By Melanie Wilt

Constructive criticism. We say we want it. We know that if we take it, our businesses and lives could be improved. But, we struggle to accept it.

In the communication loop, there is a Sender and a Receiver with a message somewhere in the middle. Historically, companies have been the experts at being the Sender and transmitting a message to the Receiver. The best Senders accept feedback from the Receiver. And, the proliferation of social media has made the Receiver-to-Sender feedback chain transparent, making constructive criticism visible to our customers and ultimately, the world. It impacts our reputations.

By Sara McKinniss, Account Manager

Ten years ago, I was one of the first people that I knew of that had a CD burner. I thought technology didn’t get any better than that. As I entered high school, I knew technology was changing. I discovered something called text messaging on my parents’ cell phone (you know, the Zach Morris kind…) when I was 14. At the time, I had no clue what it was. I knew things were changing though.

As I went through high school and college, the Inter net started to shape culture and influence communication. Today, as a working professional, I see how technology has charted new territory in communication, especially in public relations.

Because o f changes in technology, the nature of public relations has changed. We’ve reduced our reliance on traditional delivery, and instead, turned to new media. In 2010, technology will continue to influence public relations.

Our braintrust at Wilt PR agrees these ten public relations trends are ones to watch in 2010:

1) Payment for Social Media: Clients want it, and we can show them how to do it correctly. They are willing to pay to be on board with the newest and quickest way of connecting with customers.

2) Interactive Social Media: It’s great to have a voice in social media; it’s even better to create conversations with others. Twitter chats connect professionals. LinkedIn group discussions may help find the best candidate for a job.

by Melanie Wilt

Does anyone have a better reputation than the Man in the Red Suit? I’ve been trying to get a meeting with the Communication Office at the North Pole to find out the Big Man’s secrets, but this is such a busy time of year for the management elves, they’ve had to reschedule me after the New Year.

So, I will just have to use the PR knowledge at Wilt PR to speculate about why he is so wildly successful. The North Pole employs some reputation management principles that could be incorporated by just about any organization:

Listening – The North Pole has built a tremendous model of customer service. Isn’t customer service primarily about listening? The idea that the “customer is always right” may not work as businesses struggle in the new economy, but the North Pole must use the mantra “the customer is always first.” Every child – no matter his or her location – has a direct route of contact with Santa himself. Children do not have to go through a call center in India to make contact with him. They can go to their local mall, light display, or town square and talk to him in person. They can also drop a letter in the mail, send an email, or even send a “tweet,” which they know will make it into those white-gloved hands. I’ve even been following Santa Claus on Twitter this season.

Transparency – There remains a mystery with Santa Claus, but beyond the flying reindeer, the twinkle of an eye, and the chimney hopping, Santa’s a pretty straight-shooter.

Sara McKinniss, Communication Coordinator

Did you hear the one about the Fail Whale? Yeah, neither did I until I started using Twitter early this year.

After a discussion with @wiltpr and @springfieldedge yesterday about Twitter, it made me really think about Twitter in a more dynamic way. The explosion of the 140-character message over the last year has greatly changed the way in which we communicate and interact with others. With the advent of social media, many public relations professionals were concerned that the way we implement public relations practices would be forever altered. People had a new and best of all, free (or so they thought) way of sending and receiving messages. The mentality was, “Why pay someone to do it when we can do it ourselves?” Little did everyone know, social media is a very complex world to navigate and can be difficult, though possible, to show return on investment for using it.

Just because a new social media platform is out there, there is still no substitute for research, planning, implementation and evaluation —the standard public relations process.  Value is added when the process is applied to social media.