My latest Public Relations Tactics article published this past week (thanks as always to the @PRSA team) and I have some side notes to share. The article is called “Social awareness: Transforming your team into social media strategists,” and to construct it I went to one of the best social media thinkers I know, Jason Baer of Convince & Convert. My thanks to Jason for the conversation and for lending his expertise, which together yielded some valuable social media adoption suggestions for PR practitioners and agencies.

I had also intended to reference two new books in the article that are well worth plugging. They are World Wide Rave by David Meerman Scott and The Media Savvy Leader by David Henderson. Word count got the better of me, and keeping the focus on the conversation with Jason ended up being best in this case. Both books offer common sense thinking that directly relates to the Social Awareness theme, and provide unique steps to help bring transformations about in organizations and the minds of their leaders. Free eBook preludes are available for both Rave and Leader.

I was also quite excited when Len Gutman of Valley PR Blog picked up on the Social Awareness article earlier this week and posted some comments with a link for his readers. ValleyPRBlog.com is an especially helpful and timely resource for communicators because different thought provokers regularly contribute.

Finally, Jennifer Leggio posted interesting survey results on her ZDNet blog last month that illustrate a strong need for PR professionals and agencies to further build out their social media knowledge. Almost 80 percent of the survey’s 541 respondents (mainly PR directors and managers) said it is extremely important for “agencies to demonstrate proven understanding of how social media strategies apply to business.” The multifaceted survey also surfaced Horn Group, Porter Novelli, and SHIFT Communications among a short list of agencies most often cited by respondents, and concluded with key takeaways for agencies and clients. Leggio plans a Part II of this study with Nicole Jordan and, since Part I caught the attention of many agencies and PR pros, we can expect healthy participation and a nice set of analysis when this current effort concludes.