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A recent survey found that reporters are using social media as part of their research efforts when writing a story. Not really surprising to be honest with you.

People keep thinking of traditional and social media - but it's all just information.

I've always been a HUGE fan of having a good Web site. The amount of interviews I've done where a reporter references something they've read on the Web site is staggering. It's the first place they go to in terms of background research.

The fact that they are now checking out YouTube videos and twitters is not surprising - in fact it's to be expected.

Tactically all this means is that if you want to implement a social media strategy, reporters will pay attention to it. Which is good knowledge to have, because five years ago social media was less about communicating things to the media and more of a way to more closely connect with the customer themselves - to actually circumvent the media in many ways.

What we are moving towards is more of a multifaceted approach to communications. One in which it will be expected that information will be disseminated in a variety of formats - news releases, RSS feeds, tweets, videos, blogs, etc.

The challenge will be establishing processes that allow folks to expand their communication vehicles without adding 3 hours to their work day! The solution I believe, will rest in a new working relationship between PR, IT, and Marketing. Right now people are tackling this issue through outsourcing... having agencies handle their social media strategy. Not because SocMed is hard to do (in my opinion) but because the in-house staff simply don't have the cycles to tackle more 'duties' to their existing workload.

We often think that all it takes to do something new is to simply do it. But for many companies, who have cut back on staff, they are already struggling to keep up with existing workloads. Slapping on an extra 20% just isn't feasible for most.

It will be interesting to see where socmed goes once we come out of this recession and companies start adding more marketing folks (which were the first to go as companies cut to survive the past couple years).