Discovering and connecting with the people who will help your business thrive in today’s social economy is vital especially when attention has become a precious commodity! As a PR and Marketing specialist it is becoming mandatory for businesses today to identify the communities that are actively defining and shaping the future of your business in places like blogs, Flickr, YouTube, Twitter, as well as traditional media.

Much more than a Social Media monitoring solution, BuzzGain can help you reveal the influential voices and corresponding conversations that are happening about your product or service so that companies can listen, learn, and effectively engage in mutually beneficial relationships.

BuzzGain is an ideal DIY solution for PR check out their white paper the 5 Steps to DIY PR

Pricing for BuzzGain starts at $99 per month for companies under $100m in revenue, $100m – $1 billion is $500 per month, those with over $1b is sales is $1,000 per month.

And don’t miss out on the BuzzGain’s 15 day free trial offer – you can be accelerating your companies PR in matter of minutes!

Accelerate your PR with BuzzGain – a podcast with Mukund Mohan

About Mukund

Mukund Mohan founded BuzzGain, the leader in Do It Yourself PR. He has founded and successfully sold 3 startups before BuzzGain. Prior to founding BuzzGain, he served as the Vice President of Marketing for Inovis, a leading B2B Community Management software company. Before Inovis he was head of product marketing for Mercury (Hewlett Packard) responsible for the strategy and customer success of the company’s Application Management solutions.

Mukund studied at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County pursuing a master’s degree in computer science and holds a bachelor’s degree in engineering and computer science from the University of Mysore in India.

Full Disclosure: BearingPoint is a Beta Client of BuzzGain

Is the press release dead?

Well not really. But there certainly is a new wave out there – the social media press release, or SMPR, spawned by Todd Defern and the folks at SHIFT communications.

What does this mean for you? Well, when newspapers, magazines and other media go online, they are trying to create a conversation around a given article or topic they have written about. Why shouldn’t that be the case for press releases?

So I decided to get a podcast together with Todd so he could shed some light on success stories using the SMPR. Enjoy …

The Power of Social Media meets the Press Release

About Todd

Todd Defren leads client services and business development efforts for SHIFT Communications, a $10 million agency with offices in Boston and San Francisco.

Working in high-tech public relations for approximately 15 years, Defren currently specializes in social media strategies and is widely noted for creating the first template for social media news releases in 2006. He followed up with a template for social media-optimized online newsrooms in early 2007.

Prior to SHIFT, Defren was at Sterling Hager, joining in 1994 as an account manager and reaching the level of managing director of the San Francisco office in August 2000. His earlier experience included managing the strategic and tactical corporate communications at ENTEX Information Services, a $2 billion New York-based systems integrator, now part of Siemens AG.

Defren has served as a visiting professor at Emerson College in Boston, lecturing on marketing and public relations on the Internet. In 2006, Defren was named a Research Fellow and member of the Advisory Board of the Society for New Communications Research.

Full Disclosure: I have hired SHIFT Communications to help BearingPoint with our Social Media PR

PR professionals have been on the front end of all media relationships for a very long time. But the advent of new media poses some challenges for even the best PR professional.

To get some advice on how PR pros should handle new media, I conducted an interview with Cece Salomon-Lee. She runs her own blog called PR Meets Marketing, where she discusses how marketing is changing the way she practices PR.

PR’s role in new media, a podcast with Cece Salomon-Lee

About Cece

After nearly 12 years with high-technology public relations agencies, Cece Salomon-Lee took her first in-house PR position in early 2006. In addition to managing public relations and media programs, Cece provides corporate messages and strategy in her current position as marcom manager with ON24, Inc. In her spare time, she shares her experiences on her PR Meets Marketing blog.

Please note: her comments on this site are her own and don’t necessarily represent ON24’s positions, strategies or opinions.

David Meerman Scott is the publisher of the blog webinknow and a three-time author. His latest book is The New Rules of Marketing and PR, published this year by Wiley.

David’s new book covers a lot of ground for marketers who are new to social media tools like blogs, podcasts, etc. It also has lots of ideas for folks who may be more advanced in social media. Personally, I found myself intrigued with the new uses of PR in the marketing mix and wanted to explore that further with David.

Be warned. What he says may shock you …

New Rules of Marketing and PR a podcast with David Meerman Scott

About David

David Meerman Scott is an online thought leader and viral marketing strategist and the author of the number one best selling PR and marketing book The New Rules of Marketing and PR: How to use news releases, blogs, viral marketing and online media to reach buyers directly. The programs he has developed have won numerous awards and are responsible for selling over one billion dollars in products and services worldwide. He has lived and worked in New York, Tokyo, Boston, and Hong Kong and has presented at industry conferences and events in more than 20 countries on four continents. Check out his blog at www.WebInkNow.com.