That’s not a boast. Another answer to that question is simple; if you write a blog, you own PR too.

Press releases by the thousands hit editors desks and inboxes daily. The best editors have no doubt created a system for separating the wheat from the chaff when it comes to a good story, but they are still gatekeepers although their gates are becoming smaller and easier to bound over. We are in the age of PR 2.0 as Brian Solis calls it. He as written a paper entitled ‘The Social Media Manifesto – Integrating Social Media into Marketing Communications.‘ He spells out his case very succinctly and avoids most of the jargon that you might expect in a paper on this subject [although some clichés remain.] You can read it here.

A Press Release? Here’s one definition from many that I found online - ‘An announcement of an event, performance, or other newsworthy item that is issued to the press.’ The definition is straightforward and very, very dry, a phrase that unfortunately describes every press release I’ve ever seen. So how does your story get noticed through the crowds and the white noise?

You could go crazy with all the options that are available but I’m thinking that a less is more approach may be more effective. Again common wisdom suggests that you should use Digg, Del.icio.us, MyBlogLog, Facebook, MySpace, Bebo, etc, etc. Although those tools are all undoubtedly useful, the problem is that you have to manage all of these accounts and that is time consuming. Also is your story relevant, to say your Facebook group? In fact have you asked yourself - “Does my company even need a Facebook group?” Just because you can doesn’t mean you should. And of course this all begins with the best story that you have to tell, otherwise all of your efforts using any social media will fail. A non-story is a non-story, period.

This is our current approach at Nemo:

We have multiple blogs and bloggers and we experimented with social media for a while before jumping in and writing about our ideas and thoughts. Social Cache is an example of how we intend to participate as thought-leaders and contributors. We are not selling anything here.

Our blogs have distinct voices and authority in the areas of music at Pampelmoose, fashion at Nubby Twiglet, art and design at strange|beautiful and photography at Nemo Productions & Photography.

We create videos and upload them to YouTube and Vimeo [33,460 folks watched that one,] and we drop our photos off at our Flickr site.

We have a Muxtape so you can listen to what we are listening to.

We have LinkedIn profiles for all of our executive staff, here’s our Creative Director, Mark Lewman’s. We even have a Facebook group. [I'm struggling with this one, more later.]

We are lacking in the blogroll department. We need a stronger blogroll on Social Cache.

We have our own Ning social network specific to our company. It’s been in private beta but soon it will be unleashed to the world. Here’s a sneak peek of some of the Nemo team celebrating the delivery of new web sites that we built for HP Blackbird and VooDoo PC. Click those links to see our work.

Find more videos like this on NEMO

When it comes to PR and marketing at Nemo we are following the basic rules of social media. We listen and we participate. We wait to be invited in. We start conversations. We encourage comments.

And we love our employees, even when they leave us…watch the video below.

Find more videos like this on NEMO

First the email in my inbox.

Introducing Keeping Score with Audrey!

Starting this week, TrueCredit’s Newsletter Editor-in-Chief, Audrey O’Dell, brings you a new blog in the Learning Center. Inspired by readers’ questions, Audrey will offer you the scoop on how to get the most out of credit card reward programs and uncover new and different ways to pay off credit cards (debt snowball, anyone?) and that’s only the beginning! Ever wonder how the credit crunch is going to impact you personally? (Maybe it already has!) Whether your mortgage rates will go up or your credit card rate will come down? Ever transfer a credit card balance to another card offering a lower rate—and then been sorry? Or was it a good idea? Read about these credit issues—and more—in Keeping Score with Audrey. It’s just one of the great features TrueCredit brings you to help you manage your credit. Make the TrueCredit Learning Center a regular pitstop on your road to credit health.

Ok I’m interested - I visit Keeping Score With Audrey.

The first thing I notice is the text on the page is left justified so tightly it almost escapes the page but the instant giveaway that this “blog” is not actually a real blog is the simple fact that no one is home. You cannot comment, all you can do is read what is basically an ad for True Credit’s services. You cannot contact anyone, there is no ‘about’ page - who is ‘Audrey,’ does she even exist?

Wait, there’s more - if you attempt to navigate away from this “blog” you receive the following message:

True Credit’s management have made a poor decision here. They clearly do not understand how important authenticity is in the blog world. If they had really done their homework this area of their site would not exist as it stands today. They have broken all the rules of how to reach their customers online.