3. New Practice #3: The PR Technology Tester

Communications and technology go together. But, this hasn’t always been the case for PR professionals integrating technology into their daily roles. Years ago, when social media surfaced, PR was criticized for not being more in tune and hands on with collaborative networks. The disapproval continued with performance that showed a lack of understanding of how Web 2.0 and democratized content changed the PR approach to relationship building, advocacy, and reputation management. Many in PR thought technology was someone else’s job. Today, if you’re in communications, technology is your job. You’re expected to identify, manage, and guide all communications, especially communication over the Internet and through social media channels. Although PR alone doesn’t solely own social media, you must still direct the communication on behalf of your company. Guiding communication requires a deeper understanding of not only how technology works, but also how it facilitates better interactions with the public.

As a result, PR Practice #3 was born...the PR Technology Tester (PR Tech Tester) is the PR person who takes the time to research, test, and implement technology as a part of his function. Being a PR Tech Tester touches almost every part of the Social Media Strategy Wheel, from monitoring and channel distribution to the tools you use to strategically identify influencers and the platforms you set up to measure social media return on investment (ROI) (see Figure 3.1). Most students graduating high school and college already make technology a part of their daily lives. Technology naturally blends into their working hours, as much as it does into their personal lives. It’s no different for the more seasoned professional, with years of experience; although perhaps it’s more of a challenge. However, even if you didn’t grow up with technology in your home or classroom, it doesn’t mean you can’t roll up your sleeves and experiment today.

Figure 3.1. The Social Media Strategy Wheel: PR Practice #3

PR people must take the time to learn the basic technology, which includes social media monitoring and measurement, tools to gauge influence, backend content management systems (CMS), website analytics software, Social Media Release (SMR) tools, and finally, different collaborative networks, from Facebook and Google+ to Twitter and Tumblr. There’s a long list of technology uses and you start to dig deeper into technology when you create a social media plan. For example, technology leads to better monitoring and tracking strategies; technology connects your company to constituents through content creation and your channel strategy; and technology helps you to develop a better measurement strategy.

When you get into the routine of practicing daily technology habits, you can quickly learn there are tech tasks you can accomplish on your own, with ease and without the help of a web or IT person. When you’re empowered to roll up your sleeves to learn technology, it’s a rewarding process. What exactly does this mean for the time you spend with this new PR practice? Well, it requires adopting a different mindset and taking on some new procedures. The more you immerse yourself with different platforms, applications, and tools, you realize technology provides an incredibly targeted approach to building relationships by reaching particular groups directly, creating interesting stories and content, and measuring your progress with more accuracy. The Internet provides information at your fingertips. The day you started using the Internet was the day you became more strategic and less of a PR “paper pusher.” You should begin right now with your own technology research and experimentation.

What Are the PR Tech Tester’s Responsibilities?

The PR Tech Tester begins with due diligence, which includes a cost benefit analysis to determine the best technology, platform, or tools to include in your PR 2.0 toolkit. Your new tools can help you to share great stories, to reach the right people, and to create brand champions. Of course, you must consult with your web or IT team, especially if it’s a resource that needs to integrate with an overall organizational system. You also have to receive buy-in from your senior management team, if the technology requires a budget. In the past, depending on the technology or the tool that was needed, the process didn’t necessarily start with you and your PR peers. It’s great to have direct access to resources you can review on your own, make comparisons, and then digest the information to make an informed decision. The Internet and social media made this more than a possibility; it’s your new reality.

It’s energizing to be in a position to research, demo, trial test, evaluate, and then decide what technology best suits a particular program or helps with the productivity in your own department. Of course, the PR Tech Tester is no small role. It’s a critical part to improve your business communications. Suddenly communications professionals are selecting the tools and resources that help with productivity and program effectiveness. Before, you were trained and then used the technology to implement an initiative. However, being a part of the evaluation and the selection of your own tools leads to feeling empowered and inspired to take a deeper interest in the overall success of the technology’s use.

