This post originally ran on JeffEsposito.com last week. However I wanted to share to readers of this blog who may have missed it.

A fascinating study recently released by communications industry consultancy StevensGouldPincus sheds light on the power social media now imparts upon the public relations and communications professions. Released under the headline “Social Media Will Overtake Traditional Media as PR Tool in Next Two Years,” the study clearly demonstrates how social media is no longer viewed as merely a one-off component for successful campaigns, but is increasingly taking the place of traditional PR tools and tactics.

While intriguing to read and think about, I found one central point of the study somewhat counterintuitive to what is often said by experts: According to the study, media relations is the dominant function used within social media by communications practitioners, averaging 36 percent of use per professional.

That’s followed by product marketing (25%), issues advocacy (20%), special events (16%), grassroots advocacy (16%), political campaigning (16%) and crisis communications (13%).

I’m not sure if this is a good sign or is more telling that perhaps communicators and PR professionals are still not quite on board with the general consensus of experts and social media consultants regarding how we should be utilizing social media (e.g. audience/influencer engagement, brand and sentiment analysis, etc.).

Or perhaps it’s merely a sign that the profession is doing a better job of blending traditional practices with social and digital tactics. A recent post by Andy Beaupre backs this up, noting how social media has actually enhanced the value of public relations, rather than kill off the profession:

Strategically practiced, PR takes on a wide-ranging role, focused on earning a trusted reputation by acting in the best interests of these publics – not the organization’s own myopic agenda.

Social media is the latest expression of relationship building (a two-way model that’s far more inclusive and participative); other exciting new iterations will follow. . . . We’re the industry in the best position to “put the public back in public relations” and keep it there by never staying put.

Another encouraging nugget from the study was the finding that a primary concern among PR agencies and executives is tracking and measuring results and quantifying value. For a profession that has long struggled to create accepted industry-wide standards for measurement, this is a welcoming sign.

According to Don Bates, an author of the report, the “use of social media has become critical enough that both firms and clients want to know what they’re getting for their money; what’s moving the needle and what isn’t. If firms aren’t measuring now, they will be in the next couple of years.”

Implications from this study are profound, including validation for practitioners and agencies for the continued use and advancement of sophisticated social media strategies and tactics to drive clients’ business objectives.

This can only serve to enhance the value of public relations and social media, and is a welcome sign as communicators continue their evolution within the digital and social media landscape.

For anyone who wants a quick glimpse of what part (emphasis on "part") of the future of public relations holds, take a glance at this opinion piece from PRNews. While it unfortunately contains some rather glaring subjective components about the writers' clients, it does, however, thoroughly and succinctly address what still gives, and will continue to give, PR and communications relevancy (both internal and from agency perspective): storytelling.

Whether it's in 140 characters, a blog post, Web copy or developing an Op-Ed, successful PR professionals know how to tell great stories that help build their clients'/organization's reputations and brand affinity.

Amplify’d from www.prnewsonline.com

Yesterday's PR Pros, Today's Chief Content Officers

Every day, PR pros are hit in the face with the convergence of marketing tactics—PR, digital, advertising, social, mobile and more.

Certainly, we have to be well-versed in each area to properly advise our marketing and reputation management clients. But there’s a comfort zone for PR practitioners that will never change: well-written content and good storytelling. No amount of techno-whiz manipulation can make a good story out of a poorly presented one. And that’s where PR maintains a critically important hold on the future of marketing. We know how to tell the story—and tell it in ways that get results. Read more at www.prnewsonline.com

The Wall Street Journal has an interesting article in its Greater New York section today about Central Park's fraternity of midnight runners, those brave/foolish/energetic enough to run through one of the world's most beautiful parks after midnight.

The article brought back some fond memories for me of my own light-night runs back in college. Granted, I went to school at Truman State in tiny Kirksville, Mo. (pop.: maybe 15,000), but back then, when I was crazy enough to run 50-mile trail races, I would have to run twice a day sometimes to get enough training in. That meant going out at 6 a.m. for a morning run before work and classes, and then with a hectic schedule, running again at 11.30 p.m. or midnight. I think the latest I ever ran was around 2 a.m. during finals, which was just exhausting, but oddly exhilarating.

Anyone else ever run very, very late at night like these folks?

Amplify’d from www.wallstreetjournal.com

Central Park's Midnight Runners

Although Few in Number, Those Who Do It Love the Solitude; Playing 'Peek-a-Boo With the Light'

In the dead of night, cloaked in purple darkness, Central Park bears only a faint resemblance to its daytime self. The din of the city fades to a soft hum. The friendly shade of tree-lined paths turns to lurking shadow. The only light comes winking from the street lamps and the postcard skyline to the south.

