Earlier this month, Econsultancy’s Vice President, North America Rebecca Lieb and Sally Falkow, president and social media strategist at Expansion Plus, presented “Engagement: The Key to Success in 2010,” a webinar that highlighted case studies and other research to show how engagement in social media and other online channels is tied to financial success. Appropriately, this second installment of our Ask the Expert interview series features Rebecca and Sally as they answer Nick’s questions  on social media engagement. (more…)

Social Engagement. Today, it’s vital for business sustenance and success. For many companies, social media and other online channels were lifelines that helped them overcome a tough economic climate and, in some situations, allowed them to grow.

Join Sally Falkow, social media strategist and president of Expansion Plus, and Rebecca Lieb, eConsultancy’s VP, North America, for a free webinar and case study presentation on real-world applications and benefits of social media engagement. (more…)

It’s a communications love triangle. Who do journalists go to most for sources and story research: PR or social media? Actually, it’s not as contentious as it sounds. According to social media strategist Sally Falkow’s summation in a posting on eConsultancy’s blog , a national study found that 89 percent of the journalists polled rely on social media even though nearly half of them believe that it suffers from a “lack of fact-checking, verification and reporting standards” to make those sources credible.  As she puts it, “It’s a supplement, not a replacement.”

This is a good thing for PR. Journalists still consider the tried and true PR professional the best connection to reliable information. Yet, considering many PR departments and agencies are responsible for their clients’, not to mention their own, social media sites, it becomes doubly important to ensure content is factual and transparent. So, the symbiotic nature of the relationship becomes less a love triangle, and more a monogamous partnership — with one spouse being slightly schizophrenic.

Read Sally’s entire article, along with comments from readers.

Note:  This post is courtesy of our guest contributor Sally Falkow, Social Media Strategist at Expansion Plus.

There were many sessions at the recent PRSA conference in San Diego that focused on the need for companies to get involved in social media. Discussions involved the need to move beyond the testing and experimenting phase and put together a social media strategy, the practice of new media relations and how to find the right influencers, the need to treat social media as an ongoing commitment instead of a campaign, and why measurement is so important.

I led a discussion (sponsored by Marketwire) and we took a somewhat different approach. (more…)

San Diego was the designated meeting place for members of the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) during its annual conference, November 8-10, 2009, with the theme “Delivering Value.”

Seventy Professional Development Workshops were held, each covering a salient top in PR, marketing communications and/or media relations. Although I spent a good deal of time in the Exhibition Hall (more on that later), I was able to attend a few sessions and gleaned a few (paraphrased) sound bites: (more…)

Hear ye, hear ye! New rules of media relations declared!

A medieval town hall meeting it was not. Rather, Marketwire co-sponsored a webcast that took place yesterday (October 28, 2009) on “The New Rules of Media Relations,” focusing on how PR pros can effectively work with today’s journalist in the media landscape that’s morphing right before our very eyes.

Helpful tips, useful facts and insightful questions made the webcast a source of valuable information as we all navigate our way through unchartered territory. (more…)