President-elect Barack Obama has started a social media movement among world leaders.  Among those tweeting are Great Britain’s Prime Minister Gordon Brown, former Vice President Al Gore and Israel’s former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.  Gore, who signed up for Twitter on November 6 already has nearly 20,000 followers.  Although Netanyahu only has 192 followers as of today, it’s pretty cool to see tweets in Hebrew, a language thousands of years old.  

President-elect Obama was named the Marketer of the Year by Advertising Age, in part for his effective use of social media tools to engage the voting public.  But he hasn’t tweeted since Election Night. 

Other world leaders who have recently joined Twitter seem to think the medium is beneficial after an election is won.  Even after a term of office is complete.

So, what are you doing, President-elect Obama?  Now that you’ve won, do you think there’s no appetite for what you’re up to?  Think again.

Businesses of all types are joining the Twitter craze as a way to communicate directly with their customers. We recently participated in a webinar offered by Bulldog Reporter and led by two social media gurus from Ogilvy. For those who chose not to pay the $300, here are some highlights:

Who’s using Twitter?

Twitter receives more than 3 million unique visitors per month and has grown 5 percent per day on average since September. Sixty percent of Twitter users are male.  Twitter’s largest age demographic is 35 to 44 who make up 25.9 percent of the total user base.

Twitter is being used by business for the following purposes:

1. Customer Relations (e.g. comcastcares w/ nearly 5K followers)
2. Crisis Management (e.g. JetBlue w/ about 6K followers)
3. Corporate Reputation Management (e.g. Zappos w/ about 20K followers)
4. Event Activation (e.g. twitter #votereport w/ 11,000 tweets)
5. Issue Advocacy (e.g. redcross w/ more than 2K followers)
6. Product Promotion and Sales (e.g. delloutlet w/ more than 2K followers and sales of $500K)
7. Internal Communications (via Yammer)

Public relations professionals are using Twitter to pitch the media using a technique called twitpitch, which was coined by social media impresario Stowe Boyd.

There was plenty of other information shared, such as the rules of engagement, the ins and outs of developing a handle and top Twitter tools. The bottom line is that using Twitter as an effective corporate communications tool requires a commitment. A company needs to understand the culture of the Twitter community, be transparent in its intentions and engage in a two-way dialogue. You can’t simply create a handle and broadcast your messages without participating in the conversation. Not for long anyway. Along those lines, a company needs to follow its followers. When I signed up to follow Barack Obama, I immediately received a note saying “he” was following me.

Talking directly to consumers through social media is changing the way public relations gets done. And Twitter continues to expand its reign of influence every day. By the way, my handle is rosecomm. See you on Twitter.

Just after posting a photo of my daughter on my Facebook profile today, I received an email from the Word of Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA) saying that Facebook now has over one petabyte of photo storage.  I did it.  I know I did.

We’ve been guiding a number of clients on setting up Facebook profiles.  For example, we’re promoting a book that chronicles the journey of a home-birth midwife.  We’re helping the author set up her profile.  A non-profit client is becoming a cause that Facebook members can join.  Needless to say, our team spends a lot of time on social networking sites.  In my personal (i.e. non-billable for any clients who are reading this) time, I use Facebook for the same reasons most people do: to reconnect with old friends and colleagues, to check out people’s kids and to find out who just got back from a vacation or is missing their spouse.

In the last week or so, I’ve connected with a number of high school friends.  You know how it works: Join one person’s friends list and their friends see and connect with you.  And so on.  And so on.  All this social networking got me to thinking about the fact that my 20-year (gulp) high school reunion will happen in 2009.  It seems the people who are inclined to go to such events are likely the same people who are on Facebook.  On the one hand, Facebook may expedite the getting-in-touch part of the planning process.  On the other, how anxious will people be to see each other, since we’ve already reunited online?  I’ve seen what they look like, how adorable their kids are and know what they do for a living.

I recently read an article that suggested the demise of local newspapers is in large part due to the newsfeeds people receive on sites like Facebook — the newspaper is no longer the place to find out what’s happening in a community. I am not sure I agree with that.  But I do wonder: Will Facebook kill the high school reunion?  Maybe that’s also an overstatement.  After all, I can’t dance to 80s tunes in a bad hotel banquet room on Facebook.  Or can I?

In the words of British Futurist Peter Cochrane, “If you’re not online, you don’t exist.”

With billions of Web sites, millions of blogs and hundreds of social networking sites, the internet is king – not exactly an earth-shattering revelation in 2008.

All PR professionals must adapt accordingly – knowing and learning new technologies and becoming comfortable with them is essential. It is imperative that we blend the traditional skills of writing and media and communications knowledge with online skills.

As the youngest member of Rose Communications, I have a unique perspective on PR and the online world – as I don’t know the PR landscape without the internet.

I often wonder how media lists were built and clips tracked. I find it hard to imagine calling a reporter with a pitch when I can simply drop them a less intrusive email or message on MySpace or Facebook. I don’t know how releases posted to the wire prior to the web and I’d probably enter a deep depression if forced to work without my laptop or Blackberry for a week. In fact, I’m not sure I’d even know how work without the internet. Far from a crutch, online access enables me – and my Rose Communications colleagues – to successfully practice 21st century public relations.