PR Pros must embrace social media. This blog is a supplement to my June 2009
Update newsletter, which is devoted to social media. Since "old fashioned"
E-mail newsletters don't allow the space for much storytelling, I'm telling a
few here to make the point that even old dogs like me can learn new tricks and
to share some insights into how I learned them.

For example, I have been doing some very intensive research on Web-site
structures and optimization recently. In the process, I acquired an analytic
tool that allowed me to study several of my own Web sites to learn how I could
improve their Google search rankings. I was, frankly, surprised to see how
highly the Google search algorithm favors incoming links from social networks
such as Facebook and LinkedIn and to links with sites like YouTube and Google
Video. So I made some very minor changes to the sites including improving my
links to and from social networks. In the past month, I've increased traffic to
my corporate Web site by 15.18% and to one of my other sites by 34.89%.

Another: On Saturday of Memorial Day Weekend, we hosted our best friends for
a small gathering, which included the 17 year-old son of one couple. He
dutifully appeared and had his burgers but was eager to be with his friends. So
mom soon took him home and returned. As we were all engaged in rousing games of
Croquet and Dominos, mom silently kept in touch as her son asked permission to
change locations through text messages. (Why didn't he just pick up the phone
and call? Because kids don't want their peers to know that they're talking to
"the 'rents.")

And yet another: last week, I had marked my calendar for 1:00 on May 26,
2009, when the California Supreme Court was to announce its ruling on
Proposition 8, the California ballot initiative that amended the state
constitution to take away the right of same-sex couples to marry. It was a much
anticipated ruling that, sadly, allowed the constitutional amendment to stand
while, happily but incomprehensively, also allowed to stand the marriages of the
18,000 same-sex couples who had married after the Supreme Court initially ruled
that the majority does not have the right to deny the rights of a minority.

I was hovering over Google News and, shortly after 1:00, read the first
reports in national and international press. But then I went to Twitter I was
mesmerized by the feed from one guy who was reporting, minute by minute, how
street protests in San Jose were forming, how the police were massing in
response, how the crowd was reacting and feeling, what they were chanting, what
their signs said and what happened when arrests began. The carefully edited and
crafted news reports I read conveyed nothing compared with the raw emotion of a
guy protesting in the streets for his civil right. Imagine if, twenty years ago,
the students massed in Tiananmen Square had the same technology available to
them. We'd be remembering a very different set of events.

In my June newsletter, I promised bonus links to more great items about
social media. Here they are:

Like Lambs to the Slaughter: Why the FaceBook "Whopper Sacrifice" Was So
Murderously Successful

Social Media Can Boost Trust

Social media optimization (SMO) is gaining momentum in SEO Consulting

Most Web Video Is Unwatchable: Follow These PR Best Practices to Make Sure Yours
Gets Seen. Seven questions to ask.

Companies are scrambling to silence errant messages while exploiting social
networks.

Attention, K-mart (and Sears) shoppers: Your sites are ready.