The 2008 presidential elections forever changed the American political landscape, and the way in which candidates communicate and form relationships with voters. Twitter now allows politicians to open direct lines of communication with constituents and engage and interact. This study examines the congressional presence on Twitter of members of Congress leading up to the 2010 midterm elections. B-M found that 62 percent of the members of Congress have Twitter accounts.

These findings come as the entire House of Representatives and 22 senators face re-election this November. See more results below.

Burson-Marsteller is pleased to announce the appointment of Nathan Ballard and Cheryl Heinonen as Co-Market Leaders in Northern California. As Market Leaders, Nathan and Cheryl will be responsible for leading the team in San Francisco and working together to grow and expand Burson-Marsteller's Northern California operations. In these roles, they will both report to U.S. President and CEO Patrick Ford.

Both Nathan and Cheryl joined B-M earlier this year. Cheryl, a managing director in B-M's US Corporate Practice, and Nathan, a managing director in the Media Practice and the Issues and Crisis Group, will continue in their current roles in those practices. Currently, Cheryl works with a variety of B-M clients in the consumer brand, technology, and financial services areas.  Nathan specializes in media relations, crisis communications, and new media, advising some of our most important clients as they face challenging issues. 

Jennifer Graham Clary, who served as interim market leader, will continue in her role as Global Technology Practice Chair.

To read the full announcement click here.  

Burson-Marsteller would like to congratulate Dr. Donald K. Wright for being named the Harold Burson Professor and Chair in Public Relations at Boston University. Dr. Wright is an internationally known professor, researcher and corporate communications consultant. He is also one of the world's most published public relations scholars.

The Harold Burson Professorship and Chair was established at Boston University in honor of Harold Burson and is funded by Burson-Marsteller and Young and Rubicam. Dr. Wright is the third faculty member to hold this endowed chair. Previous recipients are Otto Lerbinger and former B-M CEO Chris Komisarjevsky.

To read more about this announcement click here.

Burson-Marsteller is happy to welcome Carline Jorgensen as a Managing Director in the U.S. Brand Marketing Practice.  Carline has more than 20 years of experience as a marketing communications executive, and she has helped launch and build many brands, products and services in an array of sectors such as financial services, healthcare, lifestyle, travel and entertainment.

Most recently, Carline was Founder and President of Kaplan Communications Inc, her own successful full-service marketing communications agency in Los Angeles. For more than a decade, she oversaw brand marketing and media relations campaigns for some of the world's most respected brands like American Express, Ameriprise Financial, Cox Interactive Media, HBO, Champagne Taittinger, Sallie Mae Fund, Hint Mint and Icon Shoes, among others.

To read the full announcement click here.

Burson-Marsteller is thrilled to announce the appointment of Zaheer Nooruddin as Director/Lead Digital Strategist for our Greater China operations. Nooruddin is a leading authority in digital and social strategy and has more than 12 years of international marketing-communications experience, covering Asia, the Middle East, North Africa, and the U.S.

Nooruddin will head our digital team across our five Greater China offices (Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Chengdu and Hong Kong). In his new role, he will help develop new business opportunities, while also creating creative digital and social media solutions that provide measurable business outcomes for our clients.

Read the full press release here …

Burson-Marsteller is happy to welcome Jason Teitler as a Managing Director in our U.S. Brand Marketing Practice. Throughout his career, he has developed sports marketing campaigns that have enhanced the effectiveness of public relations and social media campaigns, business-to-business and employee communications, event management and experiential outreach. He has worked with a number of high-profile professional sports teams, leagues and sporting events including The Masters and the Super Bowl.

Prior to joining our firm, Jason was the Executive Vice President of Piehead, a full-service online strategy agency based in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, where he was primarily responsible for business development and digital campaigns across multiple industries. He was also a Senior Vice President at Steiner Sports & Entertainment Marketing. There, he developed and implemented online and offline sports-influenced campaigns, domestic and abroad, as well as negotiated and managed sponsorship and endorsement deals for leading and emerging brands. His brand experience at Steiner Sports included Autotrader.com, Bacardi, Michael C. Fina, and TomTom.

To read the full announcement click here …

This January, Haiti was devastated by one of the worst natural disasters imaginable, and the whole world pulled together to help. Six months after the earthquake, Haiti is still recovering and working to rebuild.

Burson-Marsteller was recently selected to provide a full range of strategic communications services to the Interim Haiti Recovery Commission. The IHRC is "responsible for continuously developing and refining development plans for Haiti, assessing needs and gaps and establishing investment priorities." We are happy to announce we will be waiving all professional fees and do the work on a pro bono basis.

To read the announcement click here

by Maria Allen (This post originally appeared on The Cast Blog on August 10^th, 2010)

I've just returned from two weeks unpaid leave in Rwanda where I was a volunteer on the Conservative Party's annual social action initiative, Project Umubano, that was established four years ago by Andrew Mitchell, now the Secretary of State for International Development. Stephen Crabb, a Government Whip, led this year's 50 volunteers made up of politicians, journalists, Party staff and people working in the public and private sectors.

As a member of the Party with an interest in international development, I took part in the 'community project,' which aimed to teach survivor NGOs, established after the 1994 genocide, about communications, leadership and fundraising skills. But what possible use could there be to Rwandan genocide survivors, fighting to have their own homes, from the Burson-Marsteller Message House?

I asked myself the same question when I arrived at the airport at 5am with my backpack en route to Kigali two weeks ago but by the end of my trip I was struck by the powerful contribution that the survivor NGOs felt that external communications could play.

Although it is only sixteen years since the atrocities of 1994, these NGOs are struggling to be heard. The Government's heart-strings are pulled in many directions – the country's economy is significantly propped up by aid and 90% of the population subsist on less than two dollars per day. Yet continued support and funding for the genocide victims both at home and abroad is crucial if the country is to thrive as a whole. Good NGO external communications is therefore key.

I was tasked with developing communications workshops for eight of the main survivor NGOs. It was interesting to learn that many of the needs of the organisations were the same as several of my clients: to raise their profiles, build alliances and generate awareness, understanding and support for their issues. The political landscape, however, could not be more different. Two of the leading political opponents to the President were recently assassinated in the run up to today's election and many of the main free newspapers have been shut down. While on the increase, access to the internet still remains limited and unreliable, making online communications a challenge. Yet despite this I was immediately taken with the enthusiasm the NGOs had for developing their comms capabilities and investing their often very stretched resources into this activity.

As with all good comms workshops the sessions focused on message development with training also on stakeholder mapping, how to write a comms plan and fact sheet creation. My francophone abilities were put to the test by some of the French speakers but the impact of the 'maison de message' was aussi forte as ever.

I was told before going on the project that I would get more out of the trip than I would put back in. I was not disappointed. Although I was meant to be doing the teaching, I learnt an incredible amount. The courage, determination and strength of the people who I met, many for whom the memories of the genocide are inescapable, was astonishing and something I'll always remember.  A once in a lifetime opportunity certainly, but in fact it will not be the last with plans for next year's trip already being hatched before the plane home had even landed.

To find out more or to support survivors of the genocide through Survivors Fund (SURF) please see: http://www.survivors-fund.org.uk/ or http://tinyurl.com/surfdonation

Maria Allen is an Associate in our Public Affairs Practice in London.