I need to write my bio for the Association for Women in Communications, South Florida and had a thought: ask all my friends to help me write it! I have an idea for everyone’s cooperation, but first, I need comments.

Check out the first half of my idea:

NOTE: Please keep your comments professional. This project is professional and any comments that are outside of the realm of profesionalism will be deleted.

Thanks in advance for your help!

For example, I listen to NPR every morning during my commute to my office and whenever I hear Niala Boodhoo and Bridget Carey come on to talk about Social Media, not only am I eagerly nodding in approval with everything they say, but I tweet them as soon as I get to the office. I send them a tweet about how much I agreed with what they said and enjoyed hearing their story.

I’m cheating a little bit with Boodhoo and Carey’s case because I met them before hearing them on the radio. I became a fan of their work after meeting them in person and then looking them up. Hearing them on the radio only added to my excitement of being their fan, and connecting with them through Social Media helped boost my being a fan into more of a friendship.

How I met Kenny Malone is a little different. Maybe it’s the fearless publicist in me or the solid implementation of Social Media in my every day life that made me feel like it was OK to shoot him a random email expressing my opinion after hearing his report on Sesame Street (look for “Follow that (Big) Bird: Memories of ‘Sesame Street’, 40 years on” next to 11/20). His story left me in shock at how true it was and I wanted to tell him how I felt. To my surprise, he responded almost immediately with what seemed like a private follow up to his story.
Earlier this week, Malone did a story about StoryCorps and asked Miami Herald/WLRN staff members if they’ve ever cried during the four minute show. Naturally, I felt compelled to email him and tell him about how much I cry during that show and ask him if he reacts the same way – if you’ve ever heard StoryCorps, you know how heart-felt the stories can be.

It’s Social Media that encourages and facilitates conversation. It’s Social Media that makes it easy to connect with pretty much anyone online. It’s Social Media that helps fans feel more like friends. And it’s Social Media that helps build invaluable relationships.

Luckily, I was able to connect with the outside world via Twitter on my phone.

After complaining about Comcasts’ services being down on Twitter, @ComcastBill replied apologizing for my situation and offering to help. (I started following him after he showed his sense of humor by saying that he actually can’t help Cowboys fans – nothing makes me happier than someone who wants to connect/help and actually takes the time to read my short bio).

I told @ComcastBill the city I live in, but that wasn’t enough information for him to figure out what the problem was. He requested my detailed address via Direct Message. Now, here’s where I was slightly torn. I knew that he wouldn’t be able to help me unless I gave him more information, but how did I know he was a legitimate Comcast representative? Just because his Twitter handle had “Comcast” in it doesn’t guarantee he is who he says he is.

I’m more than sure he works for Comcast, but with all the fraud and robberies going on, I’m just not willing to take the risk of randomly handing out my address to anyone, especially online.

I gave @ComcastBill the city I live in, but that’s as far I was willing to go. Being that my city was all over the news for being under water, I assumed the reason for my being disconnected and didn’t stress about it too much.

However, this got me thinking about how useful certain companies, like Comcast, may find Social Media. When customer service requires personal customer information, how efficient could their help be if people don’t trust the medium being used?

UPDATE: I just showed @ComcastBill this post and he said that customers can always look at @ComcastCares‘ to see a list of legitimate Comcast employees. While the list (at the bottom left of the screen) is cut off, this definitely helps establish just a little more trust in the people behind these accounts.

I would still highly advise people to think twice before giving out any personal information unless you’re 100% sure you’re speaking to the right person.

Publicists who have been in the industry for many years possess techniques and strategies for reaching out to journalists that are not only valid, but have been proven to work. However, Social Media is changing the methods we’ve all known and loved for years. Embracing and adapting to these new methods may prove difficult, but they’re very crucial.

I’ve heard people call Twitter “lazy,” but when used correctly, it opens up a door to infinite possibilities, new contacts and strong relationships.

