.”

With a few names in each city, we received an excellent response from food and mom bloggers, who were thrilled to hear from us, based on the fact that their friends made the recommendation that we contact them.  The subject line of the email read: Review of [client’s product name goes here]: Referred to you by [blogger’s friend].  Then, after engaging each new blogger in the program, well over 50% of our mom and food bloggers, were so excited by the product, they recommended their blogger friends to us, and the same pattern continued.  What was once a few bloggers in each city has now turned into numerous new relationships with food and mom bloggers across the country.

So when a client or an executive asks you about your relationships with bloggers, you have to remember to tell them that blogger relations can be grass roots and that you’re able to start with a small core group that’s really interested in what you have to share, who will then take the time to not only share your information, content and/or products with their networks, but also, if they like something, recommend it to their own friends to be involved in your program.  

As a result, using this type of grass roots approach, you are able to build your blogger contacts in different industries quickly.   Of course, following up, thanking your bloggers, and keeping them posted on your client’s efforts, is required, just like you would do with your traditional media contacts.  With all good relationships, you need to continue to cultivate them for the long term.

How do you work with bloggers and what types of blogger relations approach do you take?

January 19^th from 8:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. ET is our #PRStudChat session, which will focus on a hot topic that’s weighing on the minds of many executives: the social media policy.  Our discussion will cover everything from team development (who is responsible for policy creation) and the important areas to be addressed in a policy to how policies should be guiding employee social outreach and participation.  Our special panel of experts, joining us that night, include Diane Gomez (@gomezdm), PR Manager at the Public Relations Society of America, Jeffrey Esposito (@jeffespo), PR Manager at Vistaprint and Ryan Gerds, Public Information Officer at Munroe Regional Medical Center (@munroeregional).

For those of you who don’t know our special guests, here’s a little background information on each panel members:

Diane Gomez:

Diane Gomez has been a PR Manager with PRSA since 2007. She manages PRSA’s communication strategies and programs, including identifying communication needs, developing PR plans and pushing out communications, as well as managing media events. She currently directs social media efforts, including developing PRSA’s social media strategy and policy.

Diane brings a wealth of knowledge to PRSA drawn from more than 20 years experience in writing, editing, public relations and coordinating special events, as well as graphic design, where she has received multiple awards. She has worked primarily in the public sector, with industry experience in higher education, transportation and associations.

Jeffrey Esposito:

Jeff Esposito is a public relations manager at Vistaprint, a leading online provider of professional marketing products and services to micro businesses. He is responsible for the day-to-day management, development and growth of Vistaprint’s social media properties and campaigns.  He is also active in a number of other communications areas for Vistaprint, including marketing communications and PR.

Ryan Gerds:

Ryan Gerds, APR is the Public Information Officer at Munroe Regional Medical Center, a 421-bed hospital, in Ocala, Florida.  He has been with Munroe Regional since February 2005 and is responsible for the public information office overseeing public relations, media relations, community relations and internal/external communications for the medical center.  Prior to joining Munroe Regional he spent six years working in professional baseball with the Tampa Bay Rays, as a media relations assistant, as well as with the Birmingham Barons and Charlotte Knights where he served as the Media & Community Relations Director.

Since moving to Ocala, Ryan has joined numerous community boards and currently serves on the Executive Committee of the Florida Public Relations Association as the Vice President of Member Services.

We are very excited to hear our experts’ responses to the following questions:

• Who did you include in the social media policy building process (from other depts. in addition to PR)
• Do you have an internal policy for employees and an external policy for the public?
• Did you policy include a statement on employee’s personal use of social media?
• Do you feel that your organization’s current policy guides employees?
• What are the issues or areas that need to be discussed in a social media policy?
• When building a policy do you have to take your industry into consideration?
• Do you think a policy should be more legal, middle of the road or a total people policy?

Of course, we look forward to hearing insight from our community of educators, pros and students that night too.  We hope you will join us on the 19^th to learn more about social media policies, which are a critical component of an organization’s social media program.  If you have any questions that you would like answered, please feel free to post them to the #PRStudChat LinkedIn Group.  Hope to “see” you on the 19^th!