Kami Huyse at Communication Overtones has a great blog post on why Twitter Is Making Us Lazy.  She hits the nail on the head with this post while she reminds us that social media is just a tool. Great public relations is about creating a strong relationship with your stakeholders. It is about sharing ideas, thoughts, a vision and, in some cases, explaining why the people in an organization took or didn’t take a specific action. Tools like Twitter, Facebook, blogs and other social media networks or tools assist in the dissemination of information and are meant to help create a discussion. The key words there are “assist” and “help”—they don’t replace every other tool. Speaking with people is important. Telephone calls, meetings, conferences, town halls—all of it matters.

While there are many people who have completely embraced social media and use it on a daily basis, I constantly speak with senior communicators, VPs and CEOs who are just starting to understand the value of what can be done with this technology. I just want to make sure that we don’t focus solely on one vehicle and forget the human element. People matter—human connections matter.