There are different levels of communications technology testing, from the smaller specialized tools to the larger platforms. Regardless of the size or scope of the technology, the PR Tech Tester is happy to do the comparison shopping and demos/trials necessary to make decisions. However, there are challenges. Understanding where and how to communicate on behalf of a brand, and knowing how to use the appropriate technology, tools, and platforms, is an ever-changing process. It’s also good to know when you dive into technology, from research through to implementation and measurement, that you become more of an asset to your organization. Knowledge and skills that make you stand out, and which offer new and valuable information, are worth the time and effort that go into the evaluation process.

If you’ve been appointed a designated member of the Social Media Core Team (introduced in Chapter 1, “Practice #1: The PR Policymaker”), or if you’re on the Social Media Coalition (the champions who form in different departments), deciding on the appropriate technology is your focus. Or you might not be officially assigned to a team, but you’re an enthusiastic employee who just wants to share newfound technology knowledge to your peers. Researching and learning technology is not only an eye opener for you, but also an efficiency booster for your programs. For the many executives with complaints, and for those companies that thought allowing their employees to “play” with technology and social media was a time waster, please think again! Being in communications doesn’t mean that you have to invent technology or be a web programmer or an applications developer. On the contrary, being the PR Tech Tester means that you help your web and IT departments by not asking them a hundred questions every day. You’re also speaking the language of other marketing pros you work with, and you understand some of the technology that they use. At first you may feel like you’re speaking a different language, but you’ll find it’s a more accepted and universal language.

For PR professionals, following are the basic categories of technology:

• Social Media Monitoring and Measurement Tools

• Website Analytics and Measurement

• Social Media Influence Tools

• Collaborative Social Media Platforms (social networks, micromedia video sharing, photo sharing, niche networks, and so on)

• Content Management Systems/Blog Platforms

• Social Media Releases versus News Wires with PR 2.0 Capabilities

All these types of tools and platforms can help the PR Tech Tester to be more strategic by using the most updated technology knowledge in your programs. Technology helps you to build the foundation for a successful program, whether it’s used to strengthen your monitoring/tracking program, guide your distribution/channel strategy, aide in content creation and optimization, focus on your measurement strategy, or identify a better engagement strategy. Of course, these are the basic areas of focus. There are other areas of technology to explore as you become more advanced and you work technology into your PR programs.

At some point, you also want to explore how to use technology for your contests, sweepstakes, and promotions. In addition, as mobile usage continues to increase, and more members of your audience access Facebook and Twitter through their smartphones, you must consider mobile applications as a means to enhance your connections and build loyal customers. As you open your world to technology, you can also become mindful of particular applications and customized tools that work specifically for Facebook, Twitter, blogs, and so on. Technology will continue to advance and change, so you should start with the basics first and work your way up to more advanced tools.

Following is a breakdown of the basic areas of technology and how you can use tools, applications, and platforms to create a strategic PR and social media program.

Social Media Monitoring and Measurement Tools

A discussion about social media monitoring tools could be another book—there are so many great tools and platforms for you to consider. The key here is that you take the time to consider them as a part of your social media planning process. The Social Media Strategy Wheel carves out a separate section just to highlight the importance of social media monitoring and tracking, which is critical to the success of any communications program. When you turn on your “Listening” exercise through keyword searches, it stays on for the duration of your PR initiative.

In social media and public relations, you now hear many professionals talk about “Listening.” Go to an industry conference, read blogs, and review articles...they all discuss this listening process. Social media requires you to listen to conversations through the use of search and keywords. These keywords should specifically relate to your company’s name, products, services, executives, competitors, and industry trends. When you determine your keywords, usually through the use of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) techniques, you will be much more in tune with what your constituents are saying, how they are searching, and how you can join in the discussions to provide valuable information based on what you’ve heard.

The social media universe is broken into many different networks. Thanks to Brian Solis, author, speaker, and principle at Altimeter Group, and Jesse Thomas, founder and CEO of JESS3, and their famous infographic, The Conversation Prism, you can view a confusing landscape with certainty and organization.¹ When you have a better handle on how the networks are represented and the many platforms within each network, you can select and go into any platform manually or use social media monitoring tools to identify/search relevant conversations for your company. It’s an eye-opening experience when you realize the many places your brand can engage with meaning based on conversations currently taking place. On the flipside, you may think you need your company to engage in conversations in a network, and you discover it’s not necessary because there are no discussions relevant to your brand.

