I’m not a big documentary movie watcher but I recently found Transcendent Man, a documentary about future thinker and inventor Ray Kurzweil, on Netflix and couldn’t stop watching it.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with Kurzweil or his idea of ‘The Singularity,’ that’s basically the time when human life becomes intertwined with machines (check out the Technological Singularity entry on Wikipedia). Kurzweil suggests that within a couple decades we’ll have man-made, electronic parts embedded within our bodies.

I know that’s already a reality, but the type of technological parts Kurzweil’s talking about would fundamentally change mortal humans to immortals.

The question is raised in the documentary: “When do we cross the line from being human to being a robot?”

Good question!

To augment human brain power may be beneficial. But where do you stop?

If you buy-in to The Singularity, is it something to be longed for or protected against?

One idea suggested in the film is that a world war will occur between two schools of thought: those who want to become part machine and those who believe the best approach is to stay as far away from it as possible. That war wouldn’t necessarily involve nations, but individuals belonging to two polar-opposite groups.

As I heard Kurzweil talk about a future where microscopic robots roam our bloodstream to make us immortal and digital chips implanted in our brains send our thoughts out to others like we now use email, Facebook and Twitter, I couldn’t help but wonder if the social media tools we see today will play a role in human robots of the future.

Yes, it sounds crazy, I know. But think about the utility of it: instead of typing on a keyboard, you could think, “I need to send an email to so-and-so,” then summon your built-in Internet connection, compose a message in your mind and fire it away to be received by the digital chip in the mind of the recipient.

And if you wanted it to be public, like a Twitter feed, you could just mark the mental message as public and it would appear on some virtual billboard of everyone’s thoughts. Sounds a lot like Twitter doesn’t it?

Think of how smart you’d be if you could Google anything in your mind. Academia would find it very difficult to prevent cheating.

While I value the advancements science and technology have made to preserve human life and enhance life expectancy, I find little value in turning this life’s temporary experience into a forever experience.

Kurzweil fears death and is obviously still deeply affected by his father’s death. I think he lacks belief in any kind of an afterlife. He has a whole storage unit full of his father’s memorabilia so he can build an electronic entity that will include all his dad’s thoughts and memories.

I’m a fan of living this life to the fullest, then moving on to the next step in our progression. To me death is just the end of this chapter and the beginning of a very exciting next chapter.

Your thoughts?

What do you think about Transcendent Man? Have you seen it?

Do you think a social media type of technology will eventually be implanted inside newborn humans so they can communicate with the world?

Seems far-fetched to me. And sad.

I like my imperfect, mortal existence. And I like being unplugged and offline every now and then.

We all know content is king. In fact, we’re probably tired of hearing about it. But let’s face it, when it comes to your online positioning, the most effective tool is frequently published content.

For our purposes we’ll treat content as any sort of online text, graphic, video, audio file, image, logo, game, widget, etc.

And for purposes of your online positioning—your search placement—you either show up naturally (organic search) or artificially (paid search).

Paid search is beneficial if you’re working on a time-sensitive campaign. Done correctly it can quickly drive boatloads of traffic to your site. But its benefit remains only for as long as you pay.

Focusing on organic search means you’re managing your digital footprint from a position of strength. Your efforts will naturally pay-off for months and years to come. As long as you frequently share keyword-rich content, you can benefit from top placement in search results.

Of course, maximizing online search placement means you have both the right strategies and tools in place.

Content Strategies

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to develop and share fun, creative, engaging, snackable bits of content. You benefit from content distribution—people sharing links to your content with social networks—when the content you share is humorous, noteworthy or otherwise remarkable.

This distributed content is the new advertising reach. With nearly one-in-a-dozen humans on Facebook and a fragmented mass media, people pay more attention to recommendations and news from their social network than any other source.

What Blendtec did with their blenders on YouTube is a perfect example that ties curiosity and entertainment into a medium that actually helps sell product. After all, if their household blender can turn an iPhone into iDust, it most certainly can chop ice and carrots.

