From Tehran, Iran to Madison, Wisconsin, citizen journalists armed with small “Flip Cams” (or iPhones, or Droids, etc.) are providing valuable news reports that can be used to share information with the outside world — or simply to play “gotcha” with political opponents.

This morning, Politico reports on how this new “weapon” is being used in the current labor protests across the country:

Stung by allegations of incendiary, racist and homophobic rhetoric at tea party rallies last year, conservative activists with flipcams and camera phones have circulated at the union protests sprouting up across the country in hopes of catching violent or abusive behavior by their liberal adversaries.  The resulting photos and videos have ricocheted around the conservative blogosphere in recent days, prompting mounting outrage on the right.

Online video has been used against conservatives.  It’s being used against liberals.

It’s so authentic because it’s personal, it’s candid and visual.

Today, however, we’re giving his operation a “thumbs down” for blocking certain journalists from following his personal Twitter account.

The Ft. Worth Star-Telegram’s Bud Kennedy has this story on Twitter blockage.  He writes:

As of Tuesday, Perry or someone using his personal Twitter.com account has specifically singled out and blocked at least six Texas journalists from following his posts.

This is just an odd move by Perry.  Blocking someone on Twitter just means they won’t automatically receive your updates in their Twitter stream.  Anyone, however, can go to an unprotected Twitter account to view updates.

So, in effect, Perry sent a clear message without actually hiding his Tweets.  In the process, he created a news story that didn’t have to be written.

Our advice to candidates, organizations and businesses:  you have to decide whether or not you want to be open.

There’s no middle ground.  You’re either open … or you’re not.

It’s not the end of the world for Perry.  I doubt he’s sweating Kennedy’s news story at all.

But that doesn’t mean it was a good move, especially since “blocking” someone on Twitter doesn’t mean they can’t view your Tweets, anyway.

“My #1 tip to businesses who want to grow their Facebook Presence requires no additional work — it’s simply to include a photo with every post. A picture truly is worth a thousand words, and if you have a global brand, a photo needs no translation.”

– Randi Zuckerberg, Marketing Director, Facebook, as quoted in “5 Masterminds Redefining Social Media Marketing.”

Now, I have no problem with that email software. But their ad touted the fact that their software now allows you to include “share” buttons in your email templates that will allow readers to post the email to Facebook.

Again, I have no problem with the software. Adding a “share” button to your emails is great.

I also shouldn’t be surprised by product advertising overselling the importance of the actual product.

The truth is, however, that email software (and all the “share” buttons in the world) are useless without good, compelling, unique content.

The world is now full of small business owners who are excited about the fact that they are “on Facebook” or “on Twitter” or that they purchased new email software — but who have no content strategy to actually make those tools worth a darn.

Organizations and small businesses have an enormous amount of communications tools at their disposal to to help their bottom line. But a tool is only as good as the person using it — and the difference is made through a solid, coherent strategy to harness and share your content.

Are all of your Facebook status updates products of rigorous review processes by your communications, legal and policy departments?

Does the above result in social networks in which you’re only posting one or two times per week?

Then maybe social media isn’t for you (or your company.)  Or, more to the point, maybe your organization needs a communications climate change.

If you think the above examples are overly-exagerrated, think again.  Unfortunately, we’ve run across several organizations in recent weeks where those examples held true.  And yet these organizations were left scratching their heads as to why their online communications programs weren’t bearing fruit.

In their minds, they needed to invest more money in bells and whistles.  New apps.  Fresh widgets.

Wrong.

It’s not about the widgets.  It’s about the content.

We’re living in the age of real-time, folks.  While that may sound scary, it’s reality.  Are you ready to adapt?

It may only have been a few years ago that you had the luxury of spending an entire afternoon running your press releases through a groupthink approval process before hitting the send button on your fax machine.

But times have changed.  We have to be able to react within seconds, not hours.

And different communications platforms require different discussions.  People on Twitter and Facebook don’t simply want focus group-tested talking points.  They want a discussion.  They want a conversation.

So, what we normally tell organizations is this: either change your communications climate, or stop embarrassing yourself with a failed social media experiment.

Otherwise, you’re throwing good money after bad, and tarnishing your brand in the process.

Are you read for the climate change?

“Email is probably dying.”

Forgive us if we’re skeptical.

While nobody can fully predict what new technology will take hold over the next few years, email is still the fabric that holds together online communications.

For example, Ms. Sandberg should look at her own company.  In fact, Facebook would be a whole lot different without email.  Where do friend requests, event invites and messages end up?  In both your regular email and Facebook inboxes.

Whether or not Facebook launches its own version of email — it’s still email.

