Buyer goes on to explain that Twitter is a valuable asset to an online PR program. She suggests using it as a news feed to send out little nuggets of the news release. These nuggets should be distributed in an engaging way and not in a way that only talks about you or your brand.

For example, if you tweet out questions or statistics, you are more apt to connect with your audience than if you just put a link to your press release. Overall, when press releases are optimized and distributed through social media, they can effectively drive traffic.

On the topic of the movie, The Social Network, Buyer tells WebProNews that she believes it shows how powerful social media actually is. Social media is not just a trend in the Internet marketing industry. Instead, it is completely mainstream and impacts multiple aspects of society.

According to Buyer, Marty Weintraub of aimClear recently released a statistic, which showed that the amount of time that people spend on Facebook is more than the amount of time that they spend on Google. This statistic is very telling of how influential social media will be moving forward.

To do this, she suggests that marketers, first of all, optimize press releases for news search. She also recommends using tools such as PitchEngine. This tool provides an additional place for marketers to post press releases. Buyer says this effective tool practically guarantees that users will show up on the first page of Google’s search results. Although it does not always stay in the top spot, it does provide instant gratification.

She also points out the importance of interacting with media, especially through Twitter. Specifically, she tells WebProNews that “#journchat” is a great way to do this. The chat takes place weekly and brings journalists, bloggers, and professionals together.

Additionally, Buyer offers advice in regards to promoting content. She says one of the keys to successful promotion is avoiding spammy and pitchy messages. Although it’s easy to take the headline and tweet it out, it is not the most effective approach. Instead, Buyer advocates more creative methods such as using quotes, statistics, questions, or other interesting nuggets of information that will draw traffic back to the release.

Are you utilizing these opportunities to show up in news results?

Some businesses are hesitant to incorporate social media into their business structure because of the negativity that could come with it. Lisa says that transparency is part of the game of social media and just like social, it’s not going away. She also points out that businesses simply need to treat their social efforts the same way that they would treat any other business strategy.

After businesses realize their need to utilize social media, the next step is finding where it fits. Social media has to match your own business. What works for one business may not work for yours. Lisa recommends going back to your business plan and looking at your goals and objectives. From there, decide where social is the best fit.

Once you have implemented your social media strategy, don’t get too comfortable because your job is nowhere near over. You have to closely manage your social campaign because there can be a downside to it.

Lisa’s own company got hit with this type of situation when an employee made negative comments about an influential media personality. The business received negative publicity and the employee had to be terminated. According to Lisa, problems such as this one occur because employees not only represent themselves, but also their employer.

Because social is becoming a customary part of the overall business strategy, Lisa encourages employers to take proactive steps and create social media policies so that employees know what their boundaries are. Social media offers too many advantages to not use it, but you do have to remember that it requires diligent management.