The challenge is to think of what you share online as storytelling. What story do you want to tell? What are the key messages to be conveyed? What’s the best way to tell that story, and how do you do it in such a way as to encourage others to voluntarily share your story?

This is where the whole concept of content curation has come from. It’s like a museum curator preparing an exhibit. Careful thought and planning go into every detail from the room’s lighting and color to the arrangement of the artwork to exhibit publicity.

Coupled with the strategy of effective storytelling is understanding search optimization. It’s incumbent upon business communicators (not just Web developers) to understand how things like page titles, meta data, description, keyword, header and ALT tags, and RSS feeds impact search placement.

Not only is developing content a strategic exercise, strategy is front-and-center for how that content is packaged for the Web.

And since we’re headed to the tools side of the equation, we may as well highlight a tool to help with search optimization: Website Grader.

Grader.com has a host of measurement tools to help you accomplish your online positioning strategy.

Content Tools

Blogging

We’ve all seen the effectiveness of blogging for organizations and businesses. If you want a good corporate example of blogging that engages with customers, conveys culture and effectively shares information, look no further than the Nuts About Southwest Blog. It was redesigned earlier this year to include categories of content: video, text and podcast. It’s a great example of content that conveys culture and superb delivery.

Microblogging

We can’t ignore Twitter. It has become a staple for corporate communication. According to a February 2011 Burson-Marsteller social media study, 77 percent of global Fortune 100 companies use Twitter. Some examples include @deutschetelekom for sharing company announcements and news, @CreditAgricole promoting offers and contests, and @HomeDepot for customer service.

Video

Online video is the future of the Web. Advances in technology and bandwidth will eventually create a World Wide Web that more closely resembles the multi-dimensional world in which we live. Instead of typing and clicking, we’ll be walking through stores, browsing bookstores and test driving cars online.

Far-fetched? Have you played XBOX Kinect where “you are the controller?”

Companies that share messages in creative ways with video will gain greater mindshare than those who don’t. Want an example? How about the Air New Zealand Richard Simmons in-flight safety video? And looking to pop culture, how about Rebecca Black’s Friday song? Like it or not (NOT!), it has taken the Internet by storm (if only my own music video was as fortunate).

Online Newsrooms

Perhaps one of the most underutilized corporate communication tools—a social media equipped, search optimized online newsroom—goes a long way to tell your story, capitalize on others sharing your information in social networks, and help you benefit from search optimization. A newsroom as a microsite—separate from your primary domain but designed to mimic it—helps you secure another ticket to the online search lottery, controlling more of what people see on the first page of search results for your organization.

Check out the Intel newsroom, set-up as a subdomain and full of the company’s content from many different platforms across the Web.

Social Bookmarking

Tools like StumbleUpon and Digg should rank high on your list of content curation tools. They are perfect ways to gather press clippings, highlight industry news or curate a crop of useful tools and tips articles.

Sharing Tools

Since our strategy is focused on getting others to share our content, we’ve got to make it easy for them to do so. Utilizing a tool like ShareThis on every piece of online content encourages visitors to share. Better yet, connect your site(s) to Facebook, allowing visitors to check-in under their Facebook profile and then interact with you and their group of friends at the same time. See how Rotten Tomatoes displays movie reviews—all from within your social network. Siskel and Ebert, move aside!

Multimedia

We could talk about dozens of multimedia sharing sites for photos, videos and podcasts. Suffice it to say, you not only should share your content on your own website(s), but also on the sites where people congregate for specific types of media.

Videos should be uploaded to YouTube and then embedded (but care should be taken to protect your content, so you may also opt for a high-definition video channel of your own located at a subdomain or different domain altogether, like a .tv domain).

Podcasts should be uploaded to iTunes and should also be supported on their own microsite.

Do you recall when IKEA created a Facebook profile for a store manager in Malmo, Sweden then uploaded a bunch of photos of their products and told consumers the first person to tag themselves in the photos, as a couch, bookshelf or cabinet, would receive that product for free? If you haven’t heard about the campaign, check out what Mashable had to say about it.