Facebook also recently launched a new partnership with Yahoo! in which those with Yahoo! accounts can fully integrate the Facebook experience into their email.

Other newer social networking tools (and, yes, email is a social networking tool) also heavily rely on email.  Twitter, for example, relies on email to deliver you direct messages and new follower alerts.

Further, take a look at this recent study that finds the great majority (58%) of Americans start their day with email — as opposed to 11% starting it with Facebook.  Those numbers could change in the coming years, but those current numbers don’t make it seem as if email is going anywhere anytime soon.

Will email change?  Yes.  Will it adapt?  Yes.

We already see how Gmail users’ experience is changing — with the integration of Google Buzz, Google Voice and evolution of Google Chat.

Yahoo! is changing, as well, with its Facebook integration.

So, yes, email will change.  Email five years from now may look much different than it does today.  But that doesn’t mean it’s dying.

It’s adapting.  And it’s a bit too early to predict its demise.

Earlier this week, I had the pleasure of listening in on a Bulldog Reporter teleconference featuring social media/tech evangelist Robert Scoble, entitled, “2010 Tech Trends and Tactics.”  (You can view the live tweets here.)

What made this teleconference so interesting is that here you had Scoble — a journalist (yes, bloggers are journalists) who is also a brand unto himself — talking to PR flaks about how best to utilize new online tools to engage the media.  I say this is “interesting” because not only are many of these PR folks the same people who are pitching Scoble on their clients’ new apps and wares — Scoble is out there using these tools to build his brand.

But I digress…

The key issues that stuck out for me from the teleconference were the following:

• Know what your story is first and know how to tell it.  That will determine what tools to use. As I’ve written here previously, content and message should always come before tech.  Too many people worry about their “Facebook strategy” or “Twitter strategy” before thinking about their content strategy.  If you don’t have a compelling story — there isn’t a tool in the world that’s going to help you.  Scoble hits the nail on the head with this one.

• Blogs are still the best way to tell a story. Of course, I’m not surprised that Scoble (a blogger extraordinaire) would say this, but he’s correct.  Tools like Facebook and Twitter are great — but blogs really allow you to expand the space in which you can tell your story.  As Scoble pointed out, frequent, unique, compelling content on your blog is also the best way to pump up your content’s SEO value.

• The most effective PR “pitches” Scoble gets are from friends or fans recommending products, rather than press release and pitch calls. This really reinforces the idea that modern communication is about authenticity.  It’s not about slick taglines.  Your product has to be good.  Your service has to be solid.  If those two principles are in tact — your product will create buzz organically.  No amount of tweets or status updates can cover up for a crappy product/service.  And the buzz you create is the best PR you can generate.  More so than any press release you can send to journalists like Scoble.  (Could the press release really be dead?)

All in all, a worthwhile teleconference.  Thanks to Bulldog for putting on the teleconference — and thanks to Scoble for participating.

One of the most frequently asked questions of marketers looking to engage with “social media” tools is: what’s my return on investment (ROI)?

The number of blogs (and even books) that have been written on this topic is seemingly endless.

I think we should stop looking for the “ROI” and instead start talking about “Benefits of Engagement” (BOE).

Click here to read more.

Visit this new campaign at OperationTweetfront.com — which is designed to raise vital funds for Operation Homefront of Illinois.

OH-IL provides emergency assistance and morale to our troops, to the families they leave behind and to wounded warriors when they return home.

While these heroes are risking everything to protect us — the least we can do is help protect their families.

For every person that retweets the message at OperationTweetfront.com between now and midnight New Year’s Eve — our firm will donate $2 (up to $2,500) to Operation Homefront of Illinois.

All you have to do to help a wounded warrior is re-tweet the message at OperationTweetfront.com. It’s that simple!

Thank you for your support, and we hope you have a Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

• Loneliness can spread through social networks?
• It’s about engagement — not eyeballs
• Great presentation on social media tools and government affairs

When then-candidate Barack Obama delivered his A More Perfect Union speech on race in March 2008 — it was viewed on YouTube by more than 6 million people.

Talk about by-passing the so-called “mainstream” media.

The fact is, online video is becoming one of the most powerful communications media in the world.  Take a look at these key findings from comScore’s August 2009 Video Metrix report:

• More than 161 million viewers watched an average of 157 videos per viewer during the month of August.
• 81.6 percent of the total U.S. Internet audience viewed online video.
• 120.5 million viewers watched nearly 10 billion videos on YouTube.com (82.6 videos per viewer).
• 44.9 million viewers watched 340 million videos on MySpace.com (7.6 videos per viewer).
• The duration of the average online video was 3.7 minutes.

