I don’t think I’ll ever be able to completely take off my PR hat; it’s usually “on” no matter what I’m doing.  But, on September 16, 2011, in New York City, I’ll be wearing a different hat. It’s my blogger cap, when I cover the PRSA T3PR Conference.  Twenty plus years ago when I was starting out, I didn’t have the opportunity to switch roles from PR person (the liaison) to the reporter covering the event.  The PR person always practiced PR and helped to facilitate the media coverage and the media person focused on reporting the news that led to the good coverage. Today, the switch is unique, exciting and allows many of us to share our enthusiasm and appreciation for reporting.  It’s also an excellent way to walk in the shoes of our worthy journalist friends, with which we work so hard to build solid relationships.

To truly understand what people go through in the scope of their day, you have to walk in their shoes.  I remember stating in my book, “Putting the Public Back in Public Relations,” that social media allows you to become the people you want to reach.  Well, stepping into the role of blogger certainly makes you understand how to reach bloggers the right way, how to help them build a better story and to understand what they go through in the reporting process.

I’m really looking forward to blogging about the PRSA T3PR Conference because I have a deep interest in public relations and technology.  From what I’ve read so far about the conference, the event has a heavy focus on how to identify and create opportunities for differentiation and offers insight on how brands that are driven by innovation can create strategic public relations programs. I’m looking forward to hearing from professionals including Amy Messano, senior public relations manager, U.S. SMB&D, Microsoft Corp. and Scott Stevens, APR, former vice president corporate communications, Nissan Americas.  I’m also looking forward to hearing what several of the other experts have to say during the “Technology Crisis Digital Age” session.

I’ll be doing a post session article to discuss my findings at the conference and will share the best highlights.  Stay tuned for more about the PRSA T3PR Conference or maybe I’ll see you there!

[Disclosure: PRSA offered me complimentary entrance into their conference, so that I can report to my PR and marketing colleagues on the sessions.]

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?”

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!

I’m on my Holiday break and it’s a great time to reflect and to thank so many colleagues who have been supportive in 2010.  As professionals we’ve bonded and grown together in public relations. Together we are educating, learning and helping one another. Here’s my Happy Holidays message to my peers.  Hope 2011 is an even better year!

We’re getting closer to our #PRStudChat November 18^th 2010 event session, which will highlight a panel of thought leaders in event planning and leadership from PR industry organizations that hold events all year round. The session will focus on events for professionals and how to maximize opportunities to learn and build relationships.

And, now, it’s time to announce our panel of special guests.  All of our experts are skilled in the area of event planning and coordinating various types of event programs. Our panel members include:

David Adler (@DavidAdler) founder and C.E.O. of BizBash Media, the source for essential information about event marketing, meeting and event planning, and business entertaining in New York City, Los Angeles, Boston, Chicago, Miami, Orlando, Las Vegas,  Toronto and Washington, D.C. BizBash Media operates BizBash.com and publishes BizBashmagazine. The company also hosts trade shows and award shows in major event market.

Peter Himler (@PeterHimler) President of the Publicity Club of NY and founder and principal of Flatiron Communications LLC, a PR/media consulting firm in New York. He most recently served as Chief Media Officer for Edelman Worldwide, which he joined after 11 years with WPP’s Burson-Marsteller as head of the agency’s U.S. corporate and strategic media team and its worldwide spokesperson.

Debbie Friez (@dfriez) President of Washington Women in PR (WWPR) and is a Vice President at BurrellesLuce. Throughout the year, WWPR provides many educational and networking opportunities including monthly professional development workshops. The organization has become well recognized for its Media Roundtable event each Spring, as well as its prestigious Woman of the Year award luncheon, which typically draws more than 200 local PR professionals to honor and celebrate the achievements of the profession.

Nicole Zerillo (@nzerillo) – Nicole is currently marketing communications and social media manager at the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA). Nicole develops and coordinates traditional/new media strategy and collateral for the organization’s Professional Interest Sections Department, which offers practice area-specific communities, events and conferences.

Jessica Levin (@jessicalevin) – Jessica is  a professional services marketer, meeting planner and president of Seven Degrees Communications, which helps companies, associations and business professionals create, develop and enhance relationships both online and in real-life.

Our panelists will be discussing their successes and challenges in creating unique events that help professionals to learn, interact and maximize networking and the relationship-building experience. The topics will include socializing events, the best practices to create awareness and impact, what leads to a great networking experience, how to maximize relationship building, etc.

We’ll be announcing the questions later in the week, so be on the look out for an update on our event session.  Valerie and I hope that you will join us the night of November 18^th at 9:00 p.m.  Of course, if you have any questions for our panelists, please feel free to share them on our blog or in our LinkedIn discussion group.  We look forward to “seeing” you at #PRStudChat on the 18^th!

The PRSA International Conference 2010 Powering PRogress kicked off on Saturday, October 16th. I arrived at the conference, on Sunday, October 17^th with great expectations.  I’ve been looking forward to this conference, knowing that many of the PR professionals who I chat with all year will be in one place.  I’m ready to share ideas and network.

Upon arrival at the Washington Hilton, I immediately went to check in on Foursquare. I was happy to see that I could also check in at the PRSA Conference itself. When I see my peers and industry association on Foursquare, our many Twitter chat communities, our groups on LinkedIn, and our dynamic blogs, which help people to better understand PR, social media and communications…to me, we’re powering progress.  PR professionals are active in social media and I’m proud of our steps forward and the dedicated professionals who are embracing new communication. In the past, I’ve heard people ask, “Is PR Dead?” I’ve heard this far too many times. I know that’s not the case. As a matter of fact, it’s the farthest from the truth.  Social media is reinventing PR and we’re gaining influence.

For me, the PR influencer is powering progress by being a change agent. The PR influencer drives strategic communications that lead to business value.  It’s having the passion and commitment to move the needle in a new direction, within our own organizations as well as within our industry.  The PR influencer is an educator who creates action and who is a trusted and valuable resource. My panel session today is all about how to become a PR influencer and drive business value.  I will be joined by @kamichat @prsarahevans @geoffliving and @cheeky_geeky.  We’ll dig into the topic of the PR influencer and how we can capture influence and make progress.

Here’s a brief interview with me and Amanda Littlejohn discussing the PRSA Conference and my session on the Mopwater PR blog.

I presented to the members of PRSA this week on building a social media policy and best practices of policy development.  Part of the discussion focused on the language and tone that you find in social media policies and guidelines.  My video discusses the different ways that organizations are approaching content and tone to guide internal and public social communications. Let me know what content and tone bests suits your company.