Content is still king

There are so many tools it’s difficult for someone immersed in social media communications 24/7 to even keep up.

One thing remains constant: create engaging content and it will spread. You may not end up with a viral video hit but with clear goals and expectations at the outset you really can’t go wrong by incorporating social media strategies and tools into your campaigns.

The past several weeks, as I’ve talked at social media conferences and taught a couple classes for University of California, Irvine online and University of Utah’s professional development division here in Salt Lake City, I’ve pondered what skills are required in today’s public relations industry.

Although a lot has changed since I graduated from college in the 90s, a lot of the core skills that make a public relations professional successful and sought-after, remain the same.

So, here’s a short list of what I think the most in-demand and important skills are for public relations practitioners.

Top 5 Public Relations Skills

1. Writing

You can’t get away from the need for excellent, persuasive, grammatically correct writing. Today’s texting generation may find it difficult to embrace this more traditional public relations skill, but they’ll have to embrace it in order to be successful.

The shift here is that the audience public relations practitioners are writing for has changed. It’s no longer primarily a full-time journalist audience. With today’s social media tools, and the Internet in general, public relations pros write just as much for the end-user, the target audience, as they do for the media.

Also, the writing public relations practitioners do has changed based on what screen they’re writing for: TV, computer, tablet, mobile phone, etc., and what publication they’re writing for: traditional or digital, in a newsletter, email, magazine, blog, newspaper, etc.

2. Creativity

Given the complexity of today’s communication channels, and the amount of information each of us are bombarded with every day (probably more than our grandparents consumed in a year), it’s incumbent upon professional communicators to be creative in how they craft and deliver messages.

Creativity goes into everything a good public relations professional does. It applies to the development of every message and delivery mechanism. It applies to how they represent their employer or client and the kinds of activities and events they produce.

3. Familiarity with Publishing Tools

With the advent of the Internet and social media tools, the public relations toolkit has simply exploded. In a matter of only a handful of years we’ve gone from perhaps a half-dozen media channels to hundreds, if not thousands.

Today’s public relations professional should be familiar with the myriad of traditional and digital communication channels in order to identify the best opportunity for their client, employer, etc.

4. Professionalism

In a profession so often belittled, criticized and made fun of, core values of advocacy, honesty, expertise, independence, loyalty and fairness are important for the serious public relations practitioner.

In 2000 the Public Relations Society of America published its current code of ethics which outlines why those six core values are important as well as core principles for the ethical practice of public relations.

5. Personable

An accomplished public relations professional is good with people. The profession needs people who are uniters, not dividers. People who help others get along and enjoy working to foster better communication in our sometimes confrontational world.

In the words of Michael Jackson, public relations needs workers who would agree with his statement: “I’m a lover, not a fighter.”

Each of these top five public relations skills require continual professional development in order to assimilate best practices and new tools. This underscores the importance of remaining active in a professional association, like the Public Relations Society of America, and even pursing an Accreditation in public relations.

Thoughts?

Do you think I captured the most basic, important public relations skills in this top five list?

Are there other skills you think are required in order to make a good public relations professional?

If so, please add your comments to the discussion.

There have been a handful of U.S. stories lately related to an individual’s right to say things about his or her job on social media platforms.

Last week I was interviewed by a Salt Lake City TV station about a woman who called her boss a psycho on Facebook and lost her job. A lawsuit filed by the National Labor Relations Board argued the worker’s negative comments were protected speech under federal labor laws. The suit was settled out of court and the company agreed to change its social media policies. I blogged about this story on my Posterous blog and you can see the KSL TV report here.

Here’s yet another instance of an employee saying derogatory things in social media — on a personal blog, during non-work hours — and her employer dismissing her from work:

This week we heard about a 30 year-old English teacher in suburban Philadelphia who was put on paid leave after the school district found out about her blog that characterized some of her students as “disengaged, lazy whiners” (read the article on USA Today).

