Two tools of all public relations professionals is the phone and email, but in recent times PRs are turning more and more to using Twitter. At a party, I met Kate Russell (@katerussell), a journalist for BBC Click’s Webscape show, and we got to talking about how she is using Twitter. She told me that many of her stories are sourced from tweets, and she often asks people to send her story ideas in 140 characters, or less. She told me that Twitter is the best thing that has happened to journalism in many years.

Following meeting her, I tweeted her with an idea for a story about a client I am working with (on behalf of the agency PR Savvy) called Blue Badge Style. In one tweet, I explained to her how it is an app offering a disability access guide to stylish venues. It caught her attention and she asked me further questions via Twitter, and let me know it would be proposed to the editorial planning team. Read more on How PRs use Twitter…

For perhaps as long as there has been the profession of public relations, there has been tension from the journalists served by this industry. I often see journalists complaining, frequently on Twitter, about poor approaches from PRs.

While there are hundreds of guides out there for how to handle media relations, I’m still surprised that the profession continues to fail on two universal “don’ts” that every PR should know enough to avoid.

Here are a few tips I’ve learned, and a bit of insight below from a few of the UK’s top tech journalists.

Read more on Tips for PRs when dealing with tech journalists…

Picture yourself in this situation – you are wheelchair bound and want to go out to a restaurant in London.

Did you know that 300,000 people in the city face situations like this everyday? If you are mobility challenged, you’ll need to phone ahead and check on whether, or not, the restaurant you have in mind can accommodate you.

Step in Blue Badge Style to the picture, and you’ve now got a website and app that can tell you what restaurants in London are the best for disability access, as well as hotels, pubs, shops and more. Read more on A disability access guide? There’s an app for that!…

Mobile Monday is offering The Mobile Academy at the University College London

I’m going to be a guest lecturer for The Mobile Academy, teaching a DIY course for public relations, and social media, for mobile industry entrepreneurs.  The course is sold out now, with about 60 participants joining the 36-hour masterclass, being offered at the University College London, through the folks who run Mobile Monday. Read more on Teaching DIY PR and social media at The Mobile Academy – help please?…

Stoney Nakoda

Recently I got an email from a friend of mine asking me to make a $25 donation toward her 4-year-old daughter’s book publishing project, by making a pledge on  the popular crowdfunding website Kickstarter.

Young Stoney Nakoda and the effort (lead by her family) to fund her project with help from people’s contributions of small donations is already getting her close to reaching a goal of $5,000 by 23^rd of May. To date, the family has raised $1,634. Stoney, and her story book about how she overcame her fear of shadows, is one of many exciting stories coming out of the crowdfunding movement. Read more on How to crowdfund: Seven Tips…

Whether it is uploading photos, that we then allow another entity to have control of, or granting access to our Facebook or Twitter account to a third party – we are, often unknowingly, giving away data, and, in certain instances, giving away certain privacy rights associated with that data.

Would you buy your social media influence?

If you are feeling lonely on Twitter, with only a handful of followers, or not feeling enough fans like you on Facebook, you could consider buying more friends. There are various services out there offering to get you thousands of fans with prices going up to $4,000 for 10,000 fans.

How much would you pay to increase your social network influence? And who would you buy? Read more on Only a phony would pay for followers and fans…

Pssssst…raising awareness about breast cancer is back on Facebook, with a new viral campaign that women are sharing. Girlfriends have told me not to let onto the boys what’s going on, and we’ll see if this one reaches the success that we’ve seen from previous campaigns.

Last year, women around the world updated their status on Facebook to reveal what colour bra they were wearing. Red, white, beige, black, and leopard print was showing up all across Facebook, catching the attention of men. The phenomenon captured news headlines, and reports said that no one was sure exactly where it all started. Read more on Don’t tell the boys!…

Don’t like someone’s outfit? Slipped on ice? Lost a job? Think your boss is lame?

Hashtag fail!

These are all situations where “That is so hashtag fail!”

These days Twitter lingo is not just for online use, as expressions migrate from the social media world into everyday vernacular. In the case of hashtag fail, its sprung from the online use of the expression #FAIL and now even has it’s own hashtag of #hashtagfail. Read more on “That is so hashtag fail!” When Twitter lingo goes offline…

You may have heard the news that Facebook has partnered with more than a dozen music services, making for richer musical experiences for the social networking site’s millions of members. But are you listening yet?

The top three favourites so far are Spotify, MOG and Rdio. Other services in the mix include TuneIn Radio, iHeartRadio, Audiovroom, earbits, Deezer, SoundCloud, Rhapsody, Vevo, Jelli, Songza and Slacker, among others. All have been introduced as part of Facebook’s Open Graph approach, that aims to feed music, movies, TV, news, books, media and something called “lifestyle apps” into the social mix. All was revealed at the f8 conference back in September when Mark Zuckerberg took to the stage, alongside music darling Spotify. Read more on Facebook’s Musical Side – Are You Listening Yet?…