{Nashvillian, accredited PR pro and all-around rock star Mary Beth Ikard has received well-earned national props for her thoughtful and relevant management of the Nashville MPO Facebook page. In today’s guest post, she offers businesses, governments and non-profits five tips for managing–and engaging the public through–Facebook.}

I recently received some gratifying feedback from a national partner on the Facebook page I maintain as Flack for the Nashville Area Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO).  Transparent stakeholder involvement is critical to our success, and social media is proving to be a straightforward way to connect with interested publics, near and far.  A few thoughts on my approach:

1.  Think broad.  Our in-house experts collaborate, and are affiliated with, entities with a national footprint.  Several speak at nationally-organized conferences and Webinars. Say a Floridian learns about our efforts at a conference, and seeks us out on Facebook.  Posting local is key, but I’ll be darned if that Floridian ever felt like Nashville’s page was a bunch of “inside baseball.”  In a global economy, why would we only seek to be relevant to our backyard when we’re Kind of a Big Deal?  It’s the Flack’s job to relate our good work to multiple audiences. I seek out and share content that’s germane to our major policy initiatives – still informing locals, but there’s some universality there as other U.S. metros move in a similar direction.

2.  Don’t bore me.  It’s social media: show some personality! Use conversational, unfussy, even humorous language. Brevity = eyeballs.  If I’m looking at your post from my smart phone, how likely am I to read a four-sentence intro to your link?  If your brief intro is compelling (PR pros should cultivate intuition on what is compelling), I’ll linger on your update in my News Feed, and perhaps click on the supporting link to learn more. Facebook is also NOT the forum to put bureaucracy on display.  If your posts are about upcoming public hearings, with nothing additional that’s quirky, newsy, or useful: “Unlike.” Read More…

…it’s not merely a business mantra, it’s the latest social media trend.

In the May issue of Her Nashville magazine, you’ll find a brief tutorial on location-based social networks Gowalla and Foursquare, which utilize GPS and those fancy smartphones to allow you to “check in” to places you visit, tell folks where you are, and post your thoughts along the way. Here’s a teaser and–of course–a little “surf with caution” reminder:

Both Gowalla and Foursquare give you the option to share your check ins and travels via Facebook and Twitter. I don’t do this, but you may want to. How much info you share and who your “friends” are is all yours to control. For these location-based networks — unlike Twitter, which is designed for stranger-to-stranger info sharing — I only friend my actual friends, but I’m sort of protective like that … with who knows my whereabouts at any given time.

Like most technological wonders, what the Gowalla and Foursquare creators conceived now makes up only a fraction of what they actually do. Just think about Twitter as geeks knew it in 2007 compared to Twitter as the world knows it today. What started out as an odd text messaging service known to a few thousand people is now a global, real-time, information-sharing phenomenon. READ THE FULL COLUMN!

I usually base my Chic Geek columns on reader questions, ideas from co-workers and/or brainstorming sessions with my husband, but no one has really asked me to write about location. In fact, no one outside of my geek friends ever mentions location-based apps, which makes me think it’s time I wrote about them. Read More…

Here's a shot of Team Newman in the wild at SXSW 2007. Many thanks to Joe Flood for the documentation.

This is the first year since 2006 that one or both members of Team Newman are not making an appearance at South by Southwest Interactive (SXSWi), the geek conference in Austin, TX.

It’s not that we haven’t loved it. Our SX adventures of yore enabled us to be among the first to try Twitter, discover Ze Frank, meet our good friend Joe Flood and give Gowalla a go. It also did wonders for our sticker collection. But after AT&T’s Great Network Failure of 2009, and attending one-too-many Twitter panels, we’re taking a break.

We wish many a Chris Brogan and Guy Kawasaki sighting, much fabulous swag and free beer to those thousands of social media guinea pigs in attendance. Have fun and consume tons of Stubbs BBQ for us!
Read More…

{Today’s guest post comes from my hubby and Web guy, Dave Newman, who shares three things PR folks should know (and practice) if you want to get your arms around the Internet.}

1. Stop trying to control where your message lives. The biggest mistake we can make concerning putting our stuff on the web is trying to rebuild what’s already working. Let’s use video as an example. YouTube has WAY more hits and searches than your site is ever going to have; they know how to deal with traffic and streaming rates; their file hosting is free and putting your video there improves your search ranking. Why would you ever try to do it another way? This guy agrees.

2. Always try the new free social network/web tool/app. I know, there are a million new apps out there every week vying for our attention and begging us to upload our fun little pictures to. How do you keep up and how do you know which to try? It’s easy. Try all of them that either you are interested in or your friends/clients/enemies are interested in. You never know what will catch on but signing up for all of them – even if just to try them – will never hurt your search ranking, exposure or how knowledgeable you’ll seem to your clients and friends. Read More…

{Our next guest post is courtesy of D.C. flack and photographer Stacey Viera, who ponders how much disclosure to provide when promoting your clients on social networks and/or entering into partnerships with other vendors.}

“In the interest of full disclosure.” How often do you use those six little words? I would argue, probably not often enough.

I acknowledge that full disclosure can be overused. “In the interest of full disclosure, I’m married.” Hey, I didn’t ask if you wanted to go on a date. I just wanted to know if you were done with the Metro section of the paper so that I could read it!

But how often do we see a Tweet from a PR person promoting their “friend,” only to find that it originated from a paid client relationship? Or a Facebook link for a “beautifully designed new blog” that we only later learn was designed by the same person who posted the link? Read More…

I really can’t imagine anything worse than syncing your Twitter account with your LinkedIn profile. The thought of someone’s drunken Tweets perched just inches above their virtual resume simply makes me want to cry.

But there is something to be said for showing future employers and peers that you possess a working knowledge of social and new media, so having a visible link to your Twitter account makes good sense. I just don’t want it streaming my Tweets, even if they are industry-related. Fortunately–thanks to Twitter hashtag magic–we can have our cake and LinkedIn, too: Read More…

When’s the last time you loved on your LinkedIn profile? Believe it or not, HR recruiters really do use it to scout prospects. Does your profile paint a relevant picture of the professional you?

If you haven’t laid eyes on your profile in a while, stroll on over and take 30 minutes to freshen it up with these three improvements:

1. Create a thoughtful “summary” – also known as a bio, these paragraphs should explain how talented and experienced you are, while also hinting at your fabulous personality.  Don’t be afraid to share with the reader the kinds of work you most enjoy. For example, my profile says, “Margie most enjoys cause-related public relations…” It’s also nice to talk about your community service work, or other relevant extracurricular activities. Oh, and when you are finished be sure to add your skills to the “specialties” box. Read More…