I heard some attorneys on one of the cable news programs discussing this case. Both commented that the school district had no written social media policy, the teacher didn’t disclose names or specific identifiable information but instead made general comments about today’s high schoolers, and there would be no legal reason the school district could actually terminate the teacher’s job.

We’re seeing a trend here folks!

I’ve said for a while that the law hasn’t caught up yet with this social media phenomena. Fact is, the technology and its acceptance is moving so fast, it would be difficult to keep up.

At least in America, what we’re witnessing is the debate between an organization’s right to protect itself and its interests and an employee’s right to free speech.

This debate is just getting started. I don’t believe it’ll be resolved until we have case law — most likely Supreme Court decisions — to reference on the many different ramifications of rampant social media acceptance and usage.

I can’t help but think of something we were all taught as children: that if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all. Perhaps that’s a good guide for what you should publish on social media. And the reason I don’t blog about . . . oops, almost forgot one of my rules.

Then again, it’s not like any company would prohibit its employees from speaking ill of the company or its employees during a family board game, or a neighborhood block party. We’d think a rule like that to be ludicrous. The challenge for organizations today is that not all comments are isolated, many are broadcast for the world to read and see on the Internet and therefore create an impression of that organization, for good or bad.

And let’s face it, no one likes to be portrayed negatively.

Part of me feels the women in the two examples referenced above have every right to say what they want about their work as long as they don’t give away proprietary information or help a competitor.

Part of me feels sorry for companies and organizations being forced to adapt to changing cultural norms and the new reality of a worldwide social conversation in which they have only one voice and very little, if not zero, control.

Perhaps there are dos and don’ts that should be applied to all sorts of social media. Then again, isn’t that contrary to the whole idea of a participatory conversation?

Social media means that, whether you choose to participate or not, people will talk about you — your people, products, brands and services. And what they say will be online, discoverable and open to the world.

The opportunity exists to first listen to the conversation, then participate and help guide the discussion towards a purposeful result. This is an ongoing, never ending prospect. This is the new reality.

In both of the examples above, organizations either had an extremely strict social media policy (which they were afraid to legitimize in the courts), or no written policy. So, the key takeaway is for organizations to create a written social media engagement policy, hopefully one that has the input and support of its attorneys as well as its constituents.

In an article posted today on Ragan.com, public relations measurement maven, Katie Delahaye Paine, writes about “5 (more) PR-related things we need to get rid of.”

She begins the article with this:

I was stunned to find how many people are still in love with the press release. It’s worthless as a tool to talk to the press, but it’s great as a way to get everyone on the same page in terms of messaging and actions. My company, KDPaine & Partners, recently nailed down a partnership agreement by writing the press release with which to announce the deal. When we are working with clients to create a survey, I frequently start with a fantasy press release announcing the results. And sure, you do need to post releases on your website so the world will know what you’re up to recently. Maybe we just need to change the name?

I’m writing to address Katie’s comments and final question, that perhaps the name ‘press release’ needs to be changed.

First, I agree with Katie that using the tool of a press release to get a journalist to write about your ‘newsworthy’ item is worthless. Journalists are bombarded with so many emails, phone calls and pitches that they typically don’t have the time or interest to follow up on story ideas presented by press releases.

If you think of a press release as a written strategy, like a positioning statement for a specific item, it’s easy to accept Katie’s comment that the press release is “great as a way to get everyone on the same page in terms of messaging and actions.”

Her examples of winning business and using the press release as a tool to begin with the end in mind, are excellent.

The fact is, press releases don’t just go to the press anymore, or at least they shouldn’t. They should be published online, providing access to everyone, including search engines (primarily search engines).

And while we’re on the subject, we could sure have a long discussion about the practice of sending releases to the media at all.

Let’s call them news releases

Years ago I stopped calling company announcements press releases, for the simple reason that the press isn’t the only, or even the primary, audience for the press release any longer.

I call the announcements news releases, or just company announcements.