As a PR Tech Tester, you will immediately notice many of the social media monitoring platforms today enable you to track daily conversations (buzz) across platforms, which quickly uncovers your Share of Voice (SOV) in any given platform. Of course, to properly track your SOV, you also have to track against your competition. As you drill down the conversations through keywords, you can also get a good idea of how customers and other important groups view your company’s brand sentiment and even the sentiment about the content you share. These platforms also offer information on key influencers who may be interested in what you have to say, the geography of your audience across the globe, word cloud formations revealing relevant topics, and top domains in which the most relevant conversations take place. In some cases, you may compare other company data (sales, web, and marketing) to your social analytics with overlay maps. Selecting the right social media monitoring helps you to strategically put a system in place, giving you a tremendous amount of research—from trending topics to the critical issues of the people you want to reach.

To select your platform for monitoring, you can use a simple matrix approach to evaluate what the vendors provide versus your own program needs. Identify your tracking and monitoring requirements, and then compare them to the many services the providers have available in their platforms and at what price points. You should check whether the subscription is based on a set number of mentions, if it’s a monthly licensing fee (per user) or by the number of keywords you set up for the monitoring program. Make sure you demo and then trial the software to assess your comfort level with the tracking, charts, and reporting features. Remember, you will use this information for weekly, monthly, or bi-monthly reports to executives. Your executives will be more concerned with reputation (sentiment), SOV versus competitors, and how awareness has led to a higher click-through rate on the company’s website. They will also want to see how social media data correlates to other data, including website analytics and sales. Of course, your monitoring and tracking should prove how social media creates registrations, leads/sales, saves the company money by answering customer service inquiries, creates awareness and thought leadership, and provides a brand lift with positive media/blogger and customer endorsements.

Some of the good (and free) monitoring and measurement tools include Addictomatic, bit.ly, Facebook Insights, HootSuite, Monitor This, Social Mention, Brand Monitor, TweetDeck, Wildfire, Wordle, Topsy, BackType, and BoardReader.

A few of the paid service providers with good monitoring and measurement platforms include Alterian SM2, BurrellesLuce Engage121, Cision, CollectiveIntellect, Converseon, Lithium, Meltwater, Prosyna, Radian6, Sentiment Metrics, Sysomos, and Vocus.²

Website Analytics and Measurement

PR professionals are getting more familiar with the value of website tracking and analytics. Where social media monitoring ends, website analytics begin. Typically, PR professionals have relied on the marketing and web team for website analytics. But, with your social media programs and stories driving people to your company’s website and newsrooms, how do you rely on someone else to benchmark your success?

One of the easiest and well-known analytics tools is Google Analytics, with its simple reporting of website user statistics. Other free or inexpensive analytics tools include Clicky, Reinvigorate, and GoingUp. Depending on the size of your company, you may have WebTrends or Omniture as your website tracking system. However, large or small, the reports are readily available and easy to read, with information that tells you if your efforts to share customized stories resonate with the people you want to reach, resulting in more website activity.

Several of the best analytics, for PR professionals to review, include the following:

• Number of visitors and page views: Shows you if your traffic is increasing to your site daily.

• Referring keywords: Identifies the keywords that are used the most to find your website.

• Recent visitor locations: Where visitors go before they come to your site (including social networks).

• Inbound link monitoring: The links that visitors click to get to your site.

• User profile data: Provides you with a view of what you need to know about your visitor’s surfing habits, allowing you to tailor their experience so it’s more enjoyable.

• Bounce rate: The rate at which people come to your site and then leave immediately or “bounce” off of your site.

For analytics, the PR Tech Tester should pay attention to the advantages of real-time analytics. You should focus on capturing what’s going on in real time, which tells you if your site is doing better or worse at any given time. Some of the more useful analytics include how many of your active visitors have actually been to your site before and how long they stay and whether it’s every second or for the last hour. You should also concentrate on how many people go to certain pages of your site, revealing the most popular areas. When you see that some pages are more popular, you can re-evaluate and often adjust the content on the less-visited pages. You need to look at who is visiting your site in terms of their location (city or country) and how many people come from any given place at once. This could be tied directly to what you do with a social media or web marketing program. Finally, take note of where your traffic comes from and what keywords are sending the most people to your website. This information is most likely also tied to your campaign content as the numbers increase.

