If I’m going to spend time on Facebook replying to messages, writing on walls, and reading invitations to events, I want to see the whites of people’s eyes. And I want to know their names.

I won’t waste time responding to a company whose only form of identification is their logo.

I just completed Part 1 of today’s two-part teleseminar on “How to Use Facebook to Promote Your Business or Nonprofit,” and various forms of this question came up several times from people who participated in the call: “Is it OK if I use just my company logo instead of somebody’s photo on the profile page?”

You could. But why would you want to?

Social networking is all about transparency, joining in the conversation and sharing information. I’d rather talk to a person than a company. I’d rather see their photo instead of a company logo. It’s bad enough that many companies I do business with have lost the human touch. A human won’t answer the telephone. I get a form letter when I write to complain. When I email, I get an autoresponder message. This isn’t what I want on Facebook.

Social networking is all about building relationships online. It would take far longer for you to build a relationship with somebody if they didn’t know who you were. In fact, you’d be darn lucky if they even paid any attention to you. There are too many other interesting people on sites like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn to waste time communicating with somebody who wants to hide behind a logo.

Does anybody know of companies or organizations that do the anonymous thing on Facebook and can pull it off?

Larry Richards of Raleigh, North Carolina asks:

“Where can an author get accurate information about the many book clubs and book discussion groups that exist in the U.S.?

“My book is titled The Blind Prophet, one of six books in my Invisible War series, and it’s a story about angels and demons. It should be published the first of the year.

“Somebody suggested offering a free review book to the person from these groups who selects the novels. But I can’t find a list anywhere. Can your Publicity hounds help me?”

Put politics aside for a minute.

If you saw the interview that ABC’s “Nightline” did with former Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards on Friday night, tell us how you think he did from a PR standpoint. If you missed the interview, you can watch it in two parts here and here.

I don’t care if you think “he’s only human” or that cheating on his wife was “despicable.”

Was the interview convincing? Will it put an end to this story? Did his answers come across as honest? Was he justified in not answering certain questions about the affair with campaign staff member Rielle Hunter? (“Did you ever tell her that you loved her?”) Does he score points for asking his wife, Elizabeth, not to be present during the interview?

Opinions from crisis counselors and other PR pros seem to be all over the map. Crisis counselor Jonathan Bernstein, who was my guest during a teleseminar a few years ago on “How to Keep the Media Wolves at Bay,” says on his blog:

“I think John Edwards did one heck of a job of ‘packaging’ his confession of infidelity in a manner that will quickly put the issue behind him—as long as there are no other skeletons in the closet…”

PR guy Jerry Brown says he thinks Edward blew it.

“He left at least two big loose ends that promise to keep the story alive awhile longer:

“He offered to take a paternity test to prove Hunter’s child isn’t his, but the test hasn’t taken place and the mother says there won’t be one. That will keep the story alive awhile longer and, without a paternity test, there will always be lingering doubts. Out of Edwards’ control? Perhaps. But he’s had several months to work on this issue.

“Hunter reportedly has received payments for some period of time, up to $15,000 a month according to one report that claims the payments were hush money to keep her quiet. Edwards says he didn’t make any payments to Hunter and that any payments that were made were without his knowledge. If she was paid, who made the payments and why promises to keep the story alive. If any laws were broken, the story could become decidedly worse.”

Hounds, what do you think?

P. S. Notice when the story broke: on a Friday. Typically, that’s the best day to break a bad news story. Did breaking the story on the same day of the Olympics ceremony work in his favor?

When somebody asks “What do you do?” how do you respond?

If your answer includes words with multiple syllables or jargon, words that only people in your industry can understand, you’ve probably forced their brain into shut-down mode.

The Philadelphia Inquirer article “Too many firms use jargon to convey ideas” offers example after example of pompous, bloated, puffed up elevator pitches. Many of them appear in press release boilerplate, at company websites and in marketing materials.

The article reminds me, by the way, of how much I despise the buzzword “thought leader” which seems to be universally accepted, even by the reporter who wrote the Inquirer article. PR people use it repeatedly in executive bios and pitches to the media and bloggers. Wikipedia says the term was first coined in 1994 by Joel Kurtzman, editor-in-chief of the magazine, Strategy & Business.

“The term was used to designate interview subjects for that magazine who had contributed new thoughts to business.”

My article How to write a bio for your press kit explains that most bios I read are more potent than sleeping pills. It offers tips on how to spruce up yours.

I’m curious. Do you use the phrase “thought leader” in your PR materials? If so, why or why not?