My article, “Brand aid: Creating opportunities in your customer community,” appears in the June print and online editions of PRSA Tactics.  It looks at how public relations practitioners can identify interesting stories and conversation material by monitoring various aspects of their organization’s online communities, or really any Web communities where their customers and prospects congregate. I’m interested in any additional suggestions you may have regarding PR’s use of, or involvement in, customer communities.

There are several folks who I would like to thank for their assistance.

My appreciation as always to the Public Relations Society of America and the Tactics editorial staff. Also, thanks to Mike Hardy who took time to speak with me about the Pitney Bowes customer community, as well as Dan Ziman, Neil Beam and Jeff Porter at Lithium Technologies for sharing background on the inter-workings of successful communities. Finally, big thanks to Susan Etlinger at Horn Group who provided some PR agency perspective for the piece.

Next up for me: I’d like to write an article about measuring the impact of social media use. I’m looking for suggestions regarding the types of metrics to establish and the best tools to track them.