Have you heard about the “Motrin Mommies” controversy? They posted an ad on Saturday, causing such an uproar among Tweeters and bloggers that the ad was taken down by Sunday and the company issued a  bland apology.

The company I work for just started a blog and I happen to be doing the blogging. Every once in a while, I will repost something on this site in case you want to read it — and saving me from having to write about the same topic twice.

In case you missed it, here’s the ad (Motrin took it down, but you gotta love the permanency of YouTube!):

From a marketing and PR perspective, there are some important lessons to learn from this whole debacle. Namely that we’re not living in a 9-5, Monday-Friday world anymore. People are blogging on the weekends, so comapnies need to be listening. Communicators are never really “off the clock.” Click here to read other lessons I took from this.

If you want to see the discussion on Twitter, check this out. It’s amazing how much buzz was generated in such a short period of time!

The chair of the Michigan Republican Party, Saul Anuzis, announced that he would seek the chairmanship of the Republican National Committee via Twitter. Another example of breaking news on Twitter.

Do you tweet? If not, visit www.twitter.com to sign up … and follow me. My user name is @prtini. Not sure about Twitter? Two articles this week about why it’s beneficial: One from the Wall Street Journal and another looking at the business benefits. (You know if the Journal is covering it, it’s about to go mainstream!)

It’s becoming harder and harder to find actual experts. You know, people who base their “facts” on the truth … people who really know what they’re talking about (not just those who talk a good game).

There are countless examples of political talking heads who claim to be exprts who maybe weren’t so right after all. (Just think of all the pundits who thought Sarah Palin would help John McCain on Election Day.) I imagine by now, everyone is a little tired of politics. So, let’s look at this issue from a different standpoint. There are two examples that come to mind.

This weekend, the American Advertising Federation is holding its midyear retreat — and, as has become common practice at these kinds of events, it’s being twittered. In fact, the Ad2 Orlando chapter is twittering. I follow them on Twiter, so I can keep up on what is being said at this event. It turns out that one of the speakers at the conference is the chief creative officer at WonderGroup — an advertising agency that specializes in the buying-decision relationship between moms and kids. The speaker is apparently a so-called social media expert (even though he only has 43 followers on Twitter. To give some perspective, I have 52 and I don’t try to claim to be an expert at this stuff. My husband, who owns a social media marketing company, and really knows how to do this, has more than 400 followers. Chris Brogan, a real social media guru, has almost 20,000 followers.) Update: The speaker wasn’t positioned as a social media expert. He focused on how social media is changing the game. Sorry for the confusion — hard to tell what’s going on 1000 miles away in just 140 characters.

Anyway, this speaker was saying things that just aren’t true many people believe aren’t true about social media (like that people want brands to be their friends. Huh??) But, all these conference attendees think he’s an expert — therefore believing every word that comes out of his mouth (even though it clearly doesn’t make sense). Who proclaimed him an expert? Update: As a speaker he is perceived as an authority, so people are inclined to believe what he says, even if he offered a disclaimer about his social media expertise. Again, not there … can’t say for sure.

The notion of social media marketing is new — and there really are very few experts. Peter Shankman is probably as close as they come. Other people may have had some good results, but they’re hardly experts. It’s too new of a concept to have thousads of experts. Even though PR isn’t new, the concept of everyone being an expert is similar. Everyone claims to be PR experts, but there aren’t that many people who do it really, really well. Just about anyone can get a clip, but it’s much harder to actually shape perception (the real point of PR, for those of you who still aren’t sure what it is that I actually do for a living!)

Another real-world example: The domestic violence support group that I co-facilitate is led by a minister. She’s a very, very religious person and incorporates faith into the group discussions. One day, we somehow got on the topic of homosexual relationships. And, without even thinking twice, she said it’s a terrible sin … an abomination of God. This woman is an authoritative figure for a group of very vulnerable women. They see her as an expert. Wouldn’t it make more sense to couch her beliefs by saying it’s a sin in her opinion? Some religions are opposed to gay marriage … but there are plenty of theologins who argue for gay rights. Who’s the expert there? So much of religion is based on interpretation of the Bible. But, as a very smart preacher said, it’s important to remember that the Bible is also a set of interpretations. For example, the four apostles wrote their interpretation of events and what Jesus said. What if they interpreted something wrong?

I guess the lesson is that we all need to be careful about who we deem to be experts. Especially with the information superhighway, anyone can set up a blog and seem like an authority on some topic. But, be warned. Don’t trust everything you hear or read. Do your research before determining who to believe and who to take with a grain of salt.

I’m volunteering for the local Orange County Democrats — helping mainly with events and PR. Thus far, it’s been a good experience. There’s so much going on with the Obama events and all the local candidates — it’s a whirlwind.