The good publicist understands the power behind having a strong relationship with a journalist and most often than not, spends time harvesting it; talking about activities that they both like to partake in, the latest news and their opinions on it, etc. No where in that conversation will the publicist pitch anything to the reporter, but he/she will drop hints that they are knowledgeable in a certain area and that they know people that the reporter may call on should they have a need for their expertise. This results in the publicist becoming a source to the journalist.

The majority of us already know this. What not all of us know or are willing to embrace, is Social Media’s role in making, building and strengthening these relationships.

More seasoned publicists will set up lunches or quick coffee meetings with journalists to make, build and strengthen their relationships, but as journalists’ workload increases, their available time to meet face-to-face decreases.

I spoke to Niala Boodhoo (@NialaBoodhoo on Twitter), a Business and Multimedia Reporter at the Miami Herald, who confirmed that she doesn’t have time to meet with anyone. “There’s no time for lunch, much less a budget for it.”

So what do we publicists do when our media counterparts are too busy? We tweet!

I’ve gotten mixed reactions to this solution – the good ones are from younger, fresh out of college or early adapter publicists and the negative ones are from the older school of Public Relations.

Times are changing and whether we like it or not, we need to keep up with what journalists are doing and go where they are. And they’re on Twitter!

I advised my colleague to search and begin following various journalists on Twitter. Listen to what they’re saying and chime in every once in a while. I can’t stress enough how important it is to refrain from pitching them right away. Treat your Twitter relationships like you would all others – nicely and with sensitivity. The pitching comes later.

Joy Oglesby (@SSEntertainment on Twitter), Online Producer for Entertainment and Lifestyle at the Sun Sentinel, explained that Twitter is a good tool to “build relationships and start conversations. It also cuts through the mess of imploding emails.”

Not every journalist we want to reach out to will be on Twitter, just yet, but those who are on are at our fingertips.

For those who don’t know much about Twitter, the term “retweeting” (or “RT” in Twitter lingo) is the simple act of repeating someone’s tweet. If I see a tweet that I like and would like to share it with my community, I simply re-tweet it. Think of it like forwarding an email – your mom emails you a hilarious video and you want to share with your friends, so you forward it. (I use my mother as an example because that woman fills my mornings with laughter as soon as I open my inbox. Love you, Mom!!)

Over the past few months, I’ve been getting many “direct messages” (“DMs” in Twitter lingo – it’s a message sent directly to you that no one else can read) from people I know, asking me to retweet things for them.

My reaction, at this point: I’m very annoyed.

My perspective: If a tweet is good enough to retweet, I’ll do it on my own without solicitation. If you have to take the time to ask someone to retweet something on your behalf, please keep in mind that you might be intruding. Requesting a retweet every once in a while is OK, but always make sure that what you want me to repeat is it relevant to me either personally or professionally. Or would interest my network.

When these retweeting requests become frequent, you must understand that they can become annoying and are potentially pushing people like me away. People don’t like to be annoyed by others and their reaction to the annoying individual(s) can result in a broken relationship. Just like any relationship, once it’s ruined, it’ll take a little bit of work to rebuild it, if it can at all be salvaged.

All in all, request retweets wisely. Take your audience into consideration. And always, ALWAYS return the favor if your tweet is retweeted. Just because the relationship is via Twitter, you mustn’t forget that it’s still a two-way street.

I adore my Twitter community and treat them like gold at every opportunity I get. The result? A perfect example is this morning: I tweeted “Curious about everyone’s opinions: How do you feel about people constantly asking you to RT things for them?”

Everyone started tweeting and giving me their opinions. All of which are valid and offer terrific insight to the retweet requesters:

@mklopez: “#nobigdeal”

@KiddGroup: “Good information will get retweeted. If you want to be retweeted then tweet good information.”

@TamiFromMiami: “Dpnds on frequecy”

@ctiedje: “If they have to ask, then it is a bit odd. However, if you have tons of followers it is easy to miss something you might’ve RT’d”

@robertmurray: “It depends. If I’m connected to the person asking for it and it falls inline with my interests, I don’t mind being solicited.”

