Michael Lazerow, entrepreneur and founder of Buddy Media, recently addressed the implications of Facebook, Google and other social technologies where he says millions of people are having conversations everyday. Lazerow told MyPRGenie that businesses now have a simple decision, Socialize or Die.

Lazerow’s Law: As social networks get larger, the speed at which content flows gets faster.

Lazerow states that it only took social networks 4 years to penetrate 50% of the households in the United States. He says that’s astronomically faster than any other communications medium in history.

The potential to reach massive audiences has never been greater with more than 300 million people sending out 45 million updates per day.

If Facebook were a country, Lazerow told MyPRGenie that it would be the third largest country in the world. He says that’s another reason it’s critical for people to socialize their sites by opening up audience conversations on their Facebook or Twitter site pages. This can be accomplished by ensuring that users are equipped with very easy and user-friendly tools.

Lazerow says another important tool is to establish an “Ecosystem of Sharing.” If the user has to hunt or search for how to interact with your site, you’ve already lost them. He also stressed the importance of creating engaging experiences, by using a combination of social data and personal experiences.

Always blog with a purpose in mind!

All good relationships take time and effort and that holds especially true with PR. MyPRGenie features a wide variety of tools that helps each business develop its own online newsroom that allows each release they create to be automatically tagged and search engine ready for the World Wide Web.

A company blog site can also be a great public relations tool. If done properly, blogs can help build traffic for the company’s website and establish the writer or writers as industry experts.

The public relations experts at MyPRGenie strongly suggest that each business follow these critical steps for developing and maintaining a strong and consistent blog site. This will help the company increase exposure by reaching a wider and more diverse audience.

Here are some tips for getting started in blogging from the social media PR experts at MyPRGenie.

1. Choose your blog platform

You can host your blog on your own website, or choose from the free blog-hosting options, such as WordPress.org, WordPress.com, Blogger.com and Tumblr.com. (A side note: WordPress.com is easier to use than WordPress.org, but WordPress.org gives you more control.) With free blog sites, users are limited by the site templates and themes. Hosting your own blog allows you to customize and reap revenues from any advertising.

2. Bring in the traffic

The easiest way to build an audience is to post fresh content several times a week. Another way to ramp up traffic is to read and comment on other blogs focused in the same market. Always add a link back to your blog whenever you comment and write a genuine response. Sync up Google Analytics to track your blog’s traffic.

3. Welcome the comments

A company blog will attract both positive and negative comments. Your business should welcome both. Respond quickly to negative comments and don’t try to restrict negative comments too severely. Ask those who comment to register their e-mails, or to at least be respectful in their posts.

4. Utilize RSS feeds

RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds are an easy way for blog readers to subscribe to your blogs. Make sure you add the tool if you’re hosting your blog on your own website. RSS is already integrated into almost all of the free blog sites.

5. Learn from fellow bloggers

Check out the most popular blogs that target your industry to learn what people are reading. Technorati.com categorizes blogs by interest and traffic.

Ten Winning Tips from MyPRGenie

More and more small businesses are bypassing traditional PR methods for the more efficient option of online press release distribution and SEO, provided by services like MyPRGenie. With that trend in mind, MyPRGenie has come up with a top-10 list of tips for writing press releases.

Top 10 Press-Release Writing Tips

10. Always include the basic information:

Every press release should include the name of a person to contact for more information, along with his or her job title, phone number(s) and e-mail address. You should also include a dateline—the date of the press release and the town or city where the news is occurring, a headline that briefly summarizes the news and an "about us" paragraph that summarizes the subject of the press release, providing background information on the company or person or event, including website(s) where the reader can go for more information.

9. Avoid jargon:

Don't assume that your audience will understand technical language or industry terms. More often than not, they won't. Write as if you are describing your news to a fifth grader.

8. Get to the point:

Also keep in mind that your reader probably has very little patience. Draw them in with a lead paragraph that is both catchy and brief, summing up the story or giving them enough of a taste that they will want to read on.

7. Spelling counts:

So does grammar. It may not be fair, but typos and writing slipups reflect poorly on you and your credibility. So make sure you double- and triple-check for mistakes, and an extra set of eyes is always recommended. Even the best editors need editors.

6. The five Ws:

As the Journalism 101 professors will tell you, a news story should answer the questions of who, what, when, where, why and how? Answer those questions in your press release.

