In a world in which everyone seems to be a chicken little speaking of the end of traditional journalism, PR and advertising, there are very few people who are working toward guiding the industry toward success in new new media. Some interesting books about “what’s next” that I am reading are The Chaos Scenario by Bob Garfield and Free: The Future of a Radical Price by Chris Anderson. Add to this list David Henderson’s new book, Making News in the Digital Era, a book that is part analysis, part briefing, and part pathfinder, explicitly guiding readers through the very confusing social media landscape.

In the 170 pages of Making News in the Digital Era, David E. Henderson personally walks his readers safely through the mine field that is new communications, digital PR, and social media marketing. Essential reading.

Making News in the Digital Era explicitly answers some very important questions: how to make your organization heard above competitors’ noise, how to capture new media’s attention when then time is right, how to increase the “Googleability” of your organization, and how to have a more meaningful conversation with key stakeholders and audiences.  These questions are essential in the context of the near-future:

“For many agencies and PR departments, change is either too slow in coming or is not happening. There’s a communications tsunami rolling our way, and many of us are not sure what to do. Sure, we see the tide going out fast and far. It’s fascinating and scary at the same time. Standing on the beach and waiting for it to roar back in is not an option.”

To give you a real taste of the answers these questions, here’s some of Henderson’s sage advice: Advocate change in your agency — champion change, embrace storytelling — honestly and without hyperbole, use plain language — accessible to everyone, reach out to a few to achieve more — influence the influencers, start marketing and promoting — start listening, and become the credible voice and face of your organization and industry — become the online influencer.

Part of Henderson’s research into Making News in the Digital Era included reaching out to sundry experts in the field, asking them questions such as what works and what is no longer effective; how to communicate with reporters, bloggers, and key audience; what is the definition of journalist in a world of online citizen reporters; how beneficial is online strategy for strategic communications; and how will new media effect the effectiveness of traditional media kits, new conferences, and news releases.

The unique thing about Making News in the Digital Era is that is it not written to much to the neophyte or two the small business expert but rather to the dyed-in-the-wool communications professional — be it journalist, PR or advertising exec, communication director, or business consultant who wants help transitioning from “traditional” marketing and mass media strategies to what’s next.  This book speaks “our” language as communications professionals and is illustrative using case studies and best practices examples from the world of brand promotion and reputation management and not just the general pie-in-the-sky spitballing that tends to come from visionaries and futurists.

OK, I don’t want to transcribe the entire book — that would not serve David Henderson very well — but I will boil it down as best I can to one pithy sound bite that explains how companies, brands, services, and organizations need to evolve into the next generation: brands need to become as charming, engaging, and responsive as humanly possible — to offer a story that is captivating and appealing enough that your consumers feel compelled to come to you. Or, do quote the king of communication, Mike Deaver (who I got to meet during me short stint at Edelman Public Affairs), “know who you are, be open and transparent, and be ready for change.”

One of the most valuable parts of the book that I found, and something you will surely consider invaluable if you’re shopping for a PR shop, is a list of new PR-savvy questions one must ask potential firms to make sure they’re set up to handle a new media and a social media world of communications.  I can’t tell you how many clients and prospects I have spoken to who are just winging it when they becoming big enough to start thinking about retaining a communications consultant — this questionnaire should be de rigueur when shopping.

From chapter six through 10, Henderson explores the tools of the social media marketing and digital PR trade, pointing out one needs to offer much more than lip service to transparency and authenticity. “To have a meaningful conversations online, a company needs to do the following: articulate clear points of view on the things that it cares about the most, identify its own experts and champions to tell compelling stories to advance its case and strengthen its market position, create ever-evolving public platforms and forums where it con consistently and frequently shawcase its views, along with other respected industry experts and thought leaders, and create a forum for sharing comments, generating a conversation and listening.”

