Post-panel photo from the “The Role of PR in the New Age of Multimedia Journalism” event put on by Minnesota PRSA.

Left to right: Me (Head Nerd at MinnPost.com), Mark Reilly (managing editor of the Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal), and Jason DeRusha, online social media sensation and reporter at WCCO-TV.

I really enjoy doing these panels, but need to polish up – Mark and Jason are seasoned pros, um, and they kinda know, um, kinda how to work their, um, points better with an audience. I need to stop saying, “um.” Thank you to the kind people who came up to me after to say I did a good job.

PR Peeps Should Stalk Media Peeps Before Pitching

Seemed like the big take-away from the panel for PR professionals was to follow writers/editors/publications on social media platforms so you can target your pitch better. The panel agreed that Twitter was the best venue. If you can help a writer save 30 minutes or an hour for a piece by providing relevant information, they will take notice, and possibly use your info. Also, Jason had a great take about how news peeps don’t have time to meet PR peeps face to face over coffee anymore:

Today there is no coffee shop. The coffee shop is now Twitter and Facebook.

Speaking of Coffee…

The other big take-away was (literally) a Padilla Speer Beardsley coffee mug, which I subconsciously announced I was going to steal for next week’s Mugshot Monday. The event was held at the very cool Padilla Speer Bearsley space. Now I’ve got two more coffee mugs, and then I’m week to week.

For the record, I got permission to steal the coffee mug.

Many thanks to Jason Sprenger for inviting me to be on the panel. Oh, and here’s a funny TwitPic from the event taken by Lisa Grimm where Mark and I are mesmerized by Jason’s zest.