Social Media Influence Tools

When you discuss online influence or social media influence, from a technology standpoint, it’s an algorithm that helps you to capture the most powerful people in your network. However, there are different algorithms based on the tools you choose. For example, one influence tool might calculate variables including reach, amplification probability, and overall network influence (Klout). Another tool might measure different criteria, such as impact, engagement, clout, signal, and the velocity, which you share (Twitalyzer). Another tool may focus on reach, resonance, and relevance (Traackr). These are few of the many influence tools available for you to use in your research process to identify people who can help to share your company’s content as potential brand champions.

According to Derek Skaletsky, vice president of business development at Traackr, influence is directly related to creating a voluntary action:

At its base level, the definition of a person’s influence is easy and generally agreed upon. One’s influence is equal to their ability to create voluntary action. That action can be anything from clicking on a link; to driving a purchasing decision; to changing one’s opinion on a topic; and so on. Defining influence is the easy part.

The hard part is trying to understand and predict one’s potential influence. Because when it comes right down to it, isn’t that what we’re all trying to do? Any PR professional is interested in an outreach target’s influence (whether off- or online) in the future. If this person talks about my client’s product, service, platform,....how many people will he/she be able to influence into action?

To best predict someone’s potential influence, you have to understand three things: Audience Size (how many people actually tune in to this person—we call it Reach); Audience Engagement (are people actually reacting to what this person says—we call it Resonance); and Relevance (how relevant is this person to this particular topic). These three elements combined are what give the most accurate prediction of a person’s potential influence in any given topic. Missing any one of these (especially Relevance) just isn’t accurate enough.

Understanding influence is essential to any PR pro. And, conceptually, it’s not any different than what PR has been doing for years. At a high level, the decision about whether to focus outreach on niche-trades versus mass-media outlets; on whether to book The Daily Show versus The Tonight Show; on whether to give an exclusive to one journalist versus another has always been about influence. Being able to predict one’s ability to affect your target market is at the core of the PR function and skill set.

What I think has been lost in the hype of Online Influence is the strategic rigor that goes into the thinking around “influence” in the context of PR planning. The idea that influence can be distilled down to some magic number, which will serve as the silver bullet for a campaign, is simply not true and represents an era of very lazy PR. Understanding the influential voices in a space as well as their potential to influence your efforts is very important. But, understanding that this information is not the end of your work, but the beginning, is essential. The people we have seen have the most success in this world have used “influencer” data very strategically and integrated this work into their overall campaign goals.

Remember, many factors create influence, and you need a balanced approach that extends far beyond the size of someone’s network. Although a part of the equation, it’s not the determining factor. There are consumers who rely on an influencer for knowledge, and most influencers have varying network sizes. Influence is also based on other characteristics including passion, trust, motivation, and, of course, the value of the information shared.

Several of the good social media influence tools include Crowdbooster, Klout, PeerIndex, Traackr, and Twitalyzer.

Collaborative Social Media Platforms

The social media landscape is constantly changing with new collaborative platforms popping up daily. At the same time, platforms less popular go by the wayside, as consumers select the platforms where they prefer to connect with peers, share their interests, and spend their time. As a PR Tech Tester, it’s your job to know the platforms where your audiences congregate and the technology and experiences they prefer. One of the best ways to keep updated on the latest platforms is to subscribe to blogs/bloggers that report on technology, social media, and latest and most interesting collaborative platforms for businesses.

For example, Mashable.com, TechCrunch, GigaOm, The Next Web, and ReadWriteWeb can give you insight and news on technology and what’s currently considered “hot spots” for your audience. You can also follow influencers who have a great grasp of PR, but who also move beyond PR to provide a well-rounded view of social media, technology, and business. Although there are many, several of these top influencers to add to your RSS include David Armano, Jay Baer, Chris Brogan, Jason Falls, Jeremiah Owyang, Brian Solis, and Valeria Maltoni. You may also want to consider following them on Twitter, adding them to your Google+ circles, and subscribing to their Facebook feeds.