@dmachiavello: “RT = FWD, just like email….if it’s “worthy” i’ll do it, but normally i’ll do it on my own accord, usually not when someone asks”

@sunlovey: “hmm, maybe tell them ‘once a week, choose wisely.’”

@ines: “people constantly asking me to retweet things annoys me, especially if they don’t pay it back – it’s all about “overdoing” it”

@ines: “there is no better retweet than the one you don’t ask for – and I love doing favors btw, just NOT ALL THE TIME!!”

@ines: “I have asked people to retweet, but for furndraising stuff – not for my own benefit”

@TheTinyJEWELBox: “RTs don’t have to be asked for. if the content is of value, it will be retweeted. You want me to tell them? lol”

@espiegler: “happy to help friends; otherwise, better b good.”

@DearYvette: “I ignore them. It’s obnoxious. I’ve never asked anybody to RT anything, and that defies the meaning of a RT.”

@SJBain_PR: “Depends on what they want RT’d! If it’s for a cause, then it’s fine. If it’s something dumb… not so much!”

@mmWine: “In a time when ppl have upwards of 3,000 following things get missed, asking for a retweet now & then not bad”

Thank you to everyone who took the time to give me your opinions!

The OEC came up as an idea after having a large amount of people ask me about what fun/cool/informative events are coming up. As the co-founder of Social Media Club South Florida, I’ve helped establish myself as a person who’s in-the-know of local happenings.

These event requests from friends became too much to handle and as a result, I decided to compile all of the events I know of in one easy-to-find place: the OEC.

Creating and managing a calendar of events is something that comes naturally to me. I spent two years as the Calendar Editor for the Miami SunPost and loved every second of it.

I’ve had a few people ask me about the name of my new project. “Why Orange Events Calendar?”

Simple. Primarily for SEO purposes.

I wanted a name that represented the state of Florida. “Sunshine” was the first word that popped up due to our being the Sunshine State, but “Sunshine Events Calendar” posed some problems. “SEC” is an acronym for two very well-known organizations: the Securities and Exchange Commission, as well as the Southeastern Conference (college football, for those that aren’t familiar with it).

My next choice was “Orange” for Florida’s popularity with these delectable citrus fruits and it stuck.

The types of events featured in the OEC started off as tech-related due to those being the most requested, but later evolved to include general business development events like seminars and panels. Fun events like TweetUps and MeetUps came along shortly after. And the latest category is charities and nonprofits.

If I had an endless amount of money, I’d be donating it to different charities all day long, but unfortunately, I don’t. So what’s the next big way of helping out and giving back? Promotions! If I can’t offer every charity money, I’ll offer what I can give – and that’s my voice. I decided to help local charities and nonprofits by sharing their fundraising events with my community.

And there, ladies and gentlemen is the Orange Events Calendar or OEC.

You can find the calendar and its updates on Twitter, Facebook and/or LinkedIn. And this isn’t done to saturate several social networks, but rather to give my community a choice in how they would like to connect with the OEC. I like to keep things simple and give people options.

The OEC is growing and Phase Two of the project will be announced very soon!

In the meantime, check out the awesome mention the OEC received in the Miami New Times by South Florida’s very own Social Media extraordinaire, Maria De Los Angeles.

If you have event coming up and would like the OEC to broadcast it, shoot me an email at oec@agustinaprigoshin.com with the name of the event, the date and time, the address, a few short sentences describing it and a link to send visitors to.

The way I see it is, if I like your product or service enough, I’ll talk about it. I’ll tell my friends and network to check you, your product or your company out.

I know for a fact that if you’re nice enough to your friends or network, they’ll do your PR for you.