So, you work at a small business or non-profit.  You don’t have the resources of Barack Obama or a large corporation.  Can you use online video successfully, too?

Absolutely.  Because, while many different people and organizations are posting and watching many different types of video content — we find (for our clients) that online video is a wonderful tool for doing one of the things that works best online:  storytelling.

Earlier this year, we posted our video interview with Bryan Quigley of the U.S. Chamber Institute for Legal Reform — an organization that is using online video effectively to tell the stories of real-life victims of lawsuit abuse.

In his great new book, Crush It! Why Now is the Time to Cash in on Your Passion, Gary Vaynerchuk explains how he has used online video to showcase his raw, energetic personality to build his father’s small liquor store into the multi- multi-million dollar online phenomenon WineLibrary TV.

This past week at the Public Relations Society of American 2009 International Conference, we heard from a variety of speakers who presented case studies on their effective use of inexpensive online video:

• Luann Lawrence, vice president for university advancement at Oregon State University, described how the university is using user-generated videos from students and alumni as part of their successful “Powered by Orange” online campaign.
• Lt. Col. Gerald Ostlund, webmaster and chief, OCAR, at the U.S. Army Reserve, described how his team’s weapon of choice is the Flip Cam — telling the stories of their soldiers through simple, unpolished videos such as these.

As you can see, it doesn’t take expensive cameras, lighting equipment and a makeup artist to produce great video content.  All it takes is a Flip Cam, or an iPhone camera, or whatever video camera you have  — and good content.

As Lt. Col. Gerald Ostlund said during his PRSA presentation:

“There is a place for polished video, but it isn’t in social media.”

We couldn’t agree more.  We have a number of current and potential clients who worry too much about camera angles and lighting.  It’s like the traditional PR flak who is still focused on the font and margins of his press release.

What matters is the content, plain and simple.  So how can you tell your story, or the stories of your members, customers or fans?

• If you’re a local Chamber of Commerce, how about doing quick, 30-second videos of your local member business owners at your events, allowing them to tell their stories, promote their businesses, and plug the Chamber in the process?
• Running a political campaign?  Empower your supporters by asking them to submit their own user-generated videos telling everyone why they support you.  Trust me — it will be much more compelling than your candidate telling the world how wonderful he/she is.
• A local non-profit?  Take your camera around (to those willing to do it) and get video of the people served by your organization, telling their stories and showing your current and potential donors exactly why their contributions are so vital.

Your blog, your Facebook page, your YouTube account — whatever online tools you use — are the best storytelling media ever developed.

But, like with everything else, the tools don’t make the story — the storytellers do.

The packed rooms for each of the social media panels I attended today (which far exceeded attendance at other sessions) is further proof that PR professionals have the desire to engage with these new tools — even if all of them aren’t quite certain how to do it.  (Although I will say that the large quantities of attendees live tweeting all proceedings today shows that many are already engaging quite aggressively.)

The big themes in all of the sessions I attended today were authenticity and engagement.

We live in a time when (as we’ve written about here before) submitting a press release and putting it out on the “blast fax” does not suffice for a successful communications program.  We need to engage in a variety of new realms, using a number of new tools.  And, whereas the PR relationship model used to be engagement with the media — PR pros now must re-learn to engage directly with thousands of people.

We can no longer just be bystanders who throw out pitches and press releases.  We have to be actively involved in the conversation.

Solid, crisp, journalistic writing skills are as important as ever — but we have to learn to make our content fit a variety of new media, and be “sharable” and “re-tweetable.”  Rather than mere broadcasters, PR professionals must become storytellers — but always allowing the audience to become involved and, yes, even to become part of the story.

In one of our sessions today, Lt. Col. Gerald Ostlund, social media guru for the U.S. Army Reserves, shared some great case studies of how they are reaching a wide audience and having a real impact by a) telling stories through the eyes of their soldiers, b) doing it with a budget of almost $0 and, c) showing the power of a simple flip cam.

Ostlund is one of the many presenters today who showcased the importance of authenticity.  Using raw, unedited online video to tell stories.  Staying away from “slick” in favor of quick, dirty, and real.  As Ostlund said:

“There is a place for polished video, but it isn’t in social media.”

I wholeheartedly agree.

The PR profession is at a crossroads.  It must adapt its decades old model to fit the new media environment — including not only how media is consumed, but how we deliver it directly to consumers, voters, employers, et. al.

As Daryl McCullough, CEO of PainePR said today … quoting the great Jedi prophet Yoda:

“Your must unlearn what you have learned.”