Doing the research is only half of the work. If it’s a platform you feel would benefit your company, you should start monitoring the conversations on the platform and even build a personal profile to check out functionality and use and observe how people like to connect and participate. For example, you need to think ahead to figure out the questions your CEO or senior executive will ask you about new technology. If a member of your executive team asked you right now, why millennials use platforms, such as Tumblr, would you have an answer? Would you know why a brand would benefit from Pinterist? At the time of this writing, most executives are aware of the excitement and potential of Google+ brand pages. Their public relations professionals should be researching, learning, and using Google+ to report on how the platform works best for brand interactions and an engaging customer experience. You should take the time to get a good feel for the Circles (the way you group your friends together to share more targeted stories based on interest), the Hangouts (the video chats you can have with different people), and Sparks (areas of interest that you want to follow), so you’re ready to set up a page for your brand and have a reason and a strategy to participate. There is no shortage of articles, videos, and soon-to-be-published books on Google+.

Part of your job as a PR Tech Tester is to read and review as much information about new platforms and tools. Then, make it a part of your weekly process to test the new technology for possible company use. Although each week may be extremely busy, one of your weekly goals should be to tackle a couple new technologies. A best practices approach is to set up your own personal checklist system or To Do list through a software application. Using technology personally to stay organized is critical. For example, Evernote is software designed to help you with your note taking and the archiving of important information you want to remember and keep organized. Evernote enables you to stay orderly with your To Do lists or notes, especially when you stumble across tools, resources, and platforms you know you want to explore but can’t take the time to research or test right away. Other note software to stay organized includes SpringPad and SimpleNote.

PR Tech Testers are also good at filtering conversations by researching the best hashtags to follow on Twitter. For example, if you’re interested in Google, follow #Google; if you want to learn more about Facebook, follow #Facebook; and if you want to find out about PR measurement, plenty of professionals, educators, and students talk on #MeasurePR. Also public relations industry hashtag conversations and communities cover information about new technology, including #PR, #Marketing, #SocialMedia, #PR20Chat, #MMChat, and #PRStudChat, to name a few.

Of course, being a PR Tech Tester requires time and commitment, so you must select the most relevant hashtags. Avoid the conversations you follow becoming too noisy or overwhelming. Also, when you contribute to the hashtag conversations, by asking questions and sharing the information you’ve learned, you’ll get a quick understanding of what you’re researching and why it might be valuable for your company’s social media outreach programs. Your peers will be happy to share their good and bad experiences through aggregated hashtag conversations.

Content Management Systems (CMS)/Blog Platforms

As a PR Tech Tester, you must know how to use a CMS to create and share stories about your company. Today, PR professionals are becoming skilled at uploading and managing their own content (from blog posts to photos and videos). You also need to know and understand CMS because you work more with Web, IT, and marketing to coordinate how information is shared through either the company’s blog or community website.

Become familiar with a few of the key differences between various CMS platforms. Now that you’re listening and observing people and behaviors in web communities, you want to make sure your technology selection helps to build better relationships with these constituents. A few of these platforms include Posterous, WordPress, Drupal, Joomla, and Vignette; consider each one for its capability to enhance the communication and experience between parties on your site. The PR Tech Tester needs to examine the best ways for a brand to build dynamic blog communities and what types of platforms or technology can serve this purpose.

For example, when you discuss two-way communication, sharing social objects (blog posts, video, podcasts, widgets, and so on) and how to build an interactive community, should your brand use Posterous or WordPress? Maybe you need a more advanced CMS, such as Joomla or Vignette? Researching the different types of platforms helps you to identify the capabilities and functionalities that suit the needs of your brand and PR program initiative. You should identify the best use for different types of CMS by reviewing endorsements from some of the well-known users (in the form of case studies). Make sure you compare the satisfaction levels with the price point. And remember, you need to think about every step of communication and the technology that helps to make interaction and collaboration for your target audiences successful.³

For starters, following are a few key differences for CMS and what to use based on what you need:

• Posterous: Used for a blog, uploading, and sharing photos, videos, and audio. It’s free and easy to use.