Case in point, Jose Boza and his Facebook status update this morning: ‘Friends helping Friends’ concept. I wanted to introduce a weekly announcement on my Facebook page regarding one of my friend’s business services. I have many friends that have wonderful services and I thought it would be a cool idea to share their services with my other Facebook friends. Every Wednesday I will post a different person and what services they offer.

I’m very protective of my network and don’t want to bombard them with unsolicited messages that they might not care to read or have pop up in their feeds.

I’ve had numerous people comment on my blog and Facebook status updates with messages pointing my network to their website. Just because I write about a topic that’s related to your line of work doesn’t mean I’m giving you the “go ahead” to promote yourself.

My instant reaction is to delete the comment.

I’m not speaking for everyone; some people may be OK with you promoting on their site, but do so with caution because you never know if that person will find your promotion intrusive.

My message for this post is: don’t use your friends as a billboard.

I just Direct Messaged @TheDatingDiva on Twitter with information about a journalist looking to interview matchmakers.

She replied: “Thank you so much…if everyone in the world was as nice as people on Twitter the world would be an amazing place!!!”

And this got me thinking… are you as nice in the real world as you are online?

I know I put up a little more of a front in the real world. What is it about the computer that makes us feel safer? Are we that afraid of other people… in person?

And not just building them, actually maintaining them.

I’ve seen the same error occur many times over the past year as social media has received more hype, and it’s only going to get worst unless the overall purpose and utility of social media is explained… and explained right.

All of the social media tools that we use can be a great pedestal to stand upon and announce our message to the world. It offers a tremendously large and loyal audience, but your goal will fall short if you don’t harvest your relationships.

Once you make contact with your audience, become their friend. Social media has made it extremely easy to make at least 10 new friends a day. Be sincere and honest with them, because if you’re not, your new friends will see right through you and you’ll lose them faster than you gained them.

If a conversation you’re having sparks an idea and you write about it, make sure to give that person credit for assisting with the spark. Not only does that person feel appreciated (which works wonders in solidifying a relationship), but it will come back to you, and in some cases two-fold. Just remember to give credit where credit is due and a form of success will follow. I say this from experience.

Building relationships via social media is no different than the relationships you build in the real world. Treasure them and treat them with respect. Remember what our parents and teachers used to say? “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” The same rule applies online.

I have six Spaces (the equivalent to six different desktops on one computer) open on my computer and have assigned all Microsoft Office documents to open in one particular Space, but it seems that MS Office doesn’t like its assigned Space. The document I’m usually working on loves to move and I have to search through five different Spaces to locate it.

Amidst my frustration, I turned to Twitter and posted: “I HATE, HATE, HATE microsoft office (I hate it so much, it doesn’t even deserve to be treated like a proper noun) HATE it!!!”

When Tweetdeck announced that I had a reply, I checked it and @kelbyj with a bio reading “Marketing/AR @ Microsoft” responded to me saying: “@AgustinaP what happened to make you hate Office so much? Can I help?”

I thought, “Cool! This is the first time Customer Service comes to me! Thanks Twitter!”

I explained to @kelbyj how my documents moves around and he replied about 20 minutes later: “@AgustinaP seeing if I can find you a recommendation from the Mac Office product folks…”

I eagerly awaited his response, but when I got it, I was let down. @kelbyj: “It’s actually a Mac OS Spaces issue. Here’s a blog post that might be helpful: http://bit.ly/45f9vW”

First of all, I felt slightly offended that he would say the problem was with my Mac. I try my very best to keep my computer clean and running perfectly.

Second, should I be surprised that someone from Microsoft would say the problem is with Mac?

And third, @kelbyj, why did you send me that link? Have you read it? I’m no computer software genius, but that link leads me to a blog that doesn’t look like a Microsoft or Apple blog. Who wrote that and why should I listen to what that person says? And most importantly, the post is long, too long for me to care to read past the first paragraph, especially when that first paragraph doesn’t directly address my problem.

I’m very disappointed. I almost felt like Microsoft was listening to me and trying to help. All they did was waste my time and give me false expectations.

Sigh.