BLACK paPR Report

More and more PR professionals and publicists are using social media tools to do everything from building their own brands to posting releases to even discussing the business of PR and publicity. Social media is indeed a great tool but it is increasingly becoming  an abused tool among PR and publicity professionals.

This is the first post in a series on social media etiquette among our ranks. These are ‘rules’ of engagement I employ personally and professionally. And they are no more than extensions of my offline social rules of social engagement and the professional courtesies I have learned over the years.

I have two favorite books:

• Miss Manners’ Guide to Excruciatingly Correct Behavior
  
• The New Basic Black: Home-Training for Modern Times

The Miss Manners Guide is a throwback to my childhood with the Dosses (my grandparents), where a copy of the book was a ready reference. The New Basic Black helps me keep it real or keep Miss Manners real and is less excruciating in practice. Both are invaluable to me. 

In a previous post (Please, Thank You and You’re Welcome) I discussed some of the lessons I learned from mentors while learning the ropes as a young professional. Some things you just don’t know are rude until that rude is directed towards you. Some forms of rude behavior are not evident to individuals who have never been corrected on that behavior. And, unfortunately, there are some things that are just flat out wrong no matter your exposure to home-training or social etiquette. 

Social media comes in a variety of platforms: networking sites that connect people and ideas (Linkedin, Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, NING, etc…); blogs and; message boards, forums and chat rooms are a few other forms. All are either Internet and mobile-based or some combination thereof. And all serve these purposes:

• Building communities
• Sharing information
• Interaction based on commonality

And all are consumer-generated resources or best put, resources that are accessible in the free Internet space. 

That’s the short lesson in the functions of social media, which took a lot out of me to write. (Disclaimer: I am NOT a social media expert and ONLY a highly-skilled user.) 

PR practitioners and publicists utilize these resources to promote client work often, I am no exception. But it’s how we use these resources in regard to one another that have me concerned, thus THE SERIES.

Best, Robin

robin@thejstandard.com