5. Watch your words:

Make sure that every fact in your press release can be verified, and that every person or company named in your release has given their permission for what you are writing about them. Don't embellish—your readers will sniff it out, and you'll be discredited.

4. People count:

When possible, try to include people in your story. People are more interesting than processes or inanimate objects, and readers relate to other people. If you can, include a personal anecdote or description of how your news affects people, including the readers.

3. Use quotes:

Direct quotations from the key people involved in the news of your press release--provided those quotes are conversational and interesting--help draw the reader in. Make sure they are brief and don't sound as if they were written by a contract attorney.

2. Answer the question:

"What is the news here?" Keep in mind that your audience is a journalist or website reader who is interested in the news story that you are hopefully delivering through your press release. They will not respond to a sales pitch or a lecture. Build your story around a news hook, or the reason that this is news: an upcoming event, an award, a milestone, an announcement, or the release of a new product or service, for example.

1. Just the facts, ma'am:

Get to the point, and don't let florid descriptive language get in the way of the story. You've only got 400 words or so to tell your story, so make every word count.

A lot of people are talking about how social media can help promote today's businesses. Every business looking to gain web presence by using social media needs to start off with these essentials tips.

1. Blog your business identity
When you first hear about a company what do you do? You Google it. Creating and constantly updating a blog for your business is a staple in establishing brand identity. As of last year, 77 percent of all Internet users read blogs. So there is a huge possibility that your potential customers will be reading your blog to understand the values behind your enterprise, how credible your company is and whether or not they'd like to do business with you.

2. The tweet is sweet
A great way to incorporate the human element into your brand identity is to set up a company Twitter account. If you're offering a service, tweeting tips and advice about your industry makes you the expert. People will more likely want to buy from an expert.

3. Facebook or LinkedIn or Both?
Linkedin is an important professional social media tool, so you shouldn't be without it. While LinkedIn highlights your professional assets, a Facebook page represents another opportunity for you to get your brand out there. Both are excellent PR moves to significantly increase your brand online. However, they should not replace your website or online news room.

4. You too can YouTube
YouTube is no longer just a place to watch music videos and funny viral videos, now it's a widely used tool to market one's company.Coca Cola, Geico and Walt Disney all have YouTube channels, and so do many small businesses. In the digital age that we live in, it's no longer a picture that speaks a thousand words, but a 10-minute video that projects loudly. Think of what your company stands for and why customers should choose you over your competitors. This is the message to push on YouTube. Create a channel and upload videos of interviews, clips and events that best exemplify why your company is better than the rest.

5. Stay on top of things
The biggest mistake you can make after configuring your company's social media essentials-the blog and signups for Twitter Facebook, YouTube and other sites -- is to forget to remain current. It's important to update consistently, network often and offer fresh content. Make a goal to write at least 2-3 blog posts at a time and then post them periodically through the week.

Holly's Interview

So a shout out to all the people we met at Blogworld! Nadia and I headed to Las Vegas last weekend to meet all of you fine people, talk about blogs, social media and online PR. We also talked to a few people who were unhappy with PRWeb...so I guess bad for them and great for us because although their tag line is "get started now for as little as $80" our catch phrase is "get started now for as little as FREE".

I had a particularly interesting yet too brief conversation with someone who worked on a newspaper in Oregon and I found myself relaying to him something that was proven over and over at Blogworld: communications, traditional media, one on one relationships and business not only will change because of the phenomenon that is social media but it has changed and continues to evolve everyday. Who cares if you hate Digg or if you "don't understand it"? Twitter, Stumble Upon, Linked In, Youtube is now a staple and there's no going back. At Blogworld I saw people doing mini-interviews on their phones and tweeting up a maelstrom.

Nadia is in the house!

We got a little star-struck when peeps from Technorati rolled around to our booth and we also got to meet the events director of Mashable at their killer karaoke event held on the second night!Meeting the pioneers of the social media/blog world makes me want to work twice as hard at establishing MyPRGenie on the map as the most efficient and effective online PR platform. Las Vegas was very exciting, BlogWorld was awesome but make sure to meet up with us in San Diego and New York (our hometown) in the upcoming Ad-Tech and PRSA!

For more insight into our adventures at Las Vegas, check out Nadia's post...