1. What are you communications goals?
2. What market are you trying to reach?
3. Are your messages focused to the right audience?
4. How do you measure your results.

My take is that that there is nothing really “new” about Social Media – or “new media.” Be it in old or new, you still gotta focus on the basics.

On a personal note, it was nice to see you at the San Antonio BarCamp on Saturday!

The agency I work with now is struggling to learn as fast as possible, but mostly I think because clients like me make it a priority. There is nothing more telltale than when I spoke with a colleague who had recently left that same agency (within the last year) and she admitted that while working at the firm she had no contact/knowledge of social media whatsoever. It wasn’t in the realm of what she thought she needed to know and now she is realizing she has to play catch up.

I think the social media shift is a good one. It will take marketing and PR back to the root of what their business should be about–building more authentic relationships with customers, prospects and media influencers. It’s less about trying to get a story written as it is trying to find ways to facilitate the exchange and sharing of information among interested peers. PR firms will be forced to examine the strength of their relationships and the nature of their own dialogues in order to help their clients become part of the conversation.

The key is to recognize a PR firm with social media mastery when you see it. One of the best PR people in Austin, Josh Dilworth, is a master of informal, back-channel conversation methods. Look for clues to how readily firms are finding ways into media beyond email and phone fallow-ups (pun intended).