Deirdre Breakenridge

The holiday season reminds me of the song from the Sound of Music, “My Favorite Things.” Although there are many items on that list, I wanted to share a few of my favorite (PR 2.0) things that I’ve either read in 2009, or relied upon to get me through the year. Of course, I would love to mention everyone and everything that I find valuable online and read all year long, but then this wouldn’t be a blog post…it would be a BIG blog book .

Trust lies in the heart of a strong relationship. It can be very hard to achieve and once you have earned it, you would never want to do anything to break that bond. The book, Trust Agents, by Chris Brogan (@ChrisBrogan) and Julien Smith (@julien) teaches you how to gain trust or influence on the web, which definitely has its challenges.

I recently accepted an invitation to present a workshop at the Social Media for Executives event which takes place in Las Vegas on October 14th. When I first corresponded with @DoyleAlbee, I knew that this was the type of program that I would really enjoy because it’s an intimate, best known as mastermind workshops / retreats with senior level executives. This conference seemed a little different and offered the opportunity to feel connected to a group that would be able to dig into the heart of my topic. And, even though I found out that I was traveling to Houston the day of the event, I still wanted to participate. My workshop will be Skype presentation on Community Building: Turning Your Employees into Brand Champions.

I first learned about Tamar Weinberg’s (@tamar) book, The New Community Rules: Marketing on the Social Web, from Chris Brogan’s blog Community and Social Media (@chrisbrogan). I’m very happy that Chris introduced me to this book and he was right when he said that this is a really well done book and Tamar “knocked it out of the park.” So far, I’ve never been disappointed with Chris’ recommendations! I’ve read many books on social media from Now Is Gone and The New Influencers to The New Rules of Marketing and PR and Marketing to the Social Web (all really good books by the way). But for me, Tamar’s book stands out as a very thorough step by step easy guide to the thinking and planning that goes behind social media marketing all the way through to the best practices of implementation (and, of course, where it make sense for you to engage in communities and how to do it the right way).

My daily ritual involves as much media snacking, blogging and social networking as I possibly can for my clients and to build own my personal brand. Even though my professional and personal life is wrapped up in the social media landscape, cruising along at an extremely fast pace, I still need my time to read and enjoy the written word.

I read a great blog post by Chris Brogan that discussed all of the extra chores that social media adds to our daily “To Do” list. Chris’ post maps out his very busy day, from the time he wakes and monitors his Google reader (to see what people are talking about or what they are saying about him) to reading 700 blogs and sifting through his 500 emails. Yes, Social Media definitely takes time and effort. It’s not a one day or once a month type of adventure. And, it’s definitely not a spectator sport. Actually, Social Media is an everyday commitment (in some cases, it becomes an addiction) and for me is one of the best ways to build human capital and turn a new virtual friend into a valuable physical relationship.

There’s no shortage of excellent blogs and the numbers continue to grow. But, with the hundreds of thousands that pique your interest, how many do you visit regularly? Now, ask yourself another question, with how many of those blogs do you actually join in the conversation, tweet about and mention in your own blog to get a conversation started? After all, one of the main benefits of Social Media is the dialog that you have with other members of the community. You can share ideas, learn about almost anything and educate others on mutual topics of interests.

I posted an article on Twitter the other day about bloggers accepting gifts and how there was controversy over the topic. The article in PR Week focused on how paid blogger coverage received mixed reviews. This question has been weighing on my mind so I decided to ask a few PR professionals their opinions on the subject. I found out, as I spoke with these communications people, it’s a split decision as to whether bloggers receiving gifts should be and accepted practice. Just to preface the opinions written on this page, the folks commenting are not aware of any formal Code of Ethics in the blogosphere that includes the practice of gift giving to bloggers.