I don't often walk away from a Tom Foremski blog post without wondering if he is a little afraid of shadows.

In this one about the Killer Pitch, I am definitely feeling the guy has decided that PR people are goblins. He postulates that PR people could influence writers to write certain stories by letting them know that in exchange, they would drive traffic to the story and increase the reporter's own cachet with the increased traffic.

That said, I think he is onto a good idea. Mwwaaahhhh...

No, really. I agree with Tom that paying reporters for pageviews is wrong, but on the other hand, any PR firm that isn't driving traffic to a client's press hits isn't doing their job.

In fact, if you, as a restaurateur, started concentrating on building your friends and followers now, when you got a great press hit, you could actually maximize its reach and use it to drive business.

I've been harping on Social Media a lot this week and last. Mostly because I feel like more and more chefs are starting to see it as the necessary evil it is (necessary because it is and evil because they'd rather just go cook).

We've covered what social marketing is, how you can use it, why.  I would love to get some comments and questions.