With Twitter and other forms of social media taking the world by storm, the question is how PR people can use these new media outlets to help their clients?

Here are 3 top blogs that deal with the issue.

Lara Kretler’s blog deals with these very issues. She has a really fresh take on many social media issues. For example, in a recent post: ” Who Owns Social Media? (aka PR vs. Marketing vs. Advertising vs. Interactive). This is one argument that you really can’t win because there are good points on all sides. Ultimately, it comes down to who’s doing social media well, who’s measuring it, and who’s showing great results. I don’t think it’s hard to figure out where I fall in this debate – social public relations FTW – and I’m proud to see so many amazing, smart PR people leading the way in social media. Even Charlene Li, whose fantastic Altimeter Group Wiki is shaping up to be a top resource for social media pros of all stripes, includes a special section for social media PR firms. The jury’s still out on this debate but I think as time goes by, we’ll see PR continuing to take the lead on social. After all, it’s all about relationships.”

Over at Your PR Guy you can find information on bridging the PR/social media divide. ” Yes, Twitter is a union of advertising, PR and branding — doesn’t matter if it’s personal or product specific. Tweeting and building your followers and those who you choose to follow is important. Still confused?”  Hi quality posts.

The India Pr Blog has great content and is recognized as a top PR blog. In a recent post Bhawna Sharma says, “One of the ways I have used social tools successfully in my PR job is in the media relations bit – forming new contacts, pitching to journalists, getting fast information about the media, etc. ”

There is some great content out there on this topic. Let Bizzywomen know some of your favorite PR/Social media sites.

This is the last post for the PRofessional Development Week series.

This is a guest post by Lindsay Allen, who has worked in Central Michigan University’s Office of Public Relations and Marketing since 2002; she began as a PR writer and has been an assistant director of media relations since 2005. Due to reorganization, she will be laid off beginning May 1 and is in the midst of her first-ever comprehensive job search. Have a job lead or a freelance need? Send Lindsay an e-mail.

In your PR career, you will face crisis communication situations; they come with the territory. While you may be comfortable with and well versed in handling your clients’ crises, there is one crisis for which no PR pro is truly prepared …

When you find out you’re being laid off, the crisis is your own, and you suddenly are both the client and the crisis communicator; it will test your skills and your character more than any other situation you’ll face in your career.

After almost seven years at my job, including nearly four in my current position, I received notice about a week ago that my position and two others in my office will cease to exist in less than six weeks. I’m being laid off.

My initial reaction? Of course, I couldn’t help but tear up as the news was delivered to me. And as soon as I was alone in my office with the door closed, I allowed the emotions to escape before inviting a couple of my closest colleagues in to share a hug and a cry.

Everyone — even a PR pro — deserves some time for grief and emotion upon receiving news of an impending layoff, but it can’t last long, because you need to shift into crisis communicator mode. You have clients to inform, projects to wrap up, colleagues to train and transition, and a job search to conduct. In my case, I received nearly two months’ notice, and I’ve vowed to spend that time being positive and working diligently to serve my clients.

But before you start making those phone calls and tackling everything else, there is something you should do. Taking a cue from one of my clients, the brilliant and positive Sherene McHenry — who had spoken of the value of an “I’m thankful for …” list as a strategy for curbing complaining in my first-ever Wall Street Journal placement, which was published just two days before my layoff notification — I sat down and realistically thought about what I am grateful for, even under less-than-ideal circumstances. My list:

- A supportive family that believes in me and is going to be there for me no matter what happens

- Colleagues and friends who I felt comfortable calling upon for support when I needed it most and who value me as a professional and personal resource and problem solver

- Awesome clients who appreciate my skills and think highly of me as a person and a professional

- A large personal and professional network, both in person and online

- A reputation as a detail-oriented “utility player” and strong writer with diverse skills and education

- Experience working directly with the top executive of an organization and handling sensitive, confidential information with integrity

It’s amazing just how much the act of making this list will affect your outlook and attitude. Because creating my list reminded me that I have so much to be grateful for, I’ve felt confident and optimistic as I’ve shared the news regarding my situation.

And you know what? There’s no substitute for being sincere and positive, which I’ve discovered as my clients and colleagues praise my attitude and offer to serve as references and write letters of recommendation, offer to call up alumni from their departments to seek job opportunities for me and watch for job postings that might interest me, tell me how much I’ll be missed, and in some cases even admit that I’m handling this better than they think they could.

These conversations also have led to lots of very specific, very positive feedback from the clients I have served over the years … and even from journalists with whom I’ve worked! Pay attention during these conversations; you’ll learn new ways to present your strengths to prospective employers, and you may even learn about strengths you might not have realized others saw in you all along.

The ability to find positives in what in many ways is a negative experience, including seeing it as an opportunity rather than an ending; the ability to sincerely communicate positively about what has transpired and about your outlook for the future instead of being angry, bitter and/or mopey; and refusing to let your final days or weeks on the job be a “lame duck” session are all essential if you are to succeed as a crisis communicator during your time of turmoil.

