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.

Guest blog by Sara McKinniss

Today’s uncertain economic landscape means that everyone must maximize the money they spend on communication. Many new, free tools are available to monitor media coverage and help maximize the return on investment (ROI). Google provides many applications that can help monitor media more efficiently and effectively.

Google Analytics is a free resource that measures website traffic by analyzing the number of visitors that visit a webpage, the average time spent on the website, graphs peak site usage over a time period and geographically determines where people are visiting from. This information is useful because it allows the site to be tailored to market and advertise online to specific audiences. It also can help determine the most effective ways of sharing messages through websites. 

Another useful tool to monitor media coverage is through the use of Google Alerts. Google Alerts is a free e-mail-based application that enables a user to receive alerts in their inbox containing a search string of keywords. Each time something is mentioned about a business, whether in a blog or a news article, an e-mail will alert the user with a link to the mention. Alerts can be customized to notify the user either daily or weekly, depending on what they desire. Monitoring coverage on different news outlets and social media becomes easier when alerts are sent directly to one source.

Lastly, a newer Google tool that is useful for media monitoring is Google Blog Search. Google Blog Search is another free application that searches only blogs when the user provides keywords. The blogosphere is such a powerful player in today’s communication efforts, it is important not to discount their role and influence in obtaining coverage. Google Blog Search provides an opportunity for businesses to interact with this often untapped market for coverage.

Using Google applications to monitor media coverage is a great inexpensive way to help determine a return on investment and a great way for a to help maximize messaging potential.