One thing I’d like to do is find ways to help the party capitalize on the interest of people in their 20s and 30s. Without question, Obama has brought a new sense of excitement — and we, at the local level, need to make sure that these new Democrats stay engaged in the process.

So, I had an idea: We need to Twitter. If you’re interested in following what’s going on with the Orange County Dems, check out www.twitter.com/orangedems.

Not familiar with Twitter? The easiest way to explain it is a a melding of IMing and status updates. As a NY Times blogger put it, it’s a combination of talk radio, digg and late-night television.

Like talk radio, you get an unvarnished and largely real-time window into what a wide swath of people are actually talking about.

Like Digg, you see people point to the articles and videos that they want to share.

And like late-night TV (or a politician’s sound bite for the evening news), there is a premium on pithy one-liners that try to get to the heart of the matter.

However one defines Twittering, it’s clearly a communication vehicle gaining in popularity — and one that can produce significant results. Just ask www.30lines.com …

Campaigning today in Florida, John McCain once again said the fundamentals of our economy are strong. While that is a position to be debated by economists who know way more about this topic than I do, I’d just like to point out that from a campaigning and messaging perspective, that’s probably not a soundbyte McCain wants hitting the airwaves. As unemployment continues to rise and the market continues to fall, one would think McCain would hate for voters to think he don’t understand their challenges or feel their pain. Unless he really just doesn’t get it.

Any smart PR person will tell you that if you have a story that needs to be “buried” there are two ways to go — pick an incredibly busy news day so it gets lost amongst the clutter, or aim for a holiday when people aren’t paying attention.

Well, it so happens that today is a holiday and an extremely busy day — courtesy of Hurricane Gustav. This combination of factors makes it the ideal time to try to hide Sarah Palin’s controversial news. Her 17-year-old daughter is pregnant. Maybe one of these days, abstinence-only supporters will realize that approach isn’t exactly working.

From a PR standpoint, I guess it was kind of brilliant. Limit the damage by getting the story out there on a day when the media has shifted from politics to constant hurricane coverage.

For his part, Obama took the high road, asking the media to lay off these kinds of stories. As he pointed out, his mother had him when she was just 18. He believes families — and especially children — shouldn’t be subjected to the political scrutiny that comes with running for office.

We can only hope the media lay off the tabloid aspects of this story and let this 17-year-old girl deal with this challenge in private, but I hope the media uses this as an opportunity to closely examine Palin’s positions on associated issues like birth control and sex education.

There’s a lot going on today to write about, but I had a minor moral crisis today that I want to share.

First, some background: Caylee Anthony is a missing three-year-old girl from Orlando. About a month after she first disappeared, her grandmother finally reported her missing. The mother hasn’t been exactly truthful — nor helpful — leaving investigators in the dark. The mother is currently behind bars, not seeing visitors … and not providing information to investigators.

The story took an odd twist this week, when California bounty hunter Leonard Padilla — at the request of the Anthony family spokesperson, Larry Garrison, who also owns an entertainment production company and wrote a book about is involvement in the Natalee Holloway case — hopped on his white horse to save the day. (Background on Mr. Padilla: he’s the star of a Nat Geo show sensationalizing bounty hunting, a convicted felon, a failed candidate for Sacramento mayor, and known for pulling these kinds of publicity stunts.)He and his nephew are determined to bail out the mother, Casey Anthony — even fronting the $50,000 bail premium. Talk about creating a media circus. FOX News, CNN, Headline News — all the major television outlets have been following this story. And Leonard Padilla somehow has become the voice of the bail industry.

What does this have to do with me? Well, one of my clients is an insurance company that underwrites bail bonds. This company breaks every stereotype you may have about bail. The owners are good people and they hate the fact that the bail industry is misunderstood by so many people. Like much of the rest of the bail industry, they don’t agree with Leonard Padilla’s handling of this situation. Initially wanting to stay away from this story, my client decided Mr. Padilla couldn’t be the face of the bail profession (maybe his comment about Casey’s need to paint her toes was the last straw). He was single handedly damaging the industry’s reputation. She wanted to go on television to set the record straight and to explain that this isn’t how the industry works. At first, I was apprehensive about doing anything to get involved in this media frenzy. After all, a three-year-old girl is missing. Shouldn’t that be the sole focus? But, then I realized that Mr. Padilla’s antics have only taken the focus even more off of finding this poor girl. So, if I have a client who can help put him in his place — and explain that bail shouldn’t be wrapped up into “entertainment profiteering” — than I’m all for it. So, as I’m typing this, my client is getting ready to appear on Nancy Grace! Yes … that’s right … Nancy Grace! I’m not always the biggest fan of her approach, but I’m glad that she’s willing to listen to a sane person who can explain bail and it’s role in this kind of case. Hopefully, that will help put the focus back on finding Caylee.