I recently attended the 2007 Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) International Conference in Philadelphia. The theme was “Evolution” with talk centered on the rapid growth of social media, and the ethical and practical questions it raises for public relations professionals and the future of public relations.

While the traditional press release isn’t dead, social media has redefined the practice. Conference attendees who weren’t sure about blogs, YouTube, Second Life or Facebook prior to the conference, walked away with an education about individual capabilities of social media along with best practices for implementation and measuring results. Even Tim Russert, managing editor and moderator of “Meet the Press” and political analyst for “NBC Nightly News” and “Today” addressed social media in his presentation on the 2008 presidential campaign and candidates’ use of online outlets to connect with voters.

Nonprofits have also utilized social media outlets as a cost-effective tool for marketing campaigns. Social media provides a unique opportunity to foster interaction and relationships with key audiences and build deeper engagement and loyalty to a cause. Internally, organizations are taking advantage of new media such as podcasting, intranet and blogs to connect with their employees and convey company messages. Traditional journalists have even established their own blogs and have begun to treat blogs as a reliable research tool for story ideas and sources.

So, is social media the solution for your communications and media relations? I wish the answer was simple. While social media cannot be ignored, the most successful campaigns need to exercise a combination of both traditional and new media. As always, media relations efforts must be tailored to each campaign in order to reach the desired audience. You would be hard-pressed to find anyone who will trade a front page hit in USA Today for a blog post, and all the MySpace pages in the world won’t matter if your core audience doesn’t frequent social networking sites. Social media is an evolving and emerging tool that cannot be ignored, and in combination with traditional PR tactics can engage the largest audience and garner the best results.

Check back later this month for more advice on the newest social media trends, as TVG’s John Combest will detail how to effectively “create buzz” in the vast online universe.

Contact us at tvg@vandivergroup.com or send comments to blog@vandivergroup.com.