This is the second of our “5 Minutes With Social Media Influencers” Series.

Spend 5 minutes with the one and only Peter Shankman!

Peter is best known for founding Help A Reporter Out, (HARO) which in under a year became the de-facto standard for thousands of journalists looking for sources on deadline, offering them more than 200,000 sources around the world looking to be quoted in the media. HARO is currently the largest free source repository in the world, sending out over 1,500 queries from worldwide media each week. HARO’s tagline, “Everyone is an Expert at Something”, proves over and over again to be true, as thousands of new members join at helpareporter.com each week. In June of 2010, less than two years after Peter started HARO in his apartment, it was acquired by Vocus, Inc.

Peter is also the founder and CEO of The Geek Factory, Inc., a boutique Social Media, Marketing and PR Strategy firm located in New York City, with clients worldwide. His blog, which he launched in 1995 at http://shankman.com, both comments on and generates news and conversation.

Connect on twitter @petershankman.

Prefer to read? We’ve got you covered:

Tammy: I’m here today with the one and only Peter Shankman, you have all heard of I know. Peter thank you so much for being on Five Minutes With.

Peter: My pleasure, happy to do it

Tammy: Thank you. I do try to stick to five minutes, it’s going to be one of the fastest interviews you have ever had so I’ll jump right into it. You’re known best for Help A Reporter Out, at least that’s how I first heard of you but you also run geek factory, the social media marketing and PR firm and you also have some really high profile clients on American Express. Do you see larger brands embracing the personal element that comes with engaging on social media?

Peter: I do, I see brands getting smarter about marketing let’s put it that way. Some of what they do involved social but what they are really seeing is that they have to reach out to their audience and be one on one with their audience whether that’s through social or through marketing, through phone calls, what ever it is they are being more social though not necessarily using social media to do it but being ore social.

Tammy: Interesting. The real time quality of Facebook and Twitter, now journalism is now obviously part of your back ground with Harrow, how do you see that effecting the way people report and how the whole journalism industry is?

Peter: I think journalism as a whole has gone through Major Major changes of late but I don’t necessarily think that, you know social [media] has definitely had an impact on it. What it’s doing is blurring the line between what is journalist and who is someone with a camera phone who happens to catch something. There will always be a place for journalists, for the hard hitting news reporting news gathering journalist who went to school and I think what we are finding is that those journalists are finding ways to re-event themselves so they are a little more both and that’s really kind of exciting because you know good journalism is hard and I would hate to see it go away just to be replaced by people with a camera.

Tammy: Interesting. You wrote something really really cool called “Customer Service The New Rules For The Social Enabled World”. I have ordered it but it hasn’t arrived yet but I’m hoping Amazon will be quick here in the UK but it can be a little slower. Could you give us one or two tips without spoiling the whole book for how to use social media effectively for customer service?

Peter: Yeah, I mean the real concept is again ‘know your audience’. Listen to what your audience says, what they want and know what they are.If they come to you and they say ‘we want this without this’ then listen to them and give it to them in a way that works for them. You know, if your entire audience is on Facebook yet your Tweeting out every twenty minutes, that’s probably not the best use of your time.

Tammy: Yeah,  so engage with them properly?

Peter: Engage with them in a good way, engage with them the way they want to be engaged with.

Tammy: Very good. You sit on an advisory council for all sorts of places, NASA is one very interesting one and do you see a place for social media on places like and organisations like NASA or do you see the government, is there a place for it in those sort of more traditional institutions?

Peter: There’s a place for finding ways to better communication. For something like NASA, they want to reach out to the entire world and make space cool again and what better way to do that than to show videos and photos of really cool things that have happened and it’s a great way to use social [media] to do that and in addition to being able to get quality resumes, to find people they want to hire who are online and  who know all that stuff. Now using non traditional media for that is a great way to do it.

Tammy: Just personally, do you prefer, I know you’re on Twitter a lot, I see you on Facebook,  which is your preferred method of Social media communication? Twitter or Facebook

Peter: I’m a big fan of “Friendster” no, I’m joking! I think it really comes down to whatever works  for you. Twitter is great for some things, Facebook is great for some things too, it really all depends on the situation.

Tammy: What’s your favorite?

Peter: I’d probably say Facebook a little over Twitter . It has better depth and better breadth of contact and information on there.

Tammy: Very very good. Peter, thank you. We did it in five minutes and eleven seconds. That’s great we really tried for the five minutes! Thank yo so very much, people can reach you @petershankman on Twitter and http://shankman.com and a whole lot of other places as well. Any others we should mention?

Peter: Nope, http://shankman.com is the website and PeterShankman is Twitter and Facebook.

Tammy: Thank you so much!

This is the first of our “5 Minutes With Social Media Influencers” Series.

Spend 5 minutes (or 7 minutes as it turned out to be!) with Social Media Expert Trey Pennington.

Trey is a marketing pro, storyteller for business, and international speaker. As a dad of six, he knows first hand the power of story in changing lives, giving perspective, and connecting people to people. With the advent of social media, Trey developed a substantial presence online and turned that presence into speaking events all around the world. In 2009 he ignited the movement now known as Like Minds, which lead to a conference in Helsinki in 2010 where over 400,000 people tuned in to participate via live streaming video. He’s also launched ten Social Media Clubs and leads his home club of 778 members. When he speaks, he shows audiences how to use media to build meaningful connections online and off. Story and storytelling principles are at the core of his message. Find out more about Trey at TreyPennington.com. Connect on twitter @treypennington.

Update: I am so sorry to report that Trey has passed away a few months after this interview. http://mashable.com/2011/09/04/trey-pennington/  He will be missed in the social media world and our sympathy goes out to his family and friends.