• WordPress: Used for a blog, home page, and uploading and sharing photos and videos. WordPress makes the latest blogging technology available to its users, including Trackback and Pingback, which are great ways to build links and traffic to your blog. WordPress is free, but you pay for customized templates or design services if you want a more customized website.

• Drupal and Joomla: Used for blogs, home pages, uploading photos and videos, e-commerce, ad servers, and community features. Drupal is free, but it’s open source. There are plug-ins you can use, which may require an experienced programmer for the install. Joomla is also free, but you need assistance from designers and programmers to build and maintain the platform.

• Vignette: Everything mentioned previously, and you can practically add in the “kitchen sink.” Vignette is for large businesses with big budgets that want major customization on their websites and want interactive features, such as reservations and online payments.

Of course, doing the research and making the recommendations is critical, but you also must coordinate with other departments including Marketing, Web, and your IT team, should the CMS require more advanced functions, such as in the case of Joomla or Vignette.

Social Media Release Platforms/News Wires with PR 2.0 Capabilities

Because the media landscape has changed, you will be faced with decisions about how you want to share your business stories with the public. As a PR Tech Tester, you realize there are several options. One option is the use of a wire service that has ramped up distribution capabilities to include 2.0 functionality and reach. Several of the wire services, including BusinessWire, PR Newswire, Marketwire, and PRWeb, have the capability to distribute your news releases beyond traditional print, broadcast, and online media outlets to reach bloggers and consumers through RSS. They also use multimedia in their release templates including video and audio clips. There’s commenting, track backs, and sharing capabilities via social media networks as well as search engine-optimized releases, so your story can be found easily.

On the other end of the release spectrum is the Social Media Release (SMR), which is a community tool for sharing news and customized stories. A true SMR does not cross the wire, but rather uses the pull method of sharing. People who find the release valuable share it in any number of networks with their friends and influencers. The SMR is highly interactive and is housed on a blog platform. One useful platform for PR pros is PitchEngine, which enables you to create what the company calls a Pitch, or a customized story that goes live. SMRs are also search engine optimized making it easy for your story to be found, shared, and discussed by any number of communities. Bloggers, journalists, and consumers rely on the SMR for a more transparent and human story. Many realize the value of SMR for its rich content and the engaging content that it shares.

As a PR Tech Tester, you also must be aware of the latest newsroom technology that can transform the online newsroom into a social newsroom, including how to create and share compelling content, which also provides the tools necessary for journalists and the public to find your latest stories. PR professionals are learning how an online newsroom can extend beyond journalists to reach a new audience of bloggers, customers, investors, analysts, suppliers, partners, and employees. Focusing on a much broader audience is the next step in the evolution of online newsroom technology, which opens the door to a new world of PR/content marketing.

Being a PR Tech Tester and finding the right technology for your PR toolkit involves trial and error. But as the PR Tech Tester, you need to roll up your sleeves to experiment. Gone are the days in which the PR person has to wait for the digital marketing team or IT to evaluate and recommend technology. You don’t need to wait to upload your company’s blog posts, news releases, photos, presentations, or videos into your newsroom. CMS makes this simple to accomplish. It’s a new and exciting role, and suddenly communications and technology makes sense. Although additional work is required, in essence, most of the useful technology you uncover can ultimately add to your team and your own PR productivity.

What Are the Best Practices of the PR Tech Tester?

Jason Kintzler is the founder and CEO of PitchEngine, a social publishing platform used by more than 45,000 businesses worldwide, including Fortune 500 companies such as Pepsico, H&R Block, and Zappos. As a former anchorman turned PR pro, Jason offers some best practice technology tips for PR professionals.

Q: What are some tips for PR people who want to learn more about social media and technology but don’t know where to begin?

A: It’s always good to see what your peers in the industry are doing. New technologies launch almost daily, but it’s important to understand how they’re being applied in practical ways. The best way to learn how they work is to use them for you. When it comes to social media networks, take the time to listen and understand the dynamics of the network first. For example, by using Twitter on a personal basis initially, I was able to identify some unstated “rules” or ethics about the platform. I could see that Twitter users didn’t welcome posting “spam” or unwanted marketing or advertising messages. So, when it came time to use the platform for business, I wasn’t out of place and could have more success there. I also recommend following one or two of the popular technology blogs to see what’s coming out and if any of the technologies might be applicable to PR or to my clients.

