The emergence of community journalists and bloggers has prompted individuals from established organisations to enter the fray.

Avon & Somerset police have a blog for Chief Inspector Andy Bennett, for example, which is how I learnt that he has had his bike stolen. A friend of mine recently had his nicked too so I understand how annoying this can be.

When running a large public sector organisation like a police force, it is hard to communicate with individuals, particulary in hard-to-reach or excluded communities.

Blogging allows an individual to speak to vast numbers of people in a less formal manner, certainly in comparison to newsletters, marketing brochures or press release announcements. It also allows an individual's voice to be heard.

How many people feel that their voices are not heard by local and national government? Blogging, if carried out in an open and transparent way, can really engage with the public and allow you to promote the people and faces within an organisation, rather than the 'brand'.

A good example of community engagement with social media is Carrot Mob, an online group that has been set up to use consumer group buying power to influence corporate and governement thinking. Isn't it time that the 'corporates' began to listen and take community social media far more seriously.

If you are interested in the "Carrot Mob" concept it is our featured video on PRBristol.co.uk .

This cheesy tale was hot on the heals of a story about a globe trotting gnome on ITV West?!

Is it because people in this region will run headlong down a steep hill after a Double Gloucester? Perhaps it has more to do with hitting your head at the bottom, but apparently the ultimate wedding accessory is a cake made of cheese (not a New York style cheese cake). Sounds great but a little a little bit hard to swallow as a news story to me....?

It used to be the case that just having a website was enough - submit it to the search engines and off you go. But the plethora of online content means that you have to work hard at Search Engine Optimisation (SEO).

Online PR campaigns involving blogging strategies and engaging with social media such as You Tube or Facebook can increase your traffic to your site enormously.

A well-written press release submitted to targeted blogs and newswires could provide a huge amount of interest on line by other bloggers and media outlets.

The most simple of techniques for spreading the word across the blogosphere is the RSS feed. Really Simple Syndication is like email but you have requested the exclusive information that you want, with NO SPAM!

Once embedded in another site, the RSS feeds can provide regular updates from your blogs, news, videos and pictures. This process takes no additional work from the author therefore saving key strokes. It really is spreading the word.

It is possible, for instance, to import a news ticker showing the news from your favourite news outlet using RSS. Reuters have a great ticker to implant in your site.

Bearing all this in mind, we wanted to put a "news ticker" on PRBristol.co.uk for the Bristol Evening Post, but their RSS feed seems to have failed ....   [ This works now.]

If you want to see an example of a an RSS feed, take a look here. If you have a later version of web browser (internet explorer), you can add this RSS feed to numerous other websites.

Apparently we have downloaded some 60 million programs for the iPhone representing sales of about $30 million since the launch last month. Thats some communications channel for your message, especially as according Oftcom (07) says that 81% residents in the UK have a mobile phone.

Your target audience will skim magazines and turn over when the adverts are on the TV, but seldom do we ignore that Blackberry in our pocket.

The only disadvantage of mobile is the opportunity for spam to enter our personal space. A shopping centre nearby, which will remain nameless, has a Bluetooth system which is the sound equivalent of someone having a loud radio and an MC blaring out random messages about offers.

You will be not be looking to buy a holiday while out buying a suit, so don't tell me about "10% flights offer!" The result is that we all turn our bluetooth off rather than our phones beeping every 30 seconds.

What our mobile phone applications do, is allow Montage Communications to target individuals on preference of product, i.e. "What are you looking for today?" and be able to direct the client to the nearest shop.

In theory it is possible to tell if someone is in a car or on foot and therefore your marketing can react accordingly.

Simple ideas for iPhone applications can make money too. With a down load price of $999.99 the dubious "I Am Rich" application displayed nothing but a glowing red gem.The price tag still didn't deter a select few downloading it before Apple pulled it from their applications directory...

MSBNC a rival station to Fox News has scooped a story with the ex-White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan, who has exposed Fox News as a propaganda tool for the White House.

This story is electric on www.digg.com with 5025 Diggs (at the time of writing.)

Convenient pictures of David Cameron sitting on a Cornish beach reading the local newspaper, the Western Morning News, appeared on our media centre recently, which initially seemed a good move by him. Then I found out he had a planned Q&A session branded up by the Western Morning News the next day for their readers to fire questions at the PM-in-waiting.

My obvious PR scepticism aside  (as I know how hard it is, normally, to get a photographer to cover anything in Cornwall), the Cameron office are showing their superior PR skills here. By Cameron allowing his office "one morning's work in order to speak to the local people of Cornwall before I put my shorts on again and get down the beach," he has played a PR master stroke against a dithering PM.

Clearly these are times when people are feeling like their voices are not being heard by the Labour government and family budgets are at breaking point. Gordon Brown has missed a trick by keeping media silence and therefore conveying the message that basically he doesn't want to listen to their concerns, especially after an beating in the Glasgow East by-election.

Some may say that a PM or shadow leader is allowed a holiday like everyone else. I say that at these times of crisis, when many working class folk can't afford a holiday, a little time back at the office by Cameron goes a long way to engaging with the public.

That said, I was intrigued to find out about how the Q&A went and pleased to see that the Western Morning News are continuing their excellent use of multi-media: you can listen to the audio of the Cameron Q&A here.

You have to question the rational and the radar of the Southern Daily Echo about their choice of the "BIG QUESTION" this week. At these times of oil, gas, economic, environmental and terror crisis, it is not the most burning question.

However, it put a smile on my face on a Friday!