PR People Discussing PR's Future

Confused about how to optimize your social media use? Or maybe you are just a little iffy on the best ways to get the biggest bang out of your Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. buck. Lucky for you (me and all those who scratch their head at all this stuff), PR News is having a conference on May 24th in New York City on Facebook and the future of PR.

"The May 24th PR News Facebook Conference will gather communication thought leaders and experts in social media to share ideas, tactics and lessons learned in using Facebook to advance PR & amp up marketing efforts," said an article by The Street (March 15, 2011). Time Inc., Goodwill Industries International, charity: water, Weber Shandwick, Pizza Hut, Sodexo, Inc., Euro RSCG Worldwide, Gatorade and Facebook have all promised to share their insights, blunders and success stories at the conference as well.

The point of the conference is to generate Facebook experts for their niche industry in a condensed amount of time. In fact, the article states that "Conference attendees will become experts in: How to get people to "like" your brand Developing a winning content strategy to engage your followers Measuring the impact of your Facebook initiatives Creating your Facebook dream team Mastering Facebook's latest features and adding a new gear to your PR efforts Integrating Facebook into your overall communications plan."

Sounds pretty good, huh? But is this the best way to educate companies on the do's and don'ts of Facebook at such? Does this mass formula approach neglect the creative, pioneer approach to social media or does that even matter anymore?