Or to be more exact, what is the role of public relations (not publicity) in a world where journalism and blogging continue to butt heads? It’s a conversation I’ve been having with friends and industry colleagues, and should be front …

Snagging a job as a community manager isn’t easy. First, realize that competition for these jobs is fierce.  I’ve been doing this since 1996, and there are alot of folks with 10+ years of experience that want the same jobs …

Sometimes I can see it in their eyes. During a speaking appearance, I’ll look out at the audience and see fear. Not the "Big F" kind of "Run for your lives, citizens!" terror that you see in a B-movie. No, I am talking about the kind of fear that makes you stop and check things out just one more time before trying something. The fear that causes you to wait for someone else to make the first move. I see it all the time in digital marketing. It’s totally understandable. It’s human nature. I am extremely sympathetic to everyone who experiences it.

Yesterday, I wrote about how NBC has handled Keith Olbermann’s departure from his show on MSNBC. Writing that story put me in mind of one of the hoary chestnuts of public relations strategy, which is to let sleeping dogs lie for some situations. Veteran PR folks are fond of refering to a minor flap as a "one-day story," meaning that you read about it in the newspaper today, but it disappears tomorrow.

Co-authored by Jay Baer and Amber Naslund

“Once upon a time, customer contact was centralized around the switchboard, and the phone was the preferred method for communication between companies and customers. When it rang, you answered, because it was likely a customer or a potential customer on the other end of the line. Now, the calls are coming through online, via the social phone.”

Listening is not hard these days.  There are now over 200 tools that can help you gather the conversations.

The next step is not so simple.  Finding the right content and figuring out exactly what the people talking about you need and want is critical to PR success today. Content analysis is a traditional PR skill, but data mining is not.  Building social graphs has not been part of our PR practice.

If you work in PR, chances are you have one of three needs:

* A need to build or grow your network.

* A need to acquire new skills or hone existing ones.

* A need to find a new job.

While you could argue many social networks meet these three needs adequately, I might argue that LinkedIn has the biggest potential to meet these needs best when it comes to professional skill-building, networking and job-seeking.

But, are folks capitalizing on that opportunity within LinkedIn now? Not so much.

I’m a Vikings fan. Have been my entire life. And I’ll tell you, it’s a curse. The ’97 season. 41-0. The NFC championship game in New Orleans last year (Tom Martin, not a WORD!). I can only compare it to what it must be like to be a Cleveland Indians fan (sorry Chuck Hemann). Heartache. Year, after year, after year.