Most of the park's daily visitors—the tourists, the dog walkers, the before- and after-work joggers—have long called it a day. Even the early-morning crowd still has a few hours of sleep ahead. But sporadically through the stillness, bouncing silhouettes cross the lamplight, crunching the ground beneath them.

They are Central Park's midnight runners, those people who lace up their sneakers when others go to bed. In the heart of the city that never sleeps, they are on the late shift. Read more at www.wallstreetjournal.com

Stefan Stern was one of my favorite columnists when he used to write for the Financial Times on management issues. Now, after taking his work to Edelman UK, where he works on long-term strategy for clients and the company, he's started his own blog under the Edelman banner, offering insight into global management issues.

Today's post on why CEOs often hide behind the cloak of "the weather" or major global sporting events to try to explain down periods for their business is spot-on and offers some good insight into how executives could better manage their message about the stability and sustainability of their companies.

Amplify’d from blogs.edelman.co.uk

Why did the restaurant close down?*

Public companies always face a challenge when it comes to results time – if the results aren’t very good, that is.  And just at the moment there are a lot of CEOs and CFOs wondering how to explain to analysts, investors and journalists that the recovery has been delayed, again.

The British media and entertainment company HMV is a case in point. Yesterday they reported disappointing sales figures for the the last 19 weeks up to September 1. In their UK and Ireland high street stores - I will try not to call them record shops – like-for-like sales were down 15 per cent over the period.

So what reason was given for this weak performance? Well, apparently, the FIFA World Cup in South Africa put a lot of media companies off from launching new products over the summer, so there was a lot less reason for shoppers to enter their shops.

I see.

Well, call me cynical, call me mean-spirited – thank you – but I’m not sure this explanation is entirely convincing. I have always found the CEO line that the weather had been “too hot/too cold/too wet” equally underwhelming when it comes to managing the reaction of the investor community.

Do really good companies complain about all sorts of extraneous factors at results time? Or do they just get on with the business of trading? Jim Collins, the management guru and author of Good to Great and How The Mighty Fall, says that the first step to commercial health involves confronting “the brutal facts” about your business. If people aren’t buying your stuff, maybe the fault lies in you and nowhere else. Why not listen to your customers, try and find out what’s wrong, and fix it. Read more at blogs.edelman.co.uk

Today's scoop from the New York Observer (itself having gone through a major redesign that debuted yesterday) that the Wall Street Journal will be adding a new book review section to the paper's revamped Weekend Edition this month is very big news in the ongoing WSJ-NYT newspaper war. I've been predicting ever since The Journal launched its Greater New York edition in April (which, IMO, is just OK, but is getting better) that WSJ will eventually launch a Sunday edition to compete directly with The Times.

Hell, with a four-section (Main, Greater New York, Money & Investing & Weekend Journal) Weekend Edition already available in NYC, plus the addition of the new Life & Styles section and book review coming out later this month, The Journal already has about all it needs to compete directly with NYT for its vaunted Sunday edition. All WSJ would need to do is push back this big paper a day and create a regular Saturday edition.

I'd also love to see The Journal do what The Times fails so miserably at right now: actually have local editorials and Op-Eds in the paper. WSJ's Greater New York section would be perfect for this, where a half-page or even a page could be dedicated to local editorials.

If WSJ can get the mix right on its new editions, it is going to give The Times a serious run for its money with the Sunday Times.

Amplify’d from www.observer.com

The Observer has learned that The Wall Street Journal will launch a weekly book review within the next few weeks. The Journal has never had a standalone book review before, and creating one now flies in the face of ever-dwindling book coverage in papers across the country.

The book review will be a pull-out section that will be inserted in one of the newly created sections for The Weekend Journal that will launch later this month. It is unclear how many pages will be dedicated to the new book review, but one source said it will be "significant," though it's uncertain if that means it will surpass The Times' usual 20-plus pages for its weekly Sunday Book Review, or if it will be in the same ballpark. Read more at www.observer.com

This AllFacebook.com article pretty much sums up what I hope everyone will think when they hear/read about this supposed new feature on Facebook to receive updates from a specific person of literally every single action they take on the site:

For the time being it appears to just be a test, however this would definitely change the communications flow within Facebook. It’s also the ultimate stalking tool!

Yep.

Amplify’d from www.allfacebook.com

HUGE: Facebook Testing New “Subscribe To” User Feature

Facebook is in the process of testing a new feature which lets you subscribe to all the actions of a specific user. In other words, you can receive notifications anytime a specific user takes an action on Facebook. It also appears to be Facebook’s answer to Twitter’s follow feature. As a Facebook user who has seen the feature explained to us, “By subscribing you don’t miss any updates from people you subscribe to.” This could also serve as a new engagement opportunity for Pages if Facebook enabled users to subscribe to their activities as well. The result would be a fan count and a “subscriber” count, which is the number of people who are guaranteed to get all of your updates. For the time being it appears to just be a test, however this would definitely change the communications flow within Facebook. It’s also the ultimate stalking tool!

