As a PR professional, you want your news to spread, right? The folks at the marketing firm Flowtown crunched some numbers to find out which news sites are the most shared.

Not surprisingly, social media guide Mashable came out on top. But one may also be surprised at which “influencers” are driving the sharing. It turns out MC Hammer, Ashton Kutcher and Questlove of The Roots drive some serious numbers. View the full report here.

This post was written by Nancy Lazarus, contributor to PRNewser.

“As an institution the State Department is in many ways still behind in new media. We’re working every day to bring ourselves up to speed on social media tools, but we also have a mountain of people here who tell us no.”

That’s how Katie Dowd described the challenges of her role as New Media Director at the State Department during her presentation at the PRSA Digital Impact conference in New York this past Friday.

Despite organizational resistance, the State Department under Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has managed to make social and new media a priority.

Read more