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Twitter has one rule that I find frustrating, but completely necessary. Once you are following 2000 other Twitterers, it forces the number of Twitterers who are following you to catch up. When you do achieve an equal balance of following versus followers, you must maintain a 1:1 ratio as you ascend in visibility. As such, I am constantly fine-tuning my follow list to maximize my Twitter time, which I believe increases the quality of my experience, so I don’t mind too much.

When I am itching to follow a new find, I make a beeline to the generic brands for rapid unfollowing action. Having a brand not backed by one person sending tweets is like sending a robot to a cocktail party. I do not hesitate to unfollow a logo.

I have seen media outlets take three different approaches to the logo issue. Many send generic news blasts. Boring. The Chicago Tribune created a Twitter character, Coloneltribune, interesting. I find Businessweek.com’s approach to be most effective.

Rather than having a generic account, John Byrne (@johnabyrne), the Editor-in-Chief for Businessweek.com, serves as the source and advocate for the outlet’s hottest news. He is out there mixing with the people and promoting his work as he should be. To top it off, he encourages all his reporters to serve as Wingmen, retweeting his tweets, as they should be.

I feel like setting up a generic Twitter account is like dragging dirt from the past into our brand new house of communications where we are all on equal footing.

Kaplan Mobray, author of “The 10Ks of Personal Branding, says that a theme song goes hand-in-hand with a personal brand. To walk his talk, Kaplan plays an inspiring rendition of his theme song, “Mr. Magic,” on the sax during his electric presentations.

I took Kaplan’s advice. Unfortunately, right after I chose T.I. and Rihanna’s “Live Your Life,” as my theme song she chose to get back together with her abusive boyfriend, Chris Brown. Rather than choosing to live by Rihanna’s real-life example, I hope her fans—mostly preteen girls—listen to the song itself for guidance. In the song, Rihanna imbues a strong sense of self who wouldn’t dare let a bully boss her around.

It is Women’s History Month and bullying, whether by a boyfriend, in cyberspace or on the playground, is a big issue facing young girls. Add to the mix “Frenemies,” girls who are your friend one minute and your enemy the next and you can see why parents are facing a challenging set of circumstances. Often, conversations about solutions center on fixing the bad behavior of the bully.

But, why do girls let themselves be bullied? If I remember correctly from the hardest years of my life, it was because I didn’t have a strong sense of myself. That wouldn’t come until my late 20s.

I think young girls could benefit by leaps and bounds from the personal brand building tools that Kaplan has to offer beginning with “Know Thyself”. If you are a parent of a preteen girl, ask her what her theme song would be. It could be a great way to help her cultivate a sense of self-awareness and worth or at least get the conversation started.

Consider sharing the 10Ks with a young girl in your life. It’s available in their favorite form, itunes.com.

When President Barack Obama referred to himself as a mutt during his first press conference as president, he took the negative power out of the word and empowered a rainbow colored nation to embrace itself. Being a “mutt” myself, a tri-racial isolate or mixture of red, white and black, who was raised in the South, I understand how it felt to hear monkey sounds in the school hallways as Obama endured in his Kansas classroom. But, now, as the world basks in the brilliance of Obama, it feels to me like being black is the new black.

Kaplan Mobray, author of “The 10Ks of Personal Branding,” the Diversity leader for Deloitte, and a black, salsa-dancing, saxophone playing motivational speaker, says that young black men tell him how emboldened they feel to see another black man in a prominent position. He encourages them to see their diversity as an asset and broaden their horizons beyond sports and entertainment. He contends that corporations need diverse talent to compete.

Corporations, associations and universities are increasingly booking speakers who reflect the faces of the constituents they serve and the employees they seek, according to Lawrence Watkins, founder of Great Black Speakers. Due to an increased demand for diverse speakers since Obama was inaugurated, Watkins is adding Kaplan to his prestigious, robust roster of prominent black speakers such as movie director Spike Lee, CNN anchor, Don Lemonn and Gloria Jackson, the great-granddaughter of Dr. Booker T. Washington.

“We are getting requests from people who wouldn’t have considered a black speaker in the past,” said Watkins. “It’s a great time to be in the business of booking great black speakers!”

Here is my advice to PR: Stop wasting your time fretting about the downfall of the mainstream media. Partner with an SEO firm, demand quality content from a former reporter, and engage in the great key-word land grab that is happening right underneath your noses.

Key word communications is about pushing out quality content tied to key words that showcase your core competency, surface in a myriad of online searches and deliver new business again and again. While the traditional media, especially the trades, will simply be one spoke on the communications wheel, public relations and SEO need each other in the worst way…….

I recently had a client hire me a month after he inked a deal with an SEO firm. It wasn’t long before I ran across rogue articles using Google supposedly written by my client. They were poorly penned, embarrassingly off-topic and the firm’s name was spelled wrong. The client had never approved copy, nor been privy to any part of the process. I was outraged.

There is a wellspring of quality writing talent waiting to be tapped for the future of key word communications. Let the crashing of the Rocky Mountain News signify a rising up of a new model that frees us all! 

Social networking has freed communications professionals–publicists, reporters, marketers, advertising executives–from their corporate cages. In fact, they have no choice but to circumvent the mainstream media and make a beeline to their target audiences using key word communications.

Instead of relishing the fresh air and wide open spaces, many communicators I speak with feel like a prisoner who has served his or her sentence, but can’t hack it on the outside. They have forgotten that, regardless of the medium, they are storytellers, change agents, muses and consensus builders.

On the flipside of the revolution, are the pioneers, the established professionals who refuse to stop learning and growing, the college kids who never stop aspiring and people in between who have the spirit to charge forward with wild abandoned into the future of key word communications.

I never thought the day would come when I would be mentoring my mentor who taught me everything I know about public relations, but it’s just another example of how the world has turned upside down. I’m helping her to navigate the microblogging mayhem and miracle that is Twitter.

Cheers to the open-minded mentors like my mentor who are letting their mentees give back to them after giving them so much.