No single tool is perfect for every situation. So, gaining a broad understanding of most popular tools on the market and how they work will help you to address a client’s specific need quickly by digging into your toolbox and pulling out the most appropriate wrench. To paraphrase an old adage: Every issue will look like a nail if all you have is a hammer.

Q: What are your favorite networks, applications, and/or tools and why?

A: My favorite tool has always been Twitter. I love the simplicity and the creativity the platform evokes in users. With only 140 characters to post, those long-winded marketers have to tighten up their message and be concise. It forces us to get to the point and doesn’t allow for much else. From a PR perspective, recent studies have revealed that most people who follow brands say they do so to be “first to know” about news, promotions, and updates. They’re also more likely to buy products from those brands as a result.

I’m also quickly becoming a big fan of Google+. Unlike the closed network Facebook provides, Google’s newest social network is open and searchable. It enables users to easily identify influencers around topics and keywords simply by searching. The View Ripples feature provides insight into how posts spread, which is valuable when we’re looking at how our PR messages spread across the platform’s growing user base. I think it will lead to deeper and more authentic connections between people, topics, and the brands they follow.

Q: Where do you go to learn about new platforms, applications, and tools?

A: Because I’m in the tech space, I tend to get invited to beta test a lot of new technologies. If I want to be more proactive about discovering them, I’ll look at blogs like TechCrunch, Mashable, or The Next Web for tips. Further, I follow leaders in the space on social platforms. If I’m not privy to a beta and the latest news, there’s a good chance that they will be. Additionally, they’ll lend some perspective to their experience with these new tools that I may not have. For example, I don’t own a publicly traded company, so the issues specific to that aren’t top-of-mind for me. However, some tech leaders do, and when they blog about a new tool, they may approach it from that perspective. There are so many new startups, it can be a daunting task to weed through them all. You’ll have to use your own judgment about the time commitment you’ll dedicate to diving in to each of them.

Q: How much time do you spend learning and testing new technology?

A: Unless it involves some type of workflow management, I rarely test new technologies during the day. I sign up and take a peek at many of them outside of office hours. I’d say I spend about 30 minutes a day looking at new technologies. To really use and test a service, however, it requires me to use it routinely over a period of about two weeks to really get the full idea of the capabilities of the service and to decide if it fits into my life. The ones that stick will make my life better or my workflow easier. If it isn’t contributing to your life, ditch it and move on.

Q: What should PR pros keep their eyes on with respect to new technology and innovative networks to better engage their public?

A: If you want to engage, you need to stop looking for “easy buttons.” Don’t try to make social networks do the job of advertising. Until now, technology has only provided more delivery or distribution mechanisms. Meaning: If you created unengaging content (like spammy marketing messages or poorly written news releases), technology would only help you blast it out to more people. Yuck! If you want to truly engage people, start identifying ways to generate better content. News releases should include photos and video, and maybe, even some humor or honesty, and be in a “voice” that your audience will find relatable. You are an authentic communicator, a content generator, not a distribution robot. People will read and share great content. Some of these technologies are right in front of you—like the video camera on your smartphone or that recordable Skype interview. Become a storyteller and your own publisher.

PR Tech Tester Check List

Adopt a different mindset, and take on a PR new practice by adding technology to your daily habits.

Do your due diligence with a cost benefit analysis to determine what would be the best technology, platform, or tools to include in your PR 2.0 toolkit.

Determine your budget, which can give you an idea of which tools meet your needs (free or paid).

Make technology testing a part of the communications function; realize it’s not a one-time deal.

Pay attention to what’s new in technology from social media monitoring and website analytics to social influence tools and content management systems

Read about new technology by following blogs and bloggers who go beyond PR into technology, social media, marketing, and business.

Set up a checklist or note system to capture information you want to research; use Evernote, SpringPad, or SimpleNote to stay organized.

Learn more about technology by following hashtag conversations on Twitter, where articles and platform advice is frequently shared.

Break down the PR Tech Tester practice into various types of technology, and then figure out which technology is a priority, so you can allocate your time and resources to constantly finding better solutions for your company.