In PR, it’s common to hear the phrase, “I want my company name in ink.” I admit, landing placement or a really great feature story in a target publication is fantastic —and valuable—and clients or bosses love it. But, while we’re concerned with securing print coverage for our clients or bosses, it’s important that we don’t forget about the many social media outlets out there. There are already conversations taking place about your company or brand on social media sites, and your online reputation is being created because of those conversations.

As PR professionals, it’s our job to educate our clients and bosses about the importance of social media and online reputations. Much like great print coverage, social media conversations deliver valuable information about a company or brand directly to current and prospective customers and influence opinions.

In my opinion, the best part about social media is that you can participate in the conversations about your company or brand that are already happening and you can engage with your customers on a more personal level.

I’m always pondering the different types of client/agency relationships and how they contribute to a company’s bottom line. Obviously, there are many dynamics involved in these relationships, but in terms of how clients view marketing agencies, I think there are two main categories. They either see their agency as a vendor or a partner. Here are the key differences:

1) Partner: Clients who look at their agency as a partner value their agency and its employees. They work side by side to solve marketing communications challenges for the long-term, they are respectful, trusting, honest, treat their agency like an extension of their team and give credit to the agency for successes.

2) Vendor: Clients who view their agency as a vendor typically bid out projects to several agencies, choose based on price alone, they look at their agency as replaceable, they don’t share budget information with their agency, they don’t invite their agency to strategy meetings and they typically have unrealistic expectations.

Thankfully, we’re fortunate to have excellent clients who fall into the ‘partner’ category, and we’re always looking for more, so let me know if you’re interested in partnering up with a great B2B agency.

Are you a big fan of all things design related? Are you a fan of Twitter? I stumbled upon this new Web site called Dribbble that takes the best from both worlds and combines them.

Instead of sharing your daily thoughts 140 characters at a time, Dribble gives you 400 x 300 pixels of space to share visual creativity. Another great feature is that, like Twitter, Dribbble allows you to “follow” your favorite designer, illustrator or developer and keep up with what they are working on.

As Twitter can be helpful to trend what’s happening in this great b2b world of ours, I believe that Dribble can also help us keep up with all things design related and keep things fresh!

Are there any other b2b resources you use to keep at the top of your game?

In case you aren’t aware, I serve as president of the illustrious organization known as TOCA, the Turf and Ornamental Communicators Association. This group holds a special place in my heart because it’s unlike any other professional organization I’ve been a member of. Its members are a unique mix of writers and editors, PR pros, corporate marketing specialists, agency people and more, all working in the green industry.

In case you weren’t able to make it to our annual meeting in Tucson last week, here’s what you missed:

1) I Scream Social: We heard from an esteemed panel of social media practitioners, including @alliemcbell, @SamBrace, @Tucson_Cowgirl, @TMentzerPR and Jimmy Fox. Bottom line: it’s not what you say, it’s how you say it.

2) Back to the Future: Bo Sacks waxed poetic about the future of publishing and the media. As an armchair futurist myself, I respectfully disagree about the evolution to e-ink. I think collapsible mobile devices with backlight illumination will rule.

3) Water we going to do?: Two experts discussed the implications of water issues for our industry.

4) Down to Business: The TOCA meeting was great. We elected new officers to the board, presented our annual TOCA scholarship, I personally delivered the Environmental Communicator of the Year award to Chris Gray (great guy), and we talked high level about our new strategic plan.

What did you think about the TOCA meeting this year? Any key takeaways you’d like to share? Are you going to be joining us next year?