I am not even on page 57 yet and I could keep on quoting and sharing, so I will suffice it say that there’s amazingly practical advice on every page, most of which are unspoken rules and intuitions that most people in the space have learned through intuition and experience — things that need to be said explicitly and clearly, something that David Henderson does with aplomb.  Not only does the book offer advice on how to bullshit-check your PR firm but also do the same sort of check on your social media guru and your blogger and your Twitter expert as well.  The book spends a lot of its column inches on not getting saddled with some lame “experts,” something that is essential when everyone, including yours truly, professes himself to be a social media expert (SME).

Some other important issues Henderson addresses is whether you actually need, or are ready for, a CEO or corporate blog. What do do with Twitter once you have become obsessed with becoming a resident of twitterville, how best to wade into web 2.0 and how to develop an online digital communications strategy — essentially “everything you ever wanted to know about new media communications but were afraid to ask.”

Chapter 13 is titled “Crisis Never Takes a Day Off” and addresses the 800-pound gorilla in the room: online reputation management and online crisis response in the “new era of openned, timeliness, responsiveness, and truthfulness” that “had truly become 24/7.” This, in a world where it is still possible to assassinate someone’s brand as long as you attack it on a Friday afternoon because said brand most likely won’t even notice it until 10 on Monday morning.

When it all is said and done, David Henderson tells the truth, even though it’s a bitter pill to accept, “no one cares about you.” In Making News in the Digital Era, David Henderson works real hard to try to knock it all into our stubborn heads. If you want to remain in denial about the current state of the Internet, new media, digital PR, and the post-PR and post-advertising world, then don’t buy Henderson’s book; however, if you want to sort our your own personal brand story and develop some narrative game, then you really had better grab a copy and read it through and then share it around the office.

Here is the beginning of the chapter review series I will post over the next few months from my book, A Survival Guide to Social Media and Web 2.0 Optimization. The book is doing very well, and I even have a couple of 5-star reviews. A big “Thank you” to the contributors and readers of Socialmedia.biz for your support!

This book is meant to be a guide to building an optimized foundation in the Social Web for beginners and advanced users alike. So, while some of the chapters may seem basic to many of you, they are essential for those who are just starting out.

Chapter 1 of the book is about mapping a social media and Web 2.0 optimization strategy right out of the gate. A strong message throughout the entire book is to methodically build a solid and optimized presence in the Social Web that you can reasonably manage. Once that foundation is in place, adding and integrating new tools will be almost painless.

The following excerpts are from A Survival Guide to Social Media and Web 2.0 Optimization.

Chapter 1: Creating your social media strategy

There are three general areas to keep in mind when planning a strategy for optimizing your presence in the Social Web: interactivity, sharing, and collaboration. Interactivity can come in the form of writing blog posts, commenting on others’ posts, tweets, or participating in social networking communities. Sharing can be as easy as uploading images and video clips onto media communities. Collaboration can be achieved by contributing to social bookmarking sites or wikis…

It is easy to get overwhelmed with all of the new social media and Web 2.0 tools and technologies that pop up on the Internet on an almost daily basis. But a carefully planned and executed strategy can alleviate your stress and ensure your successful transition into the new Social Web. …

The one bit of technology essential to your Social Web success is an RSS feed, discussed in more detail in Chapter 3, “RSS Feeds & Blogs,” but, in short, you have two choices:

• Start a blog which has built-in RSS feed technology, or
• Create your own RSS feed using an XML file…

The next step in a successful strategy is to decide which tools make sense for you or your business to implement.

Here are some general areas to consider:

Social Networking (Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, etc.)
It is a good idea to have a healthy profile on one if not two of these social networking sites.

Micro Blogging (Twitter, Jaiku, etc.)
These sites have become as popular as blogging. We recommend a healthy presence in at least one of them.

Other Social Platforms (Tumblr, Squidoo, etc.)
If you have a lot of content, these platforms are a good addition to your strategic tool kit.

Social Bookmarking and Crowd-Sourcing (StumbleUpon, Digg, etc.)
Building a presence in several of these sites and contributing regularly is highly recommended for any strategy.

