Why?

Posterous has emerged as a leader in the space between blogging and microblogging. Unlike Twitter, Posterous doesn’t require a high level of your attention and unlike blogging, it doesn’t require even basic knowledge of site design, code, or the need to invest as much time into writing long posts.

What?

From the beginning, Posterous has been dubbed a “post by email tool.” What does that mean? It means you can literally send an email to post@posterous.com with some text and attach images, video, audio, etc and the application will package it up in a neat little blog post for you. The obvious side benefit? You can also do this from your smartphone from ANYWHERE.

For PR?

Here’s the concept that many PR practitioners haven’t embraced yet. You need to be a content creator.  You don’t have to write a column in the New York Times or even have a blog, but you do need a home base where people can see you’re actively contributing AND sharing valuable digital content. Facebook and LinkedIn are great networks but unfortunately don’t seem to offer that kind of credibility yet. Although they have the same features as a blog or Twitter, they are branded as a directory, not a source of updated information.

Credibility

I didn’t go to Journalism school. But I do know that Journalists like other Journalists. Secondary observation, people who like each other, like to share each other’s stories. Third observation, sharing someone else’s story has been the goal of PR for the last 100 years. Having a Posterous account doesn’t make you a journalist, but in the current state of the web, it does place you in the category of having a voice (assuming of course, that you take a bit of time every week to fuel it.)

Content

Let me back up a bit. Posterous is a hybrid model when it comes to pushing out content. With a blog, you’re generally sharing your own content. It’s something you wrote, or it’s a video/image that you’re analyzing. With Posterous, it’s generally an acceptable practice to share the work of others assuming you 1) give credit to the original author and 2) if it’s text you’re sharing, only use a fraction of the entire article’s content.

I personally don’t use Posterous for much text based content sharing, rather I keep it very visual with video, images, and sometimes embeddable applications. My reasoning for this is based on my own attention span, which is fleeting by the day. I like to provide content that is digestible in 30 seconds or less which is which is what drives my style, but that isn’t right for everyone.

Nuts and Bolts

So how can a PR professional leverage Posterous?

1) Part of your job is to keep up with news surrounding clients. This will inevitably lead you to find interesting information that will relate to the general public. Share it. Even better, add a few notes of analysis. You’ll establish yourself as a quality source of information if you’re sharing a quality feed.

2) Linking to your own destination is a great way to again establish your credibility. PR or otherwise, we all love sharing links of images and videos with our peers. Instead of sending someone to a 3^rd party site like YouTube or a Blog, you can embed them on your page which also leads people to find your other content + alternative social profiles.

3) Syndication is one of the biggest benefits of Posterous. When you send an email post, it not only pops up on your Posterous blog, but you can easily have it syndicatate to all your other pages such as Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Flickr, etc. A lot of people ask (in PR, and outside) how do you manage so many social networks? The answer is that you don't. You just manage a few that syndicate the content elsewhere. I personally don't like spending time on Facebook and LinkedIn for example, but all my content still streams to those sites. If people want to follow me there, they can do easily because of this tool. If they happen to interact with me there, I have notifications in place to respond on the specific site if needed.

4) Mobile Posting, as I alluded to before is made infinitely easier when all you need is email. No applications, no ugly mobile WAP site. As long as you can type (also is nice to have a camera/video recording feature on your phone) you’re all set to join the ranks of citizen journalist. If you work at an agency, then chances are you also travel quite a bit. One of the biggest obstructions to not blogging is the lack of time to sit down and write. Posterous creates a more casual and travel-friend method to maintain a blog.

5) I can’t stress enough the simplicity of sharing content with Posterous. When you’re working in digital pr, text articles are far from being the only means of sharing information. The email tool makes it incredibly simple to share files on your phone or computer but there’s also a feature for slightly more advanced users that give you a world of more options. Below you’ll see that it’s also possible to install a Posterous browser. This let’s you grab almost anything off the web and embed it into your stream. Thus far I have found very few web elements that won’t post to Posterous. Music widgets, games, and flash applications have all ported over perfectly. Adding to the ease, Posterous automatically ads a link to the original source so you acknowledge the person/website that brought you the content.

6) Group blogging, while not a new concept, is another enhanced feature in this application. Collaboration is big in all fields of communication, but PR specifically thrives on it. Want 25 people to all be the author of your blog about Cheeseburgers? It's as easy as creating an email list. Check out this excellent example of what Chevy is doing from the LA Autoshow. http://chevrolet.posterous.com/ (And they managed it FROM the auto show).

Ok...I'm done with the gushing. Go create an account now. And feel free to subscribe to my stream. Also more importantly, check out the3six5.com, a lifestreaming project by Daniel Honigman and myself. It's our way of taking Posterous to another level by creating a diary of an entire year through a collective group of 365 different people.