While I can totally see and agree with where Katie’s coming from in terms of asking why PR people still use press releases to reach the media, I’m even more focused on the importance of publishing announcements or news releases in a robust online newsroom — a microsite with the sole purpose of sharing announcements with the world and making it easy for others to also share.

The Internet has brought about a new world of self-publishing.

If, in the past, public relations professionals used press releases to present story ideas to journalists with the hope of securing media coverage for their organization, now the same public relations professional can publish the news using the Web and social media tools and reach the same consumers as the traditional media reached before.

In fact, if the PR person knows what they’re doing, they can reach an even warmer target audience because their social network already has an affinity for what that organization does (even if only because their friend is the PR person).

I believe the traditional purpose of the press release is dead — you really can’t get the attention of journalists with press releases, much less score coverage by mass e-mailing some database of journalists.

We should re-name the tool to be a news release. After all, we’re talking about something we feel is newsworthy, and it’s a release of information, right?

I think self-publishing news releases in a social media equipped online newsroom is the most underutilized tool in the public relations toolkit.

More about online newsrooms

For more on the subject of online newsrooms, check out my recent Online PR Podcast about the features and benefits of maintaining a social media newsroom.

Also, you can visit the NewsCactus Blog or NewsCactus.com to see how my content management software solution helps companies and organizations maintain their own newsroom for just $199 a month. (It’s the least expensive online newsroom software on the market.)

I’m a big believer in continual professional development. Although I’m an avid WordPress user (this site is a WordPress site), I’ll be the first to say I don’t know everything about WordPress nor do I take advantage of all its many features.

Plus, attending WordCamp meant I could network with other WordPress aficionados in the Salt Lake area and not do yard work today.

Community

The first thing that stands out to me is the strong sense of community that exists among WordPress users. Many of my Social Media Club of Salt Lake City friends were also in attendance. I guess that makes sense because we’re interested in similar things.

Beyond attending your local WordCamp, or Social Media Club events, are there organizations that help connect you to like-minded individuals? I’d suggest getting involved, volunteering and participating in local and virtual events that help you become better at what you do and more connected professionally.

Supporting the community, especially an open source community, is so important. After basically devoting 10 hours a week last year as I led the Social Media Club of Salt Lake City and chaired the Utah Social Media Awards, I understand how valuable it is to have support from your own community.

Plus I’ve been the local chapter president (in Las Vegas) of both PRSA and IABC. So I know all about volunteering for the good of the community and your own profession.

What’s New?

We spent an hour with Matt Mullenweg, the founding developer of WordPress. He was engaging, open and even entertaining. He shared with us, in a straight-forward Q&A session, his thoughts on the direction of WordPress and what the future holds for Automattic, the company that owns WordPress.

It was also good to hear from other presenters ways they put WordPress to work for their companies and learn of some tools and plugins I haven’t used.

In this digital era, things change so quickly. Staying current on the latest trends and tools is important. Attending conferences like WordCamp helps you keep up with trends and hone your skills.

The Power of Twitter

I love Twitter hashtags for conferences and events. They can archive the online Twitter conversation, kind of as a collective stream of conscience, in one place.

The Twitter hashtag for WordCamp Utah is #wcut. Check out the conversation on Twitter’s search or on What The Hashtag?!

If you want to learn what those in attendance thought was important, check out the Twitter stream. There are a lot of very cool resources included there.

The Power of Online Video

We also spent an hour with Tom Dickson, the creator of Blendtec, who walked us through a history of his Will It Blend? YouTube channel and what it has done for his company.

In a nutshell, instead of a marketing expenditure, the Will It Blend? campaign has put Blendtec in a position where it’s paid to come do Will It Blend? sessions for other companies. What started with a $50 investment has yielded millions and millions of online video views and something like a 700% increase in product sales.

Tom was very entertaining, down to earth, and downright funny. He shared many behind the scenes experiences he has had at Blendtec and specifically with the Will It Blend? campaign, like blowing up a bunch of cigarette lighters in a blender and having the hair on his hands, arms and eyebrows singed.