The bottom line: You owe it to yourself to handle your own crisis with the same grace, honesty and dedication with which you’ve always approached your clients’ crises; you are the client now.

Rachel M. Esterline works as an account executive for Central Michigan Life, the nationally award-winning school newspaper at Central Michigan University. She is as an account executive for PR Central, CMU’s student-run public relations firm and as a public relations executive with the Student Government Association. Additionally, Rachel serves on the executive board of the Public Relations Student Society of America at CMU and has completed a seven-month internship with her university’s public relations and marketing department. Rachel will graduate in May 2010 with a degree in public relations with minors in journalism and communication.

This post is a part of PRofessional Development Week. The posts from March 2 to March 6 will focus on the development of professional skills of public relations students. If you would like to contribute to this special week on A Step Ahead, e-mail Rachel.M.Esterline {at} Gmail.com.

Renee Walker, the associate vice president of public relations and marketing at Central Michigan University, shared this quote with us at the CMU-FSU PRSSA Regional Activity:

Don’t let the fear of falling keep you from knowing the joy of flight.

— Lane Wallace

Here are three ways to help launch and manage your career that I learned from Renee:

1. Create a list of “must haves,” “deal breakers,” “professional goals” and “personal goals.”
   To help you evaluate whether or not your career is going in the right direction, Renee suggested creating a list. For example, one of my “must haves” is a job that challenges me. If it is too easy, I won’t be learning much. A “deal breaker” is a job that requires me to fetch coffee. I believe in paying my dues, but I don’t want my position of intern to be taken advantage of.
2. Identify your talents and experience gaps.
   By identifying your talents, you can better promote yourself. And, by identifying your experience gaps, you can find ways to gain the experience you need. My talents include social media and writing for publications. But, I don’t have a lot of experience in media relations. In order to close the experience gap, I should work on gaining experience in media relations in order to advance my career.
3. Establish stretch goals.
   Since working with Renee when I was an intern in her office, I have realized she believes in pushing yourself to reach higher goals. She calls these “stretch goals.” She said it is OK if you don’t always reach your stretch goals, but you can never reach them if you don’t try. This is where her favorite quote, at the top of this post, comes in.

Rachel M. Esterline works as an account executive for Central Michigan Life, the nationally award-winning school newspaper at Central Michigan University. She is as an account executive for PR Central, CMU’s student-run public relations firm and as a public relations executive with the Student Government Association. Additionally, Rachel serves on the executive board of the Public Relations Student Society of America at CMU and has completed a seven-month internship with her university’s public relations and marketing department. Rachel will graduate in May 2010 with a degree in public relations with minors in journalism and communication.

A few days ago I interviewed Amy Mengel about corporate communication. Here’s some great information about life in corporate communications.

Working in Corporate: “You always have one client (the company), but you still have a variety of audiences and stakeholders…You have to find ways to take your company’s messages/story and tell it to all those different groups.”

What you do: Some departments have specialized staff (one person for media relations, another for community relations, etc.) Or, you could run everything and be a jack-of-all trades.

Why persuasion is a key skill: “In corporate communication, you spend a lot of time working with non-communicators. You have to work across functions and a lot of times you need to get people to do what you need them to do, but you’re not their boss, so you don’t have any real authority over them.”

Hardest part: “It can be mundane sometimes…with corporate communication, there are lots of things that need to get done that aren’t exactly exciting…Another thing that’s tough is that a lot of times the non-communicators have no idea what you do or what you’re there for. You have to constantly prove your value and get people to realize the importance of communications.”

Pros:

• “More exposure to people high up in the company.”
• Opportunity to take responsibility for large-scale projects.
• Working directly with managers, business leaders and senior level staff.

Cons:

• “You always have the same client/topics, so it can get repetitive.”
• “Sometimes internal communications can be extremely frustrating.”
• “Bureaucracy in corporations – Compliance training, levels of approval, rules and regulations.”

Corporate culture: “This depends COMPLETELY on the company. The three companies I have worked for have had vastly different cultures…It really depends on your personality and what you’re comfortable with.”

Top intern skill: “I want the intern to write well. Hands down. I want to get a sense that they can interact with a variety of different types of people.

Evaluating interns: Are they comfortable not only on the shop floor with the line operators but also in a room full of senior staff? Are they confident and relaxed? Do they have good time management and project management skills? Have they successfully led disparate groups of people in the past? Are they really organized and able to consistently meet deadlines? Beyond those, other things that would definitely be a plus are things like graphic design and HTML/web content management knowledge.”

Rachel M. Esterline works as an account executive for Central Michigan Life, the nationally award-winning school newspaper at Central Michigan University. She is as an account executive for PR Central, CMU’s student-run public relations firm and as a public relations executive with the Student Government Association. Additionally, Rachel serves on the executive board of the Public Relations Student Society of America at CMU and has completed a seven-month internship with her university’s public relations and marketing department. Rachel will graduate in May 2010 with a degree in public relations with minors in journalism and communication.