With that, I leave you with the following video interview with Brian Solis, editor of PR 2.0 and president of FutureWorks, who also presented at today’s conference.  Thanks to Mike Smith for conducting this interview:

Click here for Part II of this interview with Brian.

The Associated Press reports:

Technology stars, pundits, and entrepreneurs joined the Internet’s father on Thursday to celebrate the 40th anniversary of his culture-changing child.”It’s the 40th year since the infant Internet first spoke,” said University of California, Los Angeles, professor Leonard Kleinrock, who headed the team that first linked computers online in 1969. Kleinrock led an anniversary event that blended reminiscence of the Internet’s past with debate about its future.

On October 29, 1969 Kleinrock led a team that got a computer at UCLA to “talk” to one at a research institute.  Kleinrock was driven by a certainty that computers were destined to speak to each other and that the resulting network should be as simple to use as telephones. US telecom colossus AT&T ran lines connecting the computers for ARPANET, a project backed with money from a research arm of the US military.

Watch this related video from AP on the Web’s anniversary:

Not a long post here, but I did want to reference my prior post about the need for my health club to take their communications online.

I’m pleased to report that, as of last week, they began aggressively promoting their new Web site in fliers throughout the club.  In addition, they’re up on Facebook — providing helpful updates about their hours, class cancellations, etc.

They still have to get their site to improve in the search rankings, but this is a good first step for them.

Kudos, Morris Athletic Club!

Pitaro echoes many of the same themes we shared in our previous post on “pay-for-content”:

Many companies are trying to protect their bottom lines by putting up pay walls. However, this plan ignores two simple facts: (1) consumers are also struggling during these tough economic times; and (2) no matter how many businesses charge for online content, there are always going to be free competitors that will attract those same users.

We absolutely agree.  If it was just News Corp. vs. New York Times vs. The Washington Post, then pay-for-content might be viable.  But current technology has allowed thousands and thousands of flowers to bloom from both non-profits, for-profits and citizen journalists who all compete for readers with these media behemoths.

As Pitaro states, these free content competitors do pose a problem to the strategy of the “pay-for-content” folks.  And, we we stated in our earlier post, the pay-for-content folks create opportunity for those of us producing free content.

Oh, and by the way, a recent Rasmussen poll shows that almost half of American Internet users think “pay-for-content” is a “loser” — largely because they’ll be able to “find quality news content without having to pay for it.”

The memory of September 11, 2001 is still crystal clear.  Turning on the TV as I got dressed for work, I watched the Today show team react as the second airplane hit the tower.

Today we remember those who were brutally murdered on that day, and we also pray for and recognize those who have died in the defense of our freedom, and those who still sacrificed to defend it today.

There are many ways to honor our military.  One way is by supporting Operation Homefront-Illinois — a vital organization that provides support to the families of military men and women deployed overseas. Please consider making a contribution to OH today.

What do I mean?

Well, more than one of my clients has insisted on responding to a blog post, or a letter to the editor, or even a Tweet with a press release (or, in some cases, a press conference.)

I have to remind them of a simple rule I like to follow:  respond in the forum in which you were attacked.

Otherwise, you broadcast the initial attack and introduce it to an audiences who never would’ve seen it.

If someone attacks you or your company in a letter to the editor — respond with a letter in the same paper (if you feel, strategically, that a response is even warranted.)  If someone attacks you in a blog — respond directly to that blog.  Attacked on Twitter?  Respond on Twitter.

I was delighted to read in the recent issue of PRSA Strategist that this strategy was followed recently by Domino’s Pizza.  In this case, Domino’s Pizza had to respond to a viral YouTube video of two Domino’s employees allegedly doing disgusting things to a pizza (the video actually turned out to be a hoax.)

I urge you to read the full post to see the detailed response of Domino’s to this crisis, but one of the great things they did was to focus their response in the forums in which they were maligned:  the blog that initially posted the video; YouTube; and, Twitter.

One of the foundations of their response was a YouTube video by the company president (with a great title: “Disgusting Domino’s People – Domino’s Responds”) that has garnered more than 750,000 views to date.

In following this approach, they effectively managed the crisis by communicating to those audiences that actually were aware of the video and discussing it.  They didn’t broadcast the crisis to whole new audiences that wasn’t previously aware of the video.

They engaged in the discussion where it was actually occurring.

Good job, Domino’s.

But that was then.  Now, McCain is a Twitterholic.  He’s got more than 1.3 million followers on Twitter — and even did a Twitter-only interview with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos last March.

In his recent interview on The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien (below), he discusses his Twitter exploits and the vital role that Twitter played in the recent Iranian election protests: