The Luminaria Media Blog

My Facebook account is a sort of merge of my personal and professional worlds — I share some friends on Facebook who I primarily engage with on Twitter, but I also have friends from my “secret life” (note: it’s not so secret, really) as a poetry slam organizer, and IRL friends and even people I went to high school with. (Who I never would have reconnected with if not for Facebook.)

But occasionally, Facebook’s a very fun place for me to be, and today is one of those days. Two conversations same up simultaneously — from different FB friends, different worlds — asking about the correct possessive form to use for the singular s — s’ vs. s’s. In cases like this, in the media world, I defer to AP Style. But I also, in the debates I plunged myself into, queried myself on the first example that came to mind — Lou Reed singing, “And I feel just like Jesus’ son.” So, I joined Team S’, even though I know I’ve used s’s, perhaps in leaning toward my grad school days when MLA with *the* style I defaulted to in everything. (Except in my anthropology classes, when I had to shift over to APA.)

But it tickles me that possessives are the topic of the day, and I’m thrilled that Facebook’s a spot where a bunch of us can have that conversation, be it poets, fellow publicists, or even my wife, on her iPhone from the San Antonio Zoo with the kids.

Occasionally, I’ll run across something too funny to not post. The video below is a very funny look at Twitter from the folks at SuperNews. A good reminder that — as useful as it is for connecting people, and as powerful as it is to keep us informed — some of us can sometimes take it a little too far.

Enjoy!

I recently was questioned by a friend in an online forum about my ongoing use of Twitter. She professed her hatred for Twitter, and wasn’t sure what was the reason to type in <140 character posts rather than just write something substantive and good. (Assuming substantive = good and short = not so good.)

For me, Twitter is most successful when you’re viewing all tweets together. Individual Twitter accounts reveals things about what those authors are writing, their personality, their wit, and how they see the world. Together, however, they serve as a personalized newsfeed, helping you understand in this information-heavy world what’s immediately occupying people. I’ve been struck in recent weeks by Twitter’s immediacy. The emergency landing of the US Airways jet in the Hudson, breaking news on a court case impacting a client, the New York Post’s recent and misguided Obama cartoon, Laura Hall being freed from jail — all delivered to me initially via Twitter, before I’d encountered these bits of news anywhere else, with official news agencies’ tweets side-by-side with friends and colleagues watching the news.

If you’re out there, how do you use Twitter? Do you like it? And if so, why?

This was too good for me to pass up — I love the chance to meet my fellow Twitter folk, and the Austin Twestival tonight, like other Twestivals around the planet, will be supporting charity:water, bringing clean drinking water to people who desperately need it.

So, if you’re Austin and you’re part of the growing Twitter network, get a ticket and then come by Aces Lounge around 8.

By the way, on Twitter, I’m @philwest, making observations about my work day, the media, and very occasionally, I even cop to eating peanut butter and Nutella from a spoon.

One of my friends and trusted PR confidantes, Cyndi Hughes, is currently director for the Writer’s League of Texas. Last month, I did a Book PR class there, talking to authors with book projects in various stages of completion, looking toward how they’d get word of their books out there. We’re talking about another class geared specifically toward what authors can do for themselves.

It’s a great topic. I encourage my clients to jump into social media to connect with new people and to strengthen ties with people who already know them. One of the tools I point them toward is Technorati — it’s a powerful resource for finding blogs around certain topics. Just yesterday, I was looking for Texas Travel blogs for a project I’m doing for the City of New Braunfels, and tracked down two excellent travel blogs now interested in letting their readers about Christmas in New Braunfels (which includes Schlitterbahn’s complete Winter Wonderlandification courtesy of more than one million lights, an ice skating rink, and a snow machine).

Blogs aren’t the mysterious entities they once were, but it’s still helpful to have a resource like Technorati available to figure out who’s covering what. And it’s a very easy, intuitive, and powerful tool to show clients who want to improve their social media (and overall PR) IQ.