A good pr marketing strategy is to keep current and use new technology when it is hot. Just like online social networking. But are you using it? If so, are your pr marketing strategies in place? Do you use banner ads, or is it a place you visit once in a while?

If your pr marketing campaign consists of only placing banner ads on these social networks, then it’s time to re-think your pr marketing strategy. I have written several articles about using this hot media, to help pr clients. For example, banner ads on social networks only benefit the media, such asMySpace, or Linked-In, or even Facebook. Unless you have a very generic product or service, your wasting money. The first rule in marketing is to understand and know your audience.

A recent article in iMedia Connection by Michael Estrin speaks about this. I share a lot of his views about using social media web sites. This can be a productive media source when understood and planned correctly. One example in Mr. Estrin’s article is how Visa worked with Facebook, not using banners, but for downloading an application. The deal was worth $2 million to Facebook. This is one way to gain maximum exposure and get your customer to react to your product/service.

In last week’s newspaper, an article about Linked-In told how the company grew rapidly with advertisers (banners, etc). This is great for the company and it’s founder, Reid Hoffman, who is making money, but are the advertisers? Again, this is fine for the few major companies. It is best to target your audience, and get them involved. That’s the way to establish a strong branding image for pr clients. All professional publicity companies know the power of marketing and connecting to your audience. But are these professional publicity people really using the media or are the media buyers at the ad agencies just rushing in on this trend? I feel most ad agencies and many publicity professionals do not understand the social network market.

If you are a pr client or publicity professional, don’t just launch into this media, be sure that you, guide clients by learning how to utilize social network to the max.