Tom led a great conversation, and of course, he ended with a Will It Blend? demonstration blending a USB drive that contained the WordPress code with a ceramic WordPress logoed mug. We’re pretty sure it was a first for any WordCamp in the world.

The whole mug wouldn’t blend completely, at least not in the time he gave it, but we’ll cut him a little slack. It was entertaining nevertheless. And he gave the blender away afterwards (with a clean blending jar).

Tom mentioned that their Will It Blend? videos are usually at the top of the list for views, except for recently when the Old Spice campaign got more attention. Someone suggested a new Will It Blend? episode where the Old Spice guy came in and they blended some Old Spice. Could be very funny!

Blendtec certainly is the benchmark for selling a product on YouTube. Their case study shows how effective online video can be for awareness and sales.

Thank You

To all those involved in orchestrating the 2010 WordCamp Utah, thank you! It was an information filled day with great food by The SugarHouse Barbecue Company, sponsored by Bluehost.

I left with some good ideas for improvements to my WordPress installations and two new t-shirts from WordCamp and Bluehost.

An Update — 8.31.10

I’ve been asked for some specific ‘ah-ha’ moments or recommendations of new tools based on what I learned at WordCamp. Instead of taking detailed notes, I used Twitter.

So, I have exported the Twitter conversation from What The Hashtag?! and included it here (a 32-page PDF).

Feel free to download the PDF and look through the Twitter stream.

You’ll find dozens and dozens of URLs and links to some great WordPress resources.

I’m the Foursquare mayor of Tonyburgers in Centerville, Utah. So what?

Well, for me right now, I get only bragging rights, but I’ll come back to what could be.

And if any of you haven’t eaten there, and you’re in the vicinity, I highly recommend it. You’ve got to be in the mood for a good American burger and fries though. The fires are fresh cut and double-fried in peanut oil. Need I say more?

Microblogging

Remember when business executives and marketers started dabbling with a little microblogging platform called Twitter? Most people would say, “Why do I care that someone just bought a cup of coffee from Starbucks?”

They were only scratching the surface of what Twitter could be used for. Think: reputation management, customer service and crisis management, not to mention inbound marketing.

Location-Based Microblogging

Enter Foursquare, a geographically based microblogging service and game all rolled into one.

Now we have microblogging status updates tied to locations using Foursquare.

Users compete for the most points and fun, different badges that reward them for checking in.

I’ve read some reports lately that suggest that such a small number of consumers are using Foursquare that it’s hardly worth it for businesses and marketers to include Foursquare in their campaigns.

I disagree. And I’ve written about it before.

Why Businesses Should Include Foursquare

Tonyburgers has a “wall of fame” that posts the names of people who eat for free.

If I owned Tonyburgers, in addition to the wall of fame celebrities, politicians and others who are just too popular to ever be seen at Tonyburgers, I’d reach out to the common consumer (you know, the ones who keep me in business).

I’d let the mayor of Tonyburgers on Foursquare get a free order of fries with every order (hint, hint), or something like that.

Think of the competition (i.e., consumption, or increase in purchases) when others catch wind of the opportunity and also begin using Foursquare.

It doesn’t take much imagination for retailers, restaurateurs and other business-to-consumer marketers to see the potential.

What about watching check-ins on Foursquare and when someone checks in nearby, sending them a text offering them a special discount on a purchase in the next hour?

Better yet, how about one-upping your competition by reaching out to their consumer as soon as they check-in at their establishment?

So many possibilities!

Your Experience?

Do any of you have experiences with geo-based social media you’d like to share? Please feel free.

Are you interested in reputation management, or knowing what people find when they search for you?

If so, knowing what your Google profile is, how to locate and preserve it, is valuable knowledge.

Your Google profile

First, let’s explain what a “Google profile” is.

It’s the search results when searching online for your name, business name, product name, brand, etc. It’s an online audit of your important keywords.