While I’m not quite sure how advanced this feature will be, you could imagine a system in which you get a mobile notification every time one of your friends that you’ve subscribed to makes an update. I think that stalker aspect of the feature could also result in some backlash. Previously, it was chance if a friend’s information was displayed in your feed, however this will remove chance from the process. Read more at www.allfacebook.com

As a PR professional, it's always a good day when I read a column like this from a CEO of a small business who is not only extolling the strategic value of public relations, but expresses specifically what she and her company are looking for out of their engagement. And while there are certain points in this piece that I would caution against (e.g. establishing hard metrics of X-number of meetings/interviews with reporters during a 3-month trial period with an agency [typically, for a strategic PR campaign to succeed, it will take between 6-12 months of a bevy of media relations, messaging, executive visibility, etc. to see true, brand-building success]), overall, I think this piece is an excellent read for any SMB owner considering engaging with a PR firm.

Amplify’d from boss.blogs.nytimes.com

I’ve Changed My Mind About P.R.

You may remember one of my posts from last year in which I talked about not needing a public relations firm because we were getting plenty of media coverage organically. Well, as I looked back on that coverage recently, I realized that it was more focused on me as a business owner than on the company and the team. And right now, I’m so busy building the company, training new employees, and managing my pregnancy that I haven’t had time to seek speaking and interview opportunities.

I’ve also realized that while we have an excellent story to tell, we haven’t collected enough of the evidence. We have more than 500 clients, many of whom have recommended us to other companies. However, we have yet to get their feedback in writing. As I’ve been building my sales force, I’ve realized that the sales people need these case studies as tools to help share our story.

So I’ve changed my mind. I think it’s time we get some outside help from a P.R. firm that knows how to promote our brand. I need to stop trying to do everything myself and start surrounding myself with experienced professionals. I have had several discussions with my business adviser to make sure that I find the right firm for our company. Read more at boss.blogs.nytimes.com

A very, very smart digital media idea comes your way today from the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, which has bucked the trend of seemingly everybody and their brother joining forces with Groupon, LivingSocial and the myriad of other digital coupon services to create its own daily deal service called "STeals," which will offer readers an exclusive deal every day.

This service is brilliant for the newspaper biz in two key ways:

1. It fortifies the Star-Tribune's digital efforts by creating a product category that can actually make money (unlike creating yet another blog on the newspaper's website or some other digital content service that typically loses money early on.

2. It is sure to bring and retain (retaining is key) new readers to the paper - both print and digital - which will keep advertisers happy and boost revenues for the paper.

Overall, a very smart idea and one I hope we see more newspapers and content providers adopt in the months to come.

Amplify’d from paidcontent.org

Another Newspaper Site Launches Its Own Daily Deals Service

Head to a major local newspaper site and chances are you’ll see an ad for a group-buying site like Groupon or LivingSocial. But, while some newspapers—including, notably those owned by McClatchy, as well as the Washington Post—are partnering with existing group-buying startups in order to feature daily deals, the Star Tribune in Minneapolis, along with a few others, are launching their own daily deals services, using their existing sales teams.

The Star Tribune‘s service, which launched last week, is called STeals and offers one exclusive offer every day, which goes into effect if enough people sign up. The technology is powered by a startup called Shoutback, which has also been providing the white-label platform that the San Diego Union-Tribune has been using to run its own daily deals service which debuted in April.

The Star Tribune‘s Jason Erdahl tells MinnPost that in launching STeals, the paper is betting that it can leverage its existing relationships with local advertisers to “better build deals and integrated sales programs” than the daily deal startups can. Erdahl tells us that the company hopes to launch targeted deals soon “based on the knowledge we have about our users.” He says the newspaper believes it can generate about $500,000 a year from STeals. Read more at paidcontent.org

You just have to click through and read all of the screens to appreciate this cartoon showing the joys and sometimes frustrations of working from home. Brilliant.

Amplify’d from theoatmeal.com

See more at theoatmeal.com

Found this article on Sprouter, a really useful new social network for entrepreneurs. Some good thoughts throughout the post on how to best position your start-up against established competitors in your market.

Amplify’d from blog.asmartbear.com

The right way to position against competition

After seeing hundreds of startup pitches for this year's Capital Factory program, I can tell you that the two most common errors in positioning a company against competition are, strangely, opposites:

Claiming you have no competition.

Defining your company's offering and positioning by combining "the best" traits of 6 competitors.

This isn't just a problem when pitching — it's a problem with you defining who your customers are, what they want, and your role in the marketplace. Read more at blog.asmartbear.com