Blog Commenting
Becoming part of the conversation is a very important part in any social media strategy. As you are surfing the Web and/or searching for sites and blogs to share on social networking and crowd-sourcing sites, take the time to comment on others’ blog entries.

Media Communities (Flickr, YouTube, etc.)
Sharing your multimedia content is an important part of any strategy, even if you only have a few images.

Social Calendars
Consider these if you host or attend a lot of events.

Podcasting
Podcasts are not difficult to create. They can be particularly effective if you have plenty of instructional material or you conduct interviews.

Vidcasting or Webcasting
These can be powerful viral tools for people or companies who have the resources to create and maintain them.

Widgets and Badges
Placing widgets and badges from other social sites on your Website or blog can help make your site more interactive.

Virtual Worlds
This is one technology that should be given considerable forethought. The learning curve is steep and consultants are expensive. However, for the right product, it could serve as a powerful marketing tool.

Social Media Newsrooms
This tool is ideal for authors, publishers, or other companies who garner a good amount of media coverage or produce regular news releases.

Custom Widgets or Applications
These are your own custom-built widgets or applications that can virally carry your brand into the Social Web.

Hosting your own Blogs, Social Network, Wiki, etc.
These tools are best suited for companies with a large customer base or who have many active advocates for their brand or service…

Copyright 2009 by Deltina Hay. All rights reserved.

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This chapter also features 5 real-world social media strategies for you to use as a basis for your own. The resource CD offers further reading, linkable resources, and a fillable PDF form called “Social Web Strategy Worksheet” that you can use to map your strategy.

Read more about this social media book at the publisher’s site.

As a special bonus to Socialmedia.biz readers, I have made the Social Web Strategy Worksheet (a fillable PDF form) available for download. You are welcome to use this for yourself or your clients — all I ask is that you do not remove the copyright information.

And, as always, Socialmedia.biz readers also get a special, shipping included price of $16 (retail $24.95) for this book — just click the buy now button.

Digital PR executives Sally Falkow and I will co-present a free webinar this Thursday on the subject of digital PR, social media marketing and blogger relations. This event is at 1 pm Eastern/ 10 am Pacific time, and you need to register in advance so please register now!

The name of the free digital PR Webinar is How to Do Social Media Marketing: Bloggers, Social Networks, Metrics, and More.

Here’s the rundown:

How to Do Social Media Marketing:
Bloggers, Social Networks, Metrics, and More

Hear Sally Falkow of Expansion Plus and Chris Abraham of Abraham Harrison talk about the best practices in social media marketing.

Not only is social media marketing the hottest thing in marketing, it may well also be the most effective marketing tool available to anyone doing any form of outreach.The meteoric rise of twitter and the slower but just as large groundswell of blogging have combined to shake communications of all kinds to the core.

But social media marketing isn’t monolithic and it covers a lot of ground. There is no one-size-fits-all solution. But there are best practices, there are tools and tricks and techniques to achieve greater success. Sign up for this webinar to find out how to:

• use Twitter wisely and well
• reach out effectively to bloggers
• drive success with social networks
• combine fronts to multiply your success
• get your audience to help you reach out
• measure and understand your success (and failure)

Plus many more techniques to help you master social media.

Speakers
Sally Falkow is a veteran of the PR industry. She has since translated her experience in marketing, PR and communication to the Internet. Her main interest is in the shift in media consumption and how new technology is affecting the practice of public relations. Sally is the author of the Proactive Report and co-developer of PRESSfeed, a social media tool for PR and marketing professionals.

Chris Abraham, President and COO of Abraham Harrison, is a leading expert in online public relations with a focus on blogger outreach, blogger engagement, and Internet reputation management. Chris is a pioneer in online social networks and publishing, and specializes in web2.0 technologies, including content syndication, online collaboration, blogging, and consumer generated media.

This webinar will take place live on Thursday May 14th at 1 PM EST and 10AM PST. It will include audience participation and will be recorded and made available on demand within two days. Register now!