I heard an interesting interview on NPR where someone floated the idea of “reputation bankruptcy,” a legal action that would function much like a financial bankruptcy, forcing Internet sites to remove information about you and give you a clean online slate.

Think about this concept — a reputation bankruptcy — both from a personal and business perspective.

What privacy?

Basically the idea of privacy is dead. People can learn so much about you individually by searching online, by Googling you.

It’s the same for business. Once people are aware of your company and considering buying from you, you can bet they’ll do an Internet search to learn what others have to say about you. Or, better yet, they’ll login to Facebook or their social network of choice and ask their online friends about you.

Whether you as a business choose to participate or not will NOT determine how much information is shared about you online. People will talk about you. They’ll tell their friends and acquaintances about you.

And they’ll do it in a very public way. That’s something businesses haven’t had to deal with until recently.

The only choice for business is whether or not you will be a participant in the conversation, whether you’ll jump on the train for the ride or be left alone in the station (where staying behind in the station will likely result in financial bankruptcy).

I remember you

The Internet basically serves as a universal memory. It’s the end of forgetting.

Once information is published online, it’s there for good.

In our Information Age there will surely be new laws and ways of dealing with information overload and the fact that what you did in your teens and 20s will be publicly viewable when you’re a well-known business person or elected official in your 30s or 40s, or grandmother in your 60s.

Lessons learned

Hopefully we recognize first that what is shared online, either by us or someone who knows us, is a type of archived, indexed, searchable life history.

And second, that imperfect people will sometimes do silly or offensive things.

We’ll all learn from our mistakes, accept and apologize for them, and move on.

A little knowledge can be a dangerous thing. Let’s hope we can be mature enough to be forgiving.

And let’s all recognize the importance of integrity and transparency in all we do, in the real and digital world. After all, the digital world is now our reality.

I value information from others and try each day to consume content from media outlets and people I respect.

However, I have simply fallen behind in keeping up with hundreds of emails I receive each day.

The email newsletters I receive are crowding out important messages from clients, prospects and others.

So, I have determined to clear out my email inbox by unsubscribing from a multitude of messages.

I’ll be turning more and more to my RSS reader and Google Search to locate valuable information.

Have any of you taken a similar approach to your email inbox? Have you found the number of emails you receive unwieldy, especially after being out of the office for a few days or weeks?

I have, and now I’ve taken steps to reclaim my inbox.

After spending three days at the Ragan Communications Social Media Summit hosted by Cisco in San Jose, California June 9-11, 2010, I left with a renewed realization that discussing social media strategy and tools are co-dependent.

And just so you know, I was fortunate enough to work on the conference programming with Ragan and Cisco. I couldn’t be happier with how it turned out.

Strategy versus tools

Let me explain why I believe social media strategy and tools go hand-in-hand.

There’s great value in understanding the myriad of social media tools. My pre-conference workshop, 17 social media tools to help communicators save time and money, was focused on highlighting more than 30 different tools.

Communicators need a personal familiarity with the tools before they can apply them to business.

However, existence of the tools alone will not guarantee success in implementation.

There must be an objective — a specific, measurable outcome — in order to know if social media tools are useful.

Building furniture

For example, I’m a woodworker. I have built a handful of bedroom sets for family and friends. Possessing woodworking tools and purchasing supplies does not mean I’ll automatically end up with a bedroom set.

Having the tools and a knowledge of how to use them is only an indication that I could create bedroom furniture if I wanted.

Using plans and diagrams I can apply my woodworking tools and skill set to the project of creating a bedroom set.

Using social media is like using woodworking tools

Social media works similarly. You must have the tools and an understanding of how to employ them. You must also use the tools within an established framework, according to an existing plan, to produce the desired outcome.

I heard some presenters and Social Media Summit attendees suggest there’s no such thing as a social media strategy, that all social media entails is a set of tools.

I heard others harp on setting clear communication objectives before focusing on social media tools.

I believe in our day of integrated marketing communications both a strategy and solid social media toolkit are necessary. They work together to